Quotes By Leo Tolstoy

Science is meaningless because it gives no answer to our question, the only question important for us: 'What shall we do and how shall we live?'

There will be today, there will be tomorrow, there will be always, and there was yesterday, and there was the day before.

A Gentleman is a man who will pay his gambling debts even when he knows he has been cheated.

I often think that men don't understand what is noble and what is ignorant, though they always talk about it.

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.

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.

Power is the sum total of the wills of the mass, transfered by express or tactic agreement to rulers chosen by the masses.

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.

All were happy - plants, birds, insects and children. But grown-up people - adult men and women - never left off cheating and tormenting themselves and one another. It was not this spring morning which they considered sacred and important, not the beauty of God's world, given to all creatures to enjoy - a beauty which inclines the heart to peace, to harmony and to love.

The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the power of my soul, whom I have tried to portray in all his beauty, who has been, is, and will be beautiful, is Truth.

What time can be more beautiful when the one in which the finest virtues, innocent cheerfulness and indefinable longing for love constitute the sole motives of your life.

War is not courtesy but the most horrible thing in life; and we ought to understand that, and not play at war. We ought to accept this terrible necessity sternly and seriously. It all lies in that: get rid of falsehood and let war be war and not a game.

If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.

To get rid of an enemy one must love him.

Wealth is a great sin in the eyes of God. Poverty is a great sin in the eyes of man.

It is easier to produce ten volumes of philosophical writings than to put one principle into practice.

People involve themselves in countless activities which they consider to be important, but they forget about one activity which is more important and necessary than any other, and which includes all other things: the improvement of their soul.

True life is lived when tiny changes occur.

With one hand I take thousands of rubles from the poor, and with the other I hand back a few kopecks.

A person who has spoiled his stomach will criticize his meal saying that the food is bad; the same thing happens with people who are not satisfied with their lives.