Leo Tolstoy Quotes & Sayings

I feel not only that I cannot disappear, as nothing disappears in the world, but that I will always be and have always been. I feel that, besides me, above me, spirits live, and that in this world there is truth. — Leo Tolstoy

Natasha was happy as she had never been in her life. She was at that highest pitch of happiness, when one becomes completely good and kind, and disbelieves in the very possibility of evil, unhappiness, and sorrow. — Leo Tolstoy

Bells rang, the stewards rushed forward, and - like rye shaken together in a shovel - the guests who had been scattered about in different rooms came together and crowded in the large drawing-room by the door of the ballroom. — Leo Tolstoy

This is dreadful! Not the suffering and death of the animals, but that man suppresses in himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity - that of sympathy and pity toward living creatures like himself - and by violating his own feelings becomes cruel. And how deeply seated in the human heart is the injunction not to take life! — Leo Tolstoy

Sympathy, love for one's brothers, for those who love us, love for those who hate us, love for our enemies, yes, the love that God preached on Earth, which Princess Maria taught me and which I have not understood - that is what made me feel regret for life; that is what would have remained for me if my life had been spared. But now it is too late, I know it. — Leo Tolstoy

Levin felt himself to blame, and could not set things right. He felt that if they had both not kept up appearances, but had spoken, as it is called, from the heart - that is to say, had said only just what they were thinking and feeling - they would simply have looked into each other's faces, and Konstantin could only have said, "You're dying, you're dying!" and Nikolay could only have answered, "I know I'm dying, but I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid!" And they could have said nothing more, if they had said only what was in their hearts. But life like that was impossible, and so Konstantin tried to do what he had been trying to do all his life, and never could learn to do, though, as far as he could observe, many people knew so well how to do it, and without it there was no living at all. He tried to say what he was not thinking, but he felt continually that it had a ring of falsehood, that his brother detected him in it, and was exasperated at it. — Leo Tolstoy

In order to get power and retain it, it is necessary to love power; but love of power is not connected with goodness but with qualities that are the opposite of goodness, such as pride, cunning and cruelty. — Leo Tolstoy

But it did not interest her at all. She and Levin had a conversation of there own, yet not a conversation but a sort of mysterious communication, which brought them every moment nearer, and stirred in both a sense of joyful terror before the unknown into which they were entering. — Leo Tolstoy

There were no other eyes in the world like them. In the whole world there was only one being able to unite in itself the universe and the meaning of life for him. — Leo Tolstoy

It is by those who have suffered that the world has been advanced. — Leo Tolstoy

All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. — Leo Tolstoy

Just think! This whole world of ours is only a speck of mildew sprung up on a tiny planet, yet we think we can have something great - thoughts,, actions! They are all but grains of sand — Leo Tolstoy

In reality I was ever revolving round one and the same insoluble problem, which was: How to teach without knowing what to teach. — Leo Tolstoy

The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless. — Leo Tolstoy

The more he did nothing, the less time he had to do anything. — Leo Tolstoy

Yes, I suppose so, answered Anna, as though wondering at the boldness of his question; but the irrepressible, quivering brilliance of her eyes and her smile set him on fire as she said it. — Leo Tolstoy

The pleasure lies not in discovering truth, but in searching for it. — Leo Tolstoy

But Christ could certainly not have established the Church. That is, the institution we now call by that name, for nothing resembling our present conception of the Church-with its sacraments, its hierarchy, and especially its claim to infallibility-is to be found in Christ's words or in the conception of the men of his time. — Leo Tolstoy

He suffered from an unlucky faculty - common to many men, especially Russians - the faculty of seeing and believing in the possibility of good and truth, and at the same time seeing too clearly the evil and falsity of life to be capable of taking a serious part in it. — Leo Tolstoy

Both salvation and punishment for man lie in the fact that if he lives wrongly he can befog himself so as not to see the misery of his position. — Leo Tolstoy

An artist is one of two things: he is either a high priest, or a more or less smart entertainer. - GIUSEPPE MAZZINI — Leo Tolstoy

There is one thing, and only one thing, in which it is granted to you to be free in life, all else being beyond your power: that is to recognize and profess the truth. — Leo Tolstoy

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. — Leo Tolstoy

It seems that only God can know the truth; it is to Him alone we
must appeal, and from Him alone expect mercy. — Leo Tolstoy

There was a new feature in Pierre's relations with Willarski, with the princess, with the doctor, and with all the people he now met, which gained for him the general goodwill. This was his acknowledgement of the impossibility of changing a man's convictions by words, and his recognition of the possibility of everyone thinking, feeling, and seeing things each from his own point of view. This legitimate peculiarity of each individual, which used to excite and irritate Pierre, now became a basis of the sympathy he felt for, and the interest he took in, other people. The difference, and sometimes complete contradiction, between men's opinions and their lives, and between one man and another, pleased him and evoked from him an amused and gentle smile. — Leo Tolstoy

So you make a sacrifice!' he threw special emphasis on the last word. 'Well, so do I. What could be better? We complete in generosity
what an example of family happiness! — Leo Tolstoy

I did not expect this of you,' said the staff-captain seriously and severely. 'You don't wish to apologize, young sir, but it's not only to him but to the whole regiment - all of us - you're to blame all around. The — Leo Tolstoy

And in all of us, as well as in the aspens and clouds and nebulae, there was a process of evolution. Evolution from what? Into what?- Eternal evolution and struggle... As though there could be any sort of tendency and struggle in the eternal! And I was astonished that in spite of the utmost effort of thought in this direction I could not discover the meaning of life, the meaning of my impulses and yearnings. And the meaning of my impulses is so clear within me, that I was living according to them all the time, and I was astonished and rejoiced when the peasant expressed it to me: to live for God, for my soul. — Leo Tolstoy

Love those you hate you. — Leo Tolstoy

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. — Leo Tolstoy

It is a harmful feeling, because it disturbs advantageous and joyous, peaceful relations with other peoples, and above all produces that governmental organization under which power may fall, and does fall, into the, hands of the worst men. — Leo Tolstoy

They were waiting for Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, known in society as le terrible dragon, a lady celebrated not for her wealth or distinction, but for her straightforward speech and the frank simplicity of her manners. — Leo Tolstoy

He had been longing to get at these Frenchmen and to cut them down, their being so near seemed to him now so awful that he could not believe his eyes. "Who are they? What are they running for? Can it be to me? Can they be running to me? And what for? To kill me? Me, whom every one's so fond of?" He recalled his mother's love, the love of his family and his friends, and the enemy's intention of killing him seemed impossible. "But they may even kill me." For more than ten seconds he stood, not moving from the spot, nor grasping his position. The foremost Frenchman with the hook nose was getting so near that he could see the expression of his face. And the excited, alien countenance of the man, who was running so lightly and breathlessly towards him, with his bayonet lowered, terrified Rostov. He snatched up his pistol, and instead of firing with it, flung it at the Frenchman and ran to the bushes with all his might. — Leo Tolstoy

Here the conversation seemed interesting and he stood waiting for an opportunity to express his own views, as young people are fond of doing. — Leo Tolstoy

You went with the mother and came back with the son, — Leo Tolstoy

I felt how much better and more dignified it was for me to show off the finer side of my soul than of my body. — Leo Tolstoy

The more is given the less the people will work for themselves, and the less they work the more their poverty will increase. — Leo Tolstoy

Only the truth and its expression can establish that new public opinion which will reform the ancient obsolete and pernicious order of life; and yet we not only do not express the truth we know, but often even distinctly give expression to what we ourselves regard as false. If only free men would not rely on that which has no power, and is always fettered upon external aids; but would trust in that which is always powerful and free the truth and its expression! — Leo Tolstoy

Like the majority of irreproachably virtuous women, wearying often of the monotony of a virtuous life, Dolly from a distance excused illicit love, and even envied it a little. — Leo Tolstoy

Is it possible to say what one really feels? — Leo Tolstoy

The military world is characterized by the absence of freedom - in other words, a rigorous discipline-enforced inactivity, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery and drunkenness. — Leo Tolstoy

Loving the same man or woman all your life, why, that's like supposing the same candle could last you all your life — Leo Tolstoy

Nothing but ambition, nothing but the desire to get on, that's all there is in his soul," she thought; "as for these lofty ideals, love of culture, religion, they are only so many tools for getting on. — Leo Tolstoy

The one thing necessary in life, as in art is to tell the truth. — Leo Tolstoy

Yashvin, a gambler and a rake, a man not merely without moral principles, but of immoral principles, Yashvin was Vronsky's greatest friend in the regiment. — Leo Tolstoy

When Levin thought what he was and what he was living for, he could find no answer to the questions and was reduced to despair; but when he left off questioning himself about it, it seemed as though he knew both what he was and what he was living for, acting and living resolutely and without hesitation. — Leo Tolstoy

Had these beliefs, if I had not known that I must live for God and not for my own desires? I should have robbed and lied and killed. Nothing of what makes the chief happiness of my life would have existed for me. — Leo Tolstoy

No, you're not going to get away from us, and you're not going to be different, you're going to be the same as you've always been; with doubts, ever lasting dissatisfaction with yourself, vain efforts to improve, and failures, and continual expectations of happiness that has eluded you and that isn't possible for you. — Leo Tolstoy

I have discovered nothing. I have only found out what I knew. I understand the force that in the past gave me life, and now too gives me life. I have been set free from falsity, I have found the Master. — Leo Tolstoy

In spite of Stepan Arkadyevitch's efforts to be an attentive father and husband, he never could keep in his mind that he had a wife and children. — Leo Tolstoy

Muhammad has always been standing higher than the Christianity. He does not consider god as a human being and never makes himself equal to God. Muslims worship nothing except God and Muhammad is his Messenger. There is no any mystery and secret in it. — Leo Tolstoy

I wanted to run after him, but remembered that it is ridiculous to run after one's wife's lover in one's socks; and I did not wish to be ridiculous but terrible. — Leo Tolstoy

away again.' 'You are quite right,' said the Chief. 'We will make it over — Leo Tolstoy

My poor husband is enduring pains and hunger in Jewish taverns, but the news which I have inspires me yet more. — Leo Tolstoy

Indeed, ask every man separately whether he thinks it laudable and worthy of a man of this age to hold a position from which he receives a salary disproportionate to his work; to take from the people
often in poverty
taxes to be spent on constructing cannon, torpedoes, and other instruments of butchery, so as to make war on people with whom we wish to be at peace, and who feel the same wish in regard to us; or to receive a salary for devoting one's whole life to constructing these instruments of butchery, or to preparing oneself and others for the work of murder. — Leo Tolstoy

A man's every action is inevitably conditioned by what surrounds him and by his own body. — Leo Tolstoy

My belief assumed a form that it commonly assumes among the educated people of our time. This belief was expressed by the word "progress." At the time it seemed to me that this word had meaning. Like any living individual, I was tormented by questions of how to live better. I still had not understood that in answering that one must live according to progress, I was talking just like a person being carried along in a boat by the waves and the wind; without really answering, such a person replies to the only important question-"Where are we to steer?"-by saying, "We are being carried somewhere. — Leo Tolstoy

I love everybody and pity everybody. — Leo Tolstoy

That one must either explain life to oneself so that it does not seem to be an evil mockery by some sort of devil, or one must shoot oneself. — Leo Tolstoy

She was one of those creatures which seem only not to speak because the mechanism of their mouth does not allow them to. — Leo Tolstoy

The earth is the general and equal possession of all humanity and therefore cannot be the property of individuals. — Leo Tolstoy

By virtue of her character, Kitty always assumed the most beautiful things of people, especially those she did not know. And now, making guesses about who was who, what relations they were in, and what sort of people they were, Kitty imagined to herself the most beautiful characters and found confirmation in her observations. — Leo Tolstoy

So that's what it is!" he suddenly exclaimed aloud. "What joy! — Leo Tolstoy

At the time we were all convinced that we had to speak, write,and publish as quickly as possible and as much as possible and that this was necessary for the good of mankind. Thousands of us published and wrote in an effort to teach others, all the while disclaiming and abusing one another. Without taking note of the fact that we knew nothing, that we did not know the answer to the simplest question of life, the question of what is right and what is wrong, we all went on talking without listening to one another. — Leo Tolstoy

He who has a mistaken idea of life, will always have a mistaken idea of death. — Leo Tolstoy

The more respect that different objects, customs, or laws are given, the more attentively you have to question the right these things have to this respect. — Leo Tolstoy

Better to know a few things which are good and necessary than many things which are useless and mediocre — Leo Tolstoy

I think that to find out what love is really like, one must first make a mistake and then put it right. — Leo Tolstoy

We are asleep until we fall in Love! — Leo Tolstoy

There was no solution, but that universal solution which life gives to all questions, even the most complex and insoluble. That answer is: one must live in the needs of the day - that is, forget oneself. To forget himself in sleep was impossible now, at least till nighttime; he could not go back now to the music sung by the decanter-women; so he must forget himself in the dream of daily life. — Leo Tolstoy

He positively forgot where he was, and not even hearing what was said, he could not take his eyes off the marvelous portrait. It was not a picture, but a living, charming woman, with black curling hair, with bare arms and shoulders, with a pensive smile on the lips, covered with soft down; triumphantly and softly she looked at him with eyes that baffled him. She was not living only because she was more beautiful than a living woman can be. — Leo Tolstoy

After reading Tolstoy's lengthy essay "On Life" in 1889, Ernest Crosby, a thirty-three-year-old American diplomat who was working in Egypt at the time, decided that diplomacy wasn't his calling and instead dedicated the next twenty-seven years of his life to writing and lecturing about Tolstoy throughout the United States. — Leo Tolstoy

Perhaps you think I'm losing the thread of my thought? Not a bit of it! I'm still telling you the story of how I murdered my wife, They asked me in court how I killed her, what I used to do it with. Imbeciles! They thought I killed her that day, the fifth of October, with a knife. It wasn't that day I killed her, it was much earlier. Exactly in the same way as they're killing their wives now, all of them ... — Leo Tolstoy

Blessed are the peacemakers; theirs is the kingdom of heaven — Leo Tolstoy

There is only one real knowledge: that which helps us to be free. Every other type of knowledge is mere amusement. - VISHNU PURANA, — Leo Tolstoy

Prince Vasili took the first opportunity to gain his confidence, flatter him, become intimate with him, — Leo Tolstoy

I consider jealousy to be insulting to you and degrading to me. — Leo Tolstoy

There are two sides to the life of every man, his individual life which is the more free the more abstract it's interests, and his elemental swarm-life in which he inevitably obeys laws laid down for him — Leo Tolstoy

But the longer he listened to the King Lear fantasia, the further he felt from any possibility of forming some definite opinion for himself. The musical expression of feeling was ceaselessly beginning, as if gathering itself up, but it fell apart at once into fragments of new beginnings of musical expressions and sometimes into extremely complex sounds, connected by nothing other than the mere whim of the composer. But these fragments of musical expressions, good ones on occasion, were unpleasant because they were totally unexpected and in no way prepared for. Gaiety, sadness, despair, tenderness and triumph appeared without justification, like a madman's feelings. And, just as with a madman, these feelings passed unexpectedly.
All through the performance Levin felt like a deaf man watching people dance. He was in utter perplexity when the piece ended and felt great fatigue from such strained but in no way rewarded attention. — Leo Tolstoy

Not all will believe in my teaching. And they who will not believe, will hate it; because it bereaves them of that which they love, and strife will come of it. My teaching, like fire, will kindle the world. And from it strife must arise in the world. Strife will arise in every house. Father against son, mother against daughter; and their kin will become haters of them who understand my teaching, and they will be killed. Because, for him who shall understand my teaching, neither his father, nor his mother, nor wife, nor children, nor all his property, will have any weight. — Leo Tolstoy

We know that man has the faculty of becoming completely absorbed in a subject however trivial it may be, and that there is no subject so trivial that it will not grow to infinite proportions if one's entire attention is devoted to it. — Leo Tolstoy

Well, so it isn't time yet to die, is it? — Leo Tolstoy

The ideal is within you, and the obstacle to reaching this ideal is also within you. You already possess all the material from which to create your ideal self. - THOMAS CARLYLE — Leo Tolstoy

He looked intently and inquiringly into his friend's eyes, evidently trying in vain to find the answer to some question. — Leo Tolstoy

With all my soul I wished to be good, but I was young, passionate and alone, completely alone when I sought goodness. Every time I tried to express my most sincere desire, which was to be morally good, I met with contempt and ridicule, but as soon as I yielded to low passions I was praised and encouraged. — Leo Tolstoy

What do you want? What do you want?" he repeated to himself. "What do I want? To live and not to suffer," he answered. And again he listened with such concentrated attention that even his pain did not distract him. "To live? How?" asked his inner voice. "Why, to live as I used to - well and pleasantly." "As you lived before, well and pleasantly?" the voice repeated. And in imagination he began to recall the best moments of his pleasant life. — Leo Tolstoy

After dinner Natasha went to the clavichord, at Prince Andrey's request, and began singing. Prince Andrey stood at the window, talking to the ladies, and listened to her. In the middle of a phrase, Prince Andrey ceased speaking, and felt suddenly a lump in his throat from tears, the possibility of which he had never dreamed of in himself. He looked at Natasha singing, and something new and blissful stirred in his soul. He was happy, and at the same time he was sad. He certainly had nothing to weep about, but he was ready to weep. For what? For his past love? For the little princess? For his lost illusions? For his hopes for the future? Yes, and no. The chief thing which made him ready to weep was a sudden, vivid sense of the fearful contrast between something infinitely great and illimitable existing in him, and something limited and material, which he himself was, and even she was. This contrast made his heart ache, and rejoiced him while she was singing. — Leo Tolstoy

Don't you know that you are all my life to me? ... But peace I do not know, and can't give to you. My whole being, my love ... yes! I cannot think about you and about myself separately. You and I are one to me. And I do not see before us the possibility of peace either for me or for you. I see the possibility of despair, misfortune ... or of happiness-what happiness! ... Is it impossible?
Vronksy — Leo Tolstoy

I assure you that I sleep anywhere, and always like a dormouse. — Leo Tolstoy

You need feeling, emotion, to create. You can't create out of indifference. — Leo Tolstoy

But really, why should you distress yourself? Whoever stirs up the past - out with his eye! Who is not a sinner before God and to blame before the Tsar, as the saying is? — Leo Tolstoy

this duel! Have these people no feeling, or honor? Knowing — Leo Tolstoy

The true office of any faith is to give life a meaning which death cannot destroy. — Leo Tolstoy

And that which yesterday was the novel opinion of one man, to-day becomes the general opinion of the majority. — Leo Tolstoy

We shall all of us die, so why grudge a little trouble? — Leo Tolstoy

School is established, not in order that it should be convenient for the children to study, but that teachers should be able to teach in comfort. The children's conversations, motion, merriment are not convenient for the teacher, and so in the schools, which are built on the plan of prisons, are prohibited. — Leo Tolstoy

If people lacked the capacity to receive the thoughts of the men who preceded them and to pass on to others their own thoughts, men would be like wild beasts. And if men lacked this other capacity of being infected by art, people would be almost more savage still, and, above all, more separated from and more hostile to one another. Therefore the activity of art is a most important one, as important as the activity of speech itself and as generally diffused. — Leo Tolstoy

He understood not only that she was close to him, but that he no longer knew where she ended and he began. He understood it in the painful feeling of being split which he experienced at that moment. He was offended at first, but in that same instant he felt that he could not be offended by her, that she was him. In the first moment he felt like a man who, having suddenly received a violent blow from behind, turns with vexation and a desire for revenge to find out who did it, and realizes that he has accidentally struck himself, that there is no one to be angry with and he must endure and ease the pain. — Leo Tolstoy

such a state of obligatory and irreproachable idleness is the lot of a whole class - the military. — Leo Tolstoy

I've never seen exquisite fallen beings, and I never shall see them, but such creatures as that painted Frenchwoman at the counter with the ringlets are vermin to my mind, and all fallen women are the same.'
'But the Magdalen?'
'Ah, drop that! Christ would never have said those words if He had known how they would be abused. Of all the Gospel those words are the only ones remembered. — Leo Tolstoy