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Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy Quotes

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Famous Leo Tolstoy Quotes

“I'll get angry in the same way with the coachman Ivan, argue in the same way, speak my mind inappropriately, there will be the same wall between my soul's holy of holies and other people, even my wife, I'll accuse her in the same way of my own fear and then regret it, I'll fail in the same way to understand with my reason why I pray, and yet I will pray--but my life now, my whole life, regardless of all that may happen to me, every minute of it, is not only not meaningless, as it was before, but has the unquestionable meaning of the good which it is in my power to put into it!”

PeopleWayMindMaySoulReasonWholeHappensSpeakMy OwnWifeFailingMinutesRegretWallPrayingHolyAngryMy WifeArguingWhole LifeMy SoulReason WhyMeaninglessI Pray
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“Smiling with pleasure, they went through their memories, not sad, old people's memories, but poetic, youthful ones, those impressions from the very distant past where dream merges with reality, and they laughed softly, rejoicing at something.”

PeopleDreamRealityPastMemoriesPleasureImpressionPoeticLaughedRejoiceOld People
Book:War and Peace: Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
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“But it seems to me that a man cannot and ought not to say that he loves, he said. Why not? I asked. Because it will always be a lie. As though it were a strange sort of discovery that someone is in love! Just as if, as soon as he said that, something went snap-bang - he loves. Just as if, when he utters that word, something extraordinary is bound to happen, with signs and portents, and all the cannons firing at once. It seems to me, he went on, that people who solemnly utter those words, 'I love you,' either deceive themselves, or what's still worse, deceive others.”

PeopleIfsMenSaidStillsSeemsHappensLyingLove YouStrangeOughtDiscoveryExtraordinaryBoundsWhy NotDeceivingBangsSnapsFiringCannonsPortents
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“To us, it is incomprehensible that millions of Christian men killed and tortured each other because Napoleon was ambitious or Alexander was firm, or because England's policy was astute or the Duke of Oldenburg was wronged. We cannot grasp what connection such circumstances have the with the actual fact of slaughter and violence: why because the Duke was wronged, thousands of men from the other side of Europe killed and ruined the people of Smolensk and Moscow and were killed by them.”

PeopleMenFactsChristianSidesMillionsViolencePolicyCircumstancesEuropeConnectionsEnglandFirmAmbitiousRuinedSlaughterDukesMoscowWrongedAstute
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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“There are people who, on meeting a successful rival, no matter in what, are at once disposed to turn their backs on everything good in him, and to see only what is bad. There are people, on the other hand, who desire above all to find in that lucky rival the qualities by which he has outstripped them, and seek with a throbbing ache at heart only what is good.”

PeopleHeartMatterHandsDesireTurnsQualitySuccessfulLuckyMeetingsAcheRivals
Book:Anna Karenina (World Classics, Unabridged)
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“The whole trouble lies in that people think that there are conditions excluding the necessity of love in their intercourse with man, but such conditions do not exist. Things may be treated without love; one may chop wood, make bricks, forge iron without love, but one can no more deal with people without love than one can handle bees without care.”

PeopleThinkingMenMayWholeCareLyingDealsTroubleConditionsWoodsHandleTreatedIronBeesBricksIntercourseWithout Love
Book:The Resurrection: Tolstoy's Collections
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“At school he had done things which had formerly seemed to him very horrid and made him feel disgusted with himself when he did them; but when later on he saw that such actions were done by people of good position and that they did not regard them as wrong, he was able not exactly to regard them as right, but to forget about them entirely or not be at all troubled at remembering them.”

PeopleFeelsMadeDoneAbleActionSchoolRememberForgetSawsPositionRegardDisgusted
Book:The Complete Novels of Leo Tolstoy in One Premium Edition (World Classics Series): Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Resurrection, Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, The Cossacks, The Death of Ivan Ilyich... (Including Biographies of the Author)
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“Seas of blood have been shed for the sake of patriotism. One would expect the harm and irrationality of patriotism to be self-evident to everyone. But the surprising fact is that cultured and learned people not only do not notice the harm and stupidity of patriotism, they resist every unveiling of it with the greatest obstinacy and passion (with no rational grounds), and continue to praise it as beneficent and elevating.”

PeopleHas BeensSelfFactsPassionBloodSeaPraiseSakeStupidityHarmRationalPatriotismSurprisingShedEvidentIrrationalityObstinacyElevatingUnveiling
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“The law of violence is not a law, but a simple fact which can only be a law when it does not meet with protest and opposition. It is like the cold, darkness and weight, which people had to put up with until recently when warmth, illumination and leverage were discovered.”

PeopleDoeFactsLawPeaceSimpleDarknessViolenceColdWeightOppositionProtestWarmthIlluminationUbuntu
Book:A Confession and Other Religious Writings
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“I looked more widely around me, I studied the lives of the masses of humanity, and I saw that, not two or three, or ten, but hundreds, thousands, millions, had so understood the meaning of life that they were able both to live and to die. All these people were well acquainted with the meaning of life and death, quietly labored, endured privation and suffering, lived and died, and saw in all this, not a vain, but a good thing.”

PeopleLifeWellsTwoAbleSufferingHumanityDiesThreeMillionsCourageSawsTenMassUnderstoodDiedGood ThingsVainMeaning Of LifeLife And Death
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“There are two methods of human activity - and according to which one of these two kinds of activity people mainly follow, are there two kinds of people: One use their reason to learn what is good and what is bad and they act according to this knowledge; the other act as they want to and then they use their reason to prove that that which they did was good and that which they didn't do was bad.”

PeopleWantHumansKindTwoReasonUseActionActivityProveMethodHuman Activity
Book:The Journal of Leo Tolstoi 1895~1899 (Abridged)
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“To destroy governmental violence, only one thing is needed: It is that people should understand that the feeling of patriotism, which alone supports that instrument of violence, is a rude, harmful, disgraceful, and bad feeling, and, above all, is immoral.”

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Book:I Cannot be Silent: Writings on Politics, Art and Religion by Leo Tolstoy
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“It would, therefore, seem obvious that patriotism as a feeling is bad and harmful, and as a doctrine is stupid. For it is clear that if each people and each State considers itself the best of peoples and States, they all live in a gross and harmful delusion.”

PeopleIfsStatesFeelingsSeemsClearStupidObviousDoctrineDelusionGross
Book:I Cannot be Silent: Writings on Politics, Art and Religion by Leo Tolstoy
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“The vocation of every man and woman is to serve other people.”

PeopleMenMen And WomenEvery ManVocation
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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“The wrongfulness, the immorality of eating animal food has been recognized by all mankind during all the conscious life of humanity. Why, then have people generally not come to acknowledge this law? The answer is that the moral progress of humanity is always slow; but that the sign of true, not casual Progress, is in uninterruptedness and its continual acceleration. And one cannot doubt that vegetarianism has been progressing in this manner”

PeopleHas BeensLawHumanityAnswersAnimalMoralDoubtProgressMankindEatingConsciousAcknowledgeVeganCasualVegetarianismImmoralityEating AnimalsAccelerationAnimal Food
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.”

PeopleMenFirstsHumansLongReligiousSupportBrotherDutyMoralityEthicsGainsSacredSakeRuinsHuman LifeBehaveSacred ThingsPersonal Gain
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“And whatever people might say about the time having come when young people must arrange their future for themselves, she could not believe it any more than she could believe that loaded pistols could ever be the best toys for five-year-old children.”

PeopleYearsBelieveChildrenMightYoungFiveFutureFive YearsBeing The BestToysLoadedPistolsFive Year Olds
Book:ANNA KARENINA – Two Unabridged Translations in One Premium Edition (World Classics Series): The Greatest Romantic Tragedy of All Times from the Renowned Author of War and Peace & The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Including Biographies of the Author)
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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.”

PeopleThinkingMenFormLife IsLiteratureSexCausesViewsPayMarriageOpinionPromiseMarriedAttractionChiefsTortureUrgesUnhappinessSatisfyingPublic OpinionMarried Life
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“People involve themselves in countless activities which they consider to be important, but they forget about one activity which is more important and necessary than any other, and which includes all other things: the improvement of their soul”

PeopleInspirationalImportantSoulForgetActivityImprovement
Book:A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul, Written and Se
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