Leo Tolstoy (born 9 September 1828, Yasnaya Polyana, Tula province, Russian Empire – died 20 November 1910, Astapovo, Ryazan province) was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time. His novels, War and Peace, Anna Karenina and The Death of Ivan Ilyich even today are ranked amongst the best in the world.
If you look for perfection, you'll never be content.Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.It is true, I deny the incomprehensible Trinity, and the fable regarding the fall of man, which is absurd in our day. It is true, I deny the sacrilegious story of a God born of a virgin to redeem the race.There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.
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
If you want to be happy, be.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.We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.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.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.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.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.
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
Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.Spring is the time of plans and projects.Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.Is it really possible to tell someone else what one feels?Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women.Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed.In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.
Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking...
Leo Tolstoy
Let us forgive each other – only then will we live in peace.One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love.When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you'd like them to be.It is not beauty that endears, it's love that makes us see beauty.Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.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.Be bad, but at least don't be a liar, a deceiver!
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
One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken.All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.Boredom: the desire for desires.Anything is better than lies and deceit!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. And to act so is immoral.All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.
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
All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.Pay bad people with your goodness; fight their hatred with your kindness. Even if you do not achieve victory over other people, you will conquer yourself.It's much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.The best stories don't come from "good vs. bad" but "good vs. good".But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.It's hard to love a woman and do anything.You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love.
But I'm glad you'll see me as I am. Above all, I wouldn't want people to think that I want to prove anything. I don't want to prove anything, I just want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. I have that right, haven't I?
Leo Tolstoy
If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed.If one loves anyone, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be…Each person’s task in life is to become an increasingly better person.It’s not given to people to judge what’s right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.I often think that men don't understand what is noble and what is ignorant, though they always talk about it.True life is lived when tiny changes occur.If you love me as you say you do,' she whispered, 'make it so that I am at peace.Love those you hate you.They've got no idea what happiness is, they don't know that without this love there is no happiness or unhappiness for us--there is no life.Love. The reason I dislike that word is that it means too much for me, far more than you can understand.Music is the shorthand of emotion.He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began.I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself.
