Leo Tolstoy
Author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina
Most quoted
"One of the most widespread superstitions is that every man has his own special, definite qualities: that he is kind, cruel, wise, stupid, energetic, apathetic, etc. Men are not like that... men are like rivers: the water is the same in each, and alike in all; but every river is narrow here, is more rapid there, here slower, there broader, now clear, now cold, now dull, now warm. It is the same with men."
— from War and Peace, 1869
"A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor — such is my idea of happiness."
— from Family Happiness, 1878
"The anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order, and in the idea of a state of society based on freedom and equality, in the idea of a future social order; only they are on the wrong track in believing that this state of society can be brought about by violence."
— from Letter to a Non-Commissioned Officer, 1900
All quotes by Leo Tolstoy (276)
Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.
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.
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.
There is something in the human spirit that will survive and prevail, there is a tiny and brilliant light burning in the heart of man that will not go out no matter how dark the world becomes.
The best stories don't come from 'good vs. bad' but from 'good vs. good'.
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.
One of the most widespread superstitions is that every man has his own special, definite qualities: that he is kind, cruel, wise, stupid, energetic, apathetic, etc. Men are not like that... men are like rivers: the water is the same in each, and alike in all; but every river is narrow here, is more rapid there, here slower, there broader, now clear, now cold, now dull, now warm. It is the same with men.
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.
Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed.
Everything I know, I know because of love.
In order to get rid of the enemy, one must love him.
Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings and also experience them.
True life is lived when tiny changes occur.
Joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.
The most important knowledge is that which guides the way you lead your life.
I have now understood that though it seems to men that they live by care for themselves, in truth they live only by love.
Contemporaries of Leo Tolstoy
Other Literatures born within 50 years of Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910).