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)
Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.
Faith is the sense of life, that which enables man to live and not to destroy himself.
The aim of art is not to solve a problem, but to make us love life in all its countless, inexhaustible manifestations.
War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves.
The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that he knows nothing.
The stronger the love, the more it suffers.
The most important lesson in life is to learn how to give out love, and to always let it come in.
The greatest untruth is the belief that there is such a thing as a 'just war'.
Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.
Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief.
The highest good is to be found in the love of God and neighbor.
The aim of art is to make us feel, to make us understand, to make us love.
Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal aims of humanity.
There can be no good without evil, no light without shadow, no joy without sorrow.
The only way to overcome evil is with good.
The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to always let it come in.
There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.
Happiness does not depend on outwards things, but on the way we see them.
Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.
In historical events great men—so-called—are but labels serving to give a name to the event, and like labels they have the least possible connection with the event itself.
Contemporaries of Leo Tolstoy
Other Literatures born within 50 years of Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910).