Explore the profound wisdom and literary brilliance of Leo Tolstoy with our collection of 100+ thought-provoking quotes. These timeless insights delve into the human condition, morality, love, and the complexities of life. Whether you’re a literature enthusiast or seeking inspiration for personal growth, Tolstoy’s words resonate across time and culture. Dive into the mind of one of the greatest novelists in history and let his quotes provoke thought, inspire change, and enrich your perspective on life’s profound questions.
Leo Tolstoy Quotes
It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.
If you want to be happy, be.
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
I sit on a man’s back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means – except by getting off his back.
An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person’s main task in life – becoming a better person.
The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.
There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.
Music is the shorthand of emotion.
True life is lived when tiny changes occur.
The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.
Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.
One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken.
Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.
Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.
Even in the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make six.
Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal.
Joy can only be real if people look upon their life as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.
All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.
The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life.
If so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love.
Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.
All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.
He never chooses an opinion; he just wears whatever happens to be in style.
In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful..
To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can’t eat it.
Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself.
War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves.
And all people live, Not by reason of any care they have for themselves, But by the love for them that is in other people.
Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them.
Faith is the sense of life, that sense by virtue of which man does not destroy himself, but continues to live on. It is the force whereby we live.
The greater the state, the more wrong and cruel its patriot ism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power is founded.
A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite.
The chief difference between words and deeds is that words are always intended for men for their approbation, but deeds can be done only for God.
If there existed no external means for dimming their consciences, one-half of the men would at once shoot themselves, because to live contrary to one’s reason is a most intolerable state, and all men of our time are in such a state.
All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.
We must not only cease our present desire for the growth of the state, but we must desire its decrease, its weakening.
The law condemns and punishes only actions within certain definite and narrow limits; it thereby justifies, in a way, all similar actions that lie outside those limits.
War on the other hand is such a terrible thing, that no man, especially a Christian man, has the right to assume the responsibility of starting it.
Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity.
All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves.
The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.
If you want to be happy, be.
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.
The greatest truths are the simplest things in the world, simple as your own existence.
The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life.
The strongest of all warriors are these two—Time and Patience.
Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.
The best time to do things, the time to do things, the time to do things, is now.
Joy can only be real if people look upon their life as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.
The only thing that we know is that we know nothing—and that is the highest flight of human wisdom.
Music is the shorthand of emotion.
All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.
If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.
If you want to be universal, speak with your neighbor’s mouth.
There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.
We lost because we told ourselves we lost.
A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.
What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are but how you deal with incompatibility.
The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.
The more we do, the more we can do.
Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed.
The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience, not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life.
The greatest joy that a man can experience is to conquer his nature and to be of service to others.
Seize the moments of happiness, love, and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.
One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken.
True life is lived when tiny changes occur.
The purpose of art is to demonstrate that which in argument would appear incomprehensible.
If you want to be happy, be so.
Happiness is in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.
Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking.
To get rid of an enemy one must love him.
Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.
Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth but by washing away from it all that is not gold.
All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.
In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.
It’s much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.
The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life.
Art is not a handicraft; it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.
It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.
If, then, I were asked for the most important advice I could give, that which I considered to be the most useful to the men of our century, I should simply say: in the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.
To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can’t eat it.
The law condemns and punishes everyone, but it does not always have the same punishment for the same crime, and it does not always punish it in the same way.
Even in the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make six.
The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness…
Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself.
The people to whom everything is easy preach to others that everything is hard.
I sit on a man’s back, choking him, and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means—except by getting off his back.
There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.
The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.
Man survives earthquakes, epidemics, the horrors of disease, and agonies of the soul, but all the time his most tormenting tragedy has been, is, and will always be, the tragedy of the bedroom.
Boredom: the desire for desires.
I know that my unity with all people cannot be destroyed by national boundaries and government orders.
The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness.
We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.
The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.
In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.
A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite.
Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised.
The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free.
The more we try to rest ourselves, the more unprofitable we become. The world is kept alive only by heretics: the heretic Christ, the heretic Copernicus, the heretic Tolstoy.
Historical events always occur twice: first as tragedy, second as farce.
Faith is the force of life.
If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.
All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.
The Christian who realizes his sinfulness and unworthiness before God is ready to receive His grace.
Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.
The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.
The more we do, the more we can do.
The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.
Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs.
To get rid of an enemy one must love him.
All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.
