Leo Tolstoy was a Russian novelist, essayist, and philosopher. He is best known for his two longest works, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, which are considered some of the greatest works of fiction ever written. He was also a committed pacifist and anarchist, and his ideas on nonviolent resistance had a profound impact on 20th century political thought. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Leo Tolstoy on humanity, love, war.
When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you'd like them to be.
Happiness is that you have three things: something you do, something you love, and something you aspire to.
Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.
Everybody wants to change the world, but nobody thinks about changing himself.
We are asleep until we fall in love.
Once we're thrown off our habitual paths, we think all is lost, but it's only here that the new and the good begins.
Men pray to the Almighty to relieve poverty. But poverty comes not from God's laws-it is blasphemy of the worst kind to say that. Poverty comes from man's injustice to his fellow man.
If you make it a habit not to blame others, you will feel the growth of the ability to love in your soul, and you will see the growth of goodness in your life.
Real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know.
Leo Tolstoy inspirational quote
Leo Tolstoy Image Quotes
Everybody wants to change the world, but nobody thinks about changing himself. — Leo Tolstoy
We are asleep until we fall in love. — Leo Tolstoy
If you want to be happy, be. — Leo Tolstoy
Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.
...so remember: great achievements take time, there is no overnight success.
The most important time is Now
Everything depends on upbringing.
It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.
All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Leo Tolstoy Quotes About Humanity
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 believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole I think knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure human sympathy is more valuable than ideology. — Leo Tolstoy
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. — Leo Tolstoy
Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.
Very often, all the activity of the human mind is directed not in revealing the truth, but in hiding the truth — Leo Tolstoy
Patriotism in its simplest, clearest and most indubitable signification is nothing else but a means of obtaining for the rulers their ambitions and covetous desires, and for the ruled the abdication of human dignity, reason, conscience, and a slavish enthrallment to those in power. — Leo Tolstoy
Let us forgive each other - only then will we live in peace. — Leo Tolstoy
'Thou shalt not kill' does not apply to murder of one's own kind only, but to all living beings and this commandment was inscribed in the human breast long before it was proclaimed from Sinai. — Leo Tolstoy
Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal - that there is no human relation between master and slave. — Leo Tolstoy
All the girls in the world were divided into two classes: one class included all the girls in the world except her, and they had all the usual human feelings and were very ordinary girls; while the other class -herself alone- had no weaknesses and was superior to all humanity. — Leo Tolstoy
The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity. — Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy Quotes About Love
What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are but how you deal with incompatibility. — Leo Tolstoy
Love alone is the only reasonable activity or pursuit of humankind....Fo r Love not only annihilates our fear of meaninglessness but empowers us to seek the happiness of others. And this indeed is our greatest happiness. — Leo Tolstoy
All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. — Leo Tolstoy
Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source. — Leo Tolstoy
He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began. — Leo Tolstoy
Happiness is in your ability to love others. — Leo Tolstoy
You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. — Leo Tolstoy
A human can be healthy without killing animals for food. — Leo Tolstoy
In order to get the power and retain it, it is necessary to love power; but love of power is not connected with goodness, but with qualities which are the opposite of goodness, such as pride, cunning, cruelty. — Leo Tolstoy
I think... if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts. — Leo Tolstoy
War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves. — Leo Tolstoy
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. — Leo Tolstoy
Well, my theory is this: war is such a terrible, such an atrocious, thing that no man, at least no Christian man, has the right to assume the responsibility of beginning it; but it belongs to government alone, when it becomes inevitable. — Leo Tolstoy
Violence produces only something resembling justice, but it distances people from the possibility of living justly, without violence. — Leo Tolstoy
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. — Leo Tolstoy
It boils down to this: we should have done with humbug, and let war be war, and not a game ... If there were none of this magnanimity business in warfare, we should never go to war, except for something worth facing certain death for. — Leo Tolstoy
Christianity, with its doctrine of humility, of forgiveness, of love, is incompatible with the state, with its haughtiness, its violence, its punishment and its wars. — Leo Tolstoy
Where is there any book of the law so clear to each man as that written in his heart? — Leo Tolstoy
You consider war to be inevitable? Very good. Let everyone who advocates war be enrolled in a special regiment of advance-guards, for the front of every storm, of every attack, to lead them all! — Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy Quotes About Education
The only purpose of education is freedom; the only method is experience. — Leo Tolstoy
Three things are needed to educate the peasantry: schools, schools, and schools. — Leo Tolstoy
In education, once more, the chief things are equality and freedom. — Leo Tolstoy
But if Christianity really gives peace, and we really want peace, patriotism is a survival from barbarous times, which must not only not be evoked and educated, as we now do, but which must be eradicated by all means, by means of preaching, persuasion, contempt, and ridicule. — Leo Tolstoy
Without Greek studies there is no education. — Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy Quotes About Life
The key to success in life is using the good thoughts of wise people. — Leo Tolstoy
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. — Leo Tolstoy
Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible. — Leo Tolstoy
True life is lived when tiny changes occur. — Leo Tolstoy
Joy can only 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. — Leo Tolstoy
If he be really and seriously seeking to live a good life, the first thing from which he will abstain will always be the use of animal food, because ...its use is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to the moral feeling - killing. — Leo Tolstoy
The kinder and more intelligent a person is, the more kindness he can find in other people. Kindness enriches our life; with kindness mysterious things become clear, difficult things become easy and dull things become cheerful. — Leo Tolstoy
The Christian churches and Christianity have nothing in common save in name: they are utterly hostile opposites. The churches are arrogance, violence, usurpation, rigidity, death; Christianity is humility, penitence, submissiveness, progress, life. — Leo Tolstoy
The only significance of life consists in helping to establish the kingdom of God. — Leo Tolstoy
The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience. — Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy Quotes About Happiness
If you want to be happy, be. — Leo Tolstoy
All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. — Leo Tolstoy
Happiness consists of living each day as if it were the first day of your honeymoon and the last day of your vacation. — Leo Tolstoy
Her maternal instinct told her Natasha had too much of something, and because of this she would not be happy — Leo Tolstoy
Don't seek God in temples. He is close to you. He is within you. Only you should surrender to Him and you will rise above happiness and unhappiness. — Leo Tolstoy
If you want to be happy, try only to please God, not people. — Leo Tolstoy
Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story. — Leo Tolstoy
We imagine that when we are thrown out of our usual ruts all is lost, but it is only then that what is new and good begins. While there is life there is happiness. There is much, much before us. — Leo Tolstoy
Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them. — Leo Tolstoy
Death is more certain than the morrow, than night following day, than winter following summer. Why is it then that we prepare for the night and for the winter time, but do not prepare for death. We must prepare for death. But there is only one way to prepare for death - and that is to live well. — Leo Tolstoy
He who has a mistaken idea of life, will always have a mistaken idea of death. — Leo Tolstoy
All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do. — Leo Tolstoy
Why should I live? Why should I do anything? Is there in life any purpose which the inevitable death that awaits me does not undo and destroy? — Leo Tolstoy
Even in the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make six. — Leo Tolstoy
But the peasants -- how do the peasants die? — Leo Tolstoy
He sought his former accustomed fear of death and did not find it. "Where is it? What death?" There was no fear because there was no death. In place of death there was light. — Leo Tolstoy
The possibility of killing one's self is a safety valve. Having it, man has no right to say life is unbearable. — Leo Tolstoy
Suddenly I heard the words of Christ and understood them, and life and death ceased to seem to me evil, and instead of despair I experienced happiness and the joy of life undisturbed by death. — Leo Tolstoy
When you understand that you will die to-morrow, if not to-day, and nothing will be left, then everything is so unimportant!... So one goes on living, amusing oneself with hunting, with work - anything so as not think of death — Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy Quotes About God
The Kingdom of God is Within You. — Leo Tolstoy
In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you. — Leo Tolstoy
If you no longer believe in the God in whom you believed in before, this comes from the fact that there was something wrong with your belief, and you must strive to understand better that which you call God. — Leo Tolstoy
I believe in one, incomprehensible God, the immortality of the soul and eternal retribution for our acts. — Leo Tolstoy
It is within my power either to serve God or not to serve Him. Serving Him, I add to my own good and the good of the whole world. Not serving Him, I forfeit my own good and deprive the world of that good, which was in my power to create. — Leo Tolstoy
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. — Leo Tolstoy
The true meaning of Christ's teaching consists in the recognition of love as the supreme law of life, and therefore not admitting any exceptions. — Leo Tolstoy
God forgive me everything!' she said, feeling the impossibility of struggling. — Leo Tolstoy
I have now understood that though it seems to men that they live by care for themselves, in truth it is love alone by which they live. He who has love, is in God, and God is in him, for God is love. — Leo Tolstoy
The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity by contributing to the establishment of the kingdom of God, which can only be done by the recognition and profession of the truth by every man. — Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy Quotes About People
The most mentally deranged people are certainly those who see in others indications of insanity they do not notice in themselves. — Leo Tolstoy
People jump back and forth in pursuit of pleasures only because they see the emptiness of their lives more clearly than they do the emptiness of whichever new entertainment attracts them. — Leo Tolstoy
The kinder and the more thoughtful a person is, the more kindness he can find in other people. — Leo Tolstoy
Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them. — Leo Tolstoy
I have to create a circle of reading for myself: Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Lao-Tzu, Buddha, Pascal, The New Testament. This is also necessary for all people. — Leo Tolstoy
If you see that some aspect of your society is bad, and you want to improve it, there is only one way to do so: you have to improve people. And in order to improve people, you begin with only ONE thing: you can become better yourself. — Leo Tolstoy
True science investigates and brings to human perception such truths and such knowledge as the people of a given time and society consider most important. Art transmits these truths from the region of perception to the region of emotion. — Leo Tolstoy
What I think about vivisection is that if people admit that they have the right to take or endanger the life of living beings for the benefit of many, there will be no limit to their cruelty. — Leo Tolstoy
Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them. — Leo Tolstoy
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. — Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy Quotes About Live
Every man and every living creature has a sacred right to the gladness of springtime. — Leo Tolstoy
The essence of all slavery consists in taking the product of another's labor by force. It is immaterial whether this force be founded upon ownership of the slave or ownership of the money that he must get to live. — Leo Tolstoy
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. — Leo Tolstoy
Our body is a machine for living. — Leo Tolstoy
We spend our lives trying to unlock the mystery of the universe, but there was a Turkish prisoner, Bahá’u’lláh, in Akka, Palestine who had the Key. — Leo Tolstoy
And the angel said - "I have learned that every man lives not through care of himself, but by love". — Leo Tolstoy
It is possible to live only as long as life intoxicates us; once we are sober we cannot help seeing that it is all a delusion, a stupid delusion. — Leo Tolstoy
The goal of our life should not be to find joy in marriage, but to bring more love and truth into the world. — Leo Tolstoy
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. — Leo Tolstoy
One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love. — Leo Tolstoy
Every lie is a poison; there are no harmless lies. Only the truth is safe. Only the truth gives me consolation - it is the one unbreakable diamond. — Leo Tolstoy
Some mathematician said that pleasure lies not in discovering the truth but in searching for it. — Leo Tolstoy
When I have one foot in the grave, I will tell the whole truth about women. I shall tell it, jump into my coffin, pull the lid over me and say, "Do what you like now." — Leo Tolstoy
For us, with the rule of right and wrong given us by Christ, there is nothing for which we have no standard. And there is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth. — Leo Tolstoy
Some mathematician, I believe, has said that true pleasure lies not in the discovery of truth, but in the search for it. — Leo Tolstoy
The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens... Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere. — Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy Famous Quotes And Sayings
Everybody wants to change the world, but nobody thinks about changing himself. — Leo Tolstoy
We are asleep until we fall in love. — Leo Tolstoy
The Brahmins say that in their books there are many predictions of times in which it will rain. But press those books as strongly as you can, you can not get out of them a drop of water. So you can not get out of all the books that contain the best precepts the smallest good deed. — Leo Tolstoy
Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow - that is patience. The two most powerful warriors are patience and time. — Leo Tolstoy
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. — Leo Tolstoy
Just as one candle lights another and can light thousands of other candles, so one heart illuminates another heart and can illuminate thousands of other hearts. — Leo Tolstoy
Boredom: the desire for desires. — Leo Tolstoy
Dear Lord, what a madhouse the world is! — Leo Tolstoy
All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. — Leo Tolstoy
Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible. — Leo Tolstoy
True life is lived when tiny changes occur. — Leo Tolstoy
It seldom happens that a man changes his life through his habitual reasoning. No matter how fully he may sense the new plans and aims revealed to him by reason, he continues to plod along in old paths until his life becomes frustrating and unbearable-he finally makes the change only when his usual life can no longer be tolerated. — Leo Tolstoy
Everything depends on upbringing. — Leo Tolstoy
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. — Leo Tolstoy
It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. — Leo Tolstoy
The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience. — Leo Tolstoy
If Mormonism is able to endure, unmodified, until it reaches the third and fourth generation, it is destined to become the greatest power the world has ever known. — Leo Tolstoy
A man on a thousand mile walk has to forget his goal and say to himself every morning, 'Today I'm going to cover twenty-five miles and then rest up and sleep. — Leo Tolstoy
He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking. — Leo Tolstoy
Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women. — Leo Tolstoy
It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. A handsome woman talks nonsense, you listen and hear not nonsense but cleverness. She says and does horrid things, and you see only charm. And if a handsome woman does not say stupid or horrid things, you at once persuade yourself that she is wonderfully clever and moral. — Leo Tolstoy
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. — Leo Tolstoy
The struggle with evil by means of violence is the same as an attempt to stop a cloud, in order that there may be no rain. — Leo Tolstoy
Each person's task in life is to become an increasingly better person. — Leo Tolstoy
Music is the shorthand of emotion. — Leo Tolstoy
Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait. — Leo Tolstoy
All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow. — Leo Tolstoy
To sin is a human business, to justify sins is a devilish business. — Leo Tolstoy
I am always with myself and it is I who am my tormentor. — Leo Tolstoy
Spring is the time of plans and projects. — Leo Tolstoy
We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom. — Leo Tolstoy
she smiled at him, and at her own fears. — Leo Tolstoy
Life could be limitless joy, if we would only take it for what it is, in the way it is given to us. — Leo Tolstoy
Not one word, not one gesture of yours shall I, could I, ever forget. — Leo Tolstoy
The feeling of patriotism - It is an immoral feeling because, instead of confessing himself a son of God . . . or even a free man guided by his own reason, each man under the influence of patriotism confesses himself the son of his fatherland and the slave of his government, and commits actions contrary to his reason and conscience. — Leo Tolstoy
Be bad, but at least don't be a liar, a deceiver! — Leo Tolstoy
Art lifts man from his personal life into the universal life. — Leo Tolstoy
If you're not enjoying your work, you should either change your attitude, or change your job. — Leo Tolstoy
Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be. — Leo Tolstoy
If you do not know your place in the world and the meaning of your life, you should know there is something to blame; and it is not the social system, or your intellect, but the way in which you have directed your intellect. — Leo Tolstoy
The great tragedy of atheists is that they walk through this world and have no one to thank. — Leo Tolstoy
It's too easy to criticize a man when he's out of favour, and to make him shoulder the blame for everybody else's mistakes. — Leo Tolstoy
The teaching of the church, theoretically astute, is a lie in practice and a compound of vulgar superstitions and sorcery. — Leo Tolstoy
The life of our class, of the wealthy and the learned, was not only repulsive to me but had lost all meaning. The sum of our action and thinking, of our science and art, all of it struck me as the overindulgences of a spoiled child. — Leo Tolstoy
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. — Leo Tolstoy
Faith is the force of life. — Leo Tolstoy
Life Lessons by Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy taught us to live a life of purpose and meaning, to be humble and generous, and to strive for truth and justice.
He also emphasized the importance of living in the present moment and of connecting with others through love and compassion.
Tolstoy's works demonstrate the power of self-reflection and the value of questioning our own beliefs and assumptions.
Citation
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