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Quotes By Leo Tolstoy

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Writer

Leo Tolstoy

Sep 09, 1828 - Nov 20, 1910

Happiness consists of living each day as if it were the first day of your honeymoon and the last day of your vacation.

Act as if you are, and you will become such.

The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life.

Art can compel people freely, gladly, and spontaneously to sacrifice themselves in the service of man.

Humanity unceasingly strives forward from a lower, more partial and obscure understanding of life to one more general and more lucid.

Love alone is the only reasonable activity or pursuit of humankind....For Love not only annihilates our fear of meaninglessness but empowers us to seek the happiness of others. And this indeed is our greatest happiness.

Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.

The only purpose of education is freedom; the only method is experience.

Love is the only way to rescue humanity from all ills.

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.

The more intelligent a person is, the more he discovers kindness in others. For nothing enriches the world more than kindness. It makes mysterious things clear, difficult things easy, and dull things cheerful.

Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.

In the spiritual realm nothing is indifferent: what is not useful is harmful.

Division of labor is a justification for sloth.

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.

All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.

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.

Everything I understand, I understand because I love.

You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love.

Very often, all the activity of the human mind is directed not in revealing the truth, but in hiding the truth.