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Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy Quotes

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Famous Leo Tolstoy Quotes

“As soon as men live entirely in accord with the law of love natural to their hearts and now revealed to them, which excludes all resistance by violence, and therefore hold aloof from all participation in violence - as soon as this happens, not only will hundreds be unable to enslave millions, but not even millions will be able to enslave a single individual.”

MenLifeHeartHappensAbleLawIndividualNaturalMillionsViolenceResistanceParticipationAccordAloof
Book:Leo Tolstoy: Letters and Papers
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“The time is fast approaching when to call a man a patriot will be the deepest insult you can offer him. Patriotism now means advocating plunder in the interest of the privileged classes of the particular State system into which we have happened to be born.”

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Book:I Cannot be Silent: Writings on Politics, Art and Religion by Leo Tolstoy
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“The feeling of patriotism - It is an immoral feeling because, instead of confessing himself a son of God . . . or even a free man guided by his own reason, each man under the influence of patriotism confesses himself the son of his fatherland and the slave of his government, and commits actions contrary to his reason and conscience.”

MenReasonFeelingsGovernmentActionInfluenceSonConscienceSlaveContraryCommitPatriotismPatriotImmoralFree ManScoundrelsConfessingFatherland
Book:I Cannot be Silent: Writings on Politics, Art and Religion by Leo Tolstoy
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“How interesting it would be to write the story of the experiences in this life of a man who killed himself in his previous life; how he stumbles against the very demands which had offered themselves before, until he arrives at the realization that he must fulfill those demands. The deeds of the preceding life give direction to the present life.”

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Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“In historic events, the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself. Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of history and predestined from eternity.”

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Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“The goal of our life should not be to find joy in marriage, but to bring more love and truth into the world. We marry to assist each other in this task. The most selfish and hateful life of all is that of two beings who unite in order to enjoy life. The highest calling is that of the man who has dedicated his life to serving God and doing good, and who unites with a woman in order to further that purpose.”

MenWorldShouldTwoJoyPurposeOrderEnjoyGoalMarriageOur LivesHe ManCallingHighestTasksSelfishServingDedicatedServing GodEnjoy LifeHatefulDoing GoodTruth And Love
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“[D]iscipline consists in this, that the men who undergo the instruction and have followed it for a certain time are completely deprived of everything which is precious to a man-of the chief human property, rational freedom-and become submissive, machine-like implements of murder in the hands of their organized hierarchic authorities.”

MenHumansWarHandsCertainHe ManAuthorityMachinesMurderPropertyRationalChiefsOrganizedInstructionAnti WarDeprivedSubmissive
Book:The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy
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“In our day the feeling of patriotism is an unnatural, irrational, and harmful feeling, and a cause of a great part of the ills from which mankind is suffering, and that, consequently, this feeling - should not be cultivated, as is now being done, but should, on the contrary, be suppressed and eradicated by all means available to rational men.”

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Book:Essays and Letters /by Leo Tolstoy ; Translated by Aylmer Maude
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“The best generals I have known were... stupid or absent-minded men. Not only does a good army commander not need any special qualities, on the contrary he needs the absence of the highest and best human attributes - love, poetry, tenderness, and philosophic inquiring doubt. He should be limited, firmly convinced that what he is doing is very important (otherwise he will not have sufficient patience), and only then will he be a brave leader. God forbid that he should be humane, should love, or pity, or think of what is just and unjust.”

ThinkingMenLoveNeedsShouldHumansDoeImportantQualityKnownLeaderDoubtSpecialStupidHighestArmyBraveConvincedAbsenceContraryPitySufficientAttributesTendernessUnjustHumaneAbsentCommandersLove PoetryPhilosophicInquiringAbsent Minded
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“Though it is possible to utter words only with the intention to fulfill the will of God, it is very difficult not to think about the impression which they will produce on men and not to form them accordingly. But deeds you can do quite unknown to men, only for God. And such deeds are the greatest joy that a man can experience.”

ThinkingMenGodFormJoyDifficultCan DoProduceIntentionDeedsImpressionGods WillDeeds And Words
Book:Tolstoy's Letters: 1880-1910
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“Art lifts man from his personal life into the universal life.”

MenArtUniversalLiftsPersonal LifeWisestUniversal Life
Book:WHAT IS ART? & WHEREIN IS TRUTH IN ART? (Meditations on Aesthetics & Literature): On the Significance of Science and Art, Shakespeare and the Drama, The Works of Guy De Maupassant, A. Stockham'sTokology, Amiel's Diary, S. T. Seménov's Peasant Stories, Stop and Think!...
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“If a man's aspirations towards a righteous life are serious.. .if he earnestly and sincerely seeks a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from animal food, because, not to mention the excitement of the passions produced by such food, it is plainly immoral, as it requires an act contrary to moral feeling, i. e., killing - and is called forth only by greed.”

IfsMenFirstsFeelingsPassionAnimalMoralSeriousKillingGreedContraryExcitementAspirationRighteousImmoralSincerelyAbstinenceAnimal Food
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“It is horrible! It is not the suffering and the death of the animals that is horrible, but the fact that the man without any need for so doing crushes his lofty feeling of sympathy and mercy for living creatures and does violence to himself that he may be cruel. The first element of moral life is abstinence.”

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Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“The vocation of every man and woman is to serve other people.”

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Book:The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Memoirs, Letters & Essays on Art, Religion and Politics: Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Resurrection, The Death of Ivan Ilych, A Confession, The Cossacks, Correspondences with Gandhi, The Kreutzer Sonata, Fables and Stories for Childrenand Many More
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“Today, nobody sees, or wishes to see, that in our time the enslavement of the majority of men is based on money taxes, levied on land and otherwise, which are collected by government from the subjects.”

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Book:Church and State and Other Essays: Including Money; Man and Woman: Their Respective Functions; The Mother; A Second Supplement to the Kreutzer Sonata
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“Flesh eating is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to moral feeling: By killing, man suppresses in himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity, that of sympathy and pity towards living creatures like himself and by violating his own feelings becomes cruel." "As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.”

MenLongFeelingsSpiritualMoralCreaturesEatingHighestCapacityPerformancesKillingContraryFleshPityVegetarianVeganImmoralVegetarianismBattlefieldsLiving CreaturesVegetarian HealthSlaughterhousesFlesh Eating
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“The vegetarian movement ought to fill with gladness the souls of those who have at heart the realization of God's kingdom upon earth, not because vegetarianism itself is such an important step towards the realization of this kingdom (all real steps are equally important or unimportant), but because it serves as a criterion by which we know that the pursuit of moral perfection on the part of man is genuine and sincere.”

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Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“So long as people do not consider all men as their brothers and do not consider human life as the most sacred thing, which rather than destroy they must consider it their first and foremost duty to support; that is so long as people do not behave towards one another in a religious manner, they will always ruin one another's lives for the sake of personal gain.”

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Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“The chief cause of unhappiness in married life is that people think that marriage is sex attraction, which takes the form of promises and hopes and happiness - a view supported by public opinion and by literature. But marriage cannot cause happiness. Instead, it is always torture, which man has to pay for satisfying his sex urge.”

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Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“Art is not a pleasure, a solace, or an amusement; art is a great matter. Art is an organ of human life, transmitting man's reasonable perception into feeling.”

MenHumansArtMatterFeelingsPleasurePerceptionArt IsHuman LifeReasonableOrgansAmusementSolace
Book:WHAT IS ART? & WHEREIN IS TRUTH IN ART? (Meditations on Aesthetics & Literature): On the Significance of Science and Art, Shakespeare and the Drama, The Works of Guy De Maupassant, A. Stockham'sTokology, Amiel's Diary, S. T. Seménov's Peasant Stories, Stop and Think!...
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“At one time,' Golenishchev continued, either not observing or not willing to observe that both Anna and Vronsky wanted to speak, 'at one time a freethinker was a man who had been brought up in the conception of religion, law, and morality, who reached freethought only after conflict and difficulty. But now a new type of born freethinkers has appeared, who grow up without so much as hearing that there used to be laws of morality, or religion, that authorities existed. They grow up in ideas of negation in everything - in other words, utter savages.”

MenIdeasWantedLawUsedSpeakGrowsBornGrowing UpWillingTypeMoralityConflictAuthorityDifficultyAtheistHearingUsed To BeConceptionOne TimeSavagesObservingFreethinkerAnnaNegation
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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