Conceit is incompatible with understanding.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Vanity, Conceit
The difference between real material poison and intellectual poison is that most material poison is disgusting to the taste, but intellectual poison, which takes the form of cheap newspapers or bad books, can unfortunately sometimes be attractive.
—Leo Tolstoy
The recognition of the sanctity of the life of every man is the first and only basis of all morality.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Ethics
You should respond with kindness toward evil done to you, and you will destroy in an evil person that pleasure which he derives from evil.
—Leo Tolstoy
A writer is dear and necessary for us only in the measure of which he reveals to us the inner workings of his very soul.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Writing, Authors & Writing, Writers
He who has a mistaken idea of life, will always have a mistaken idea of death.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Death
We lost because we told ourselves we lost.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Attitude
Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Humanity
What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Marriage
History would be an excellent thing if only it were true.
—Leo Tolstoy
There are two different states of human existence: first, to live without thinking of death; second, to live with the thought that you approach death with every hour of your life.
—Leo Tolstoy
The teaching of the church, theoretically astute, is a lie in practice and a compound of vulgar superstitions and sorcery
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Teaching
The chief difference between words and deeds is that words are always intended for men for their approbation, but deeds can be done only for God.
—Leo Tolstoy
The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Humanity, Meaning
Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Sorrow
There is only one time that is important—NOW! It is the most important time because it is the only time that we have any power.
—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
Topics: Science
Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Government
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
Topics: Love
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.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Justice
Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Growth, Truth, Gold
It is easier to produce ten volumes of philosophical writing than to put one principle into practice
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Principles
Though it is possible to utter words only with the intention to fulfill the will of God, it is very difficult not to think about the impression which they will produce on men and not to form them accordingly. But deeds you can do quite unknown to men, only for God. And such deeds are the greatest joy that a man can experience.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Good Deeds, Goodness, Deeds
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
Topics: Patriotism
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
—Leo Tolstoy
Vengeance is mine, and I will repay.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Vengeance
If you want to be happy, be.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Happiness
What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Goodness
I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Truth
The best generals I have known were… stupid or absent-minded men. Not only does a good army commander not need any special qualities, on the contrary he needs the absence of the highest and best human attributes—love, poetry, tenderness, and philosophic inquiring doubt. He should be limited, firmly convinced that what he is doing is very important (otherwise he will not have sufficient patience), and only then will he be a brave leader. God forbid that he should be humane, should love, or pity, or think of what is just and unjust.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: The Military
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- Konstantin Stanislavski Russian Actor
- Nikolai Berdyaev Russian Christian Philosopher
- Anna Pavlova Russian Ballerina
- Nikita Khrushchev Russian Head of State
- Catherine II of Russia Russian Empress
- Sophie Swetchine Russian Mystic, Writer
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