Leo Tolstoy

The higher the spiritual development of a man, the less can he tolerate violence and coercion.

All governments are in their essence a more or less disguised conspiracy against the people, for the purpose of extorting money from them.

The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great in whatever they want to do.

There can be no good without evil.

The truth is that the happiness of man is not in his freedom, but in his submission to God.

Humanity has a right to the truth, and no one has a right to deprive it of the truth.

The greater the love, the greater the tragedy when it's over.

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.

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 cannot eat it.

The general of the army is the last man to know what is going on.

There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.

To understand everything is to forgive everything.

The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.

The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience.

Art is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen.

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

The greater the state, the more wrong and cruel its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power is founded.

Boredom: the desire for desires.

We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.