“They haven’t an idea what happiness is; they don’t know that without our love, for us there
is neither happiness nor unhappiness—no life at all”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The social conditions of life can only be improved by people exercising self-restraint.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not
be broken.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is
not gold.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“but that what was for him the greatest and most cruel injustice appeared to others a quite
ordinary occurrence.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Anything is better than lies and deceit!
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it,
everything belongs. If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know
himself.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A thought can advance your life in the right direction only when it answers questions which
were asked by your soul. A thought which was first borrowed from someone else and then
accepted by your mind and memory does not really much influence your life, and sometimes
leads you in the wrong direction. Read less, study less, but think more.
Learn, both from your teachers and from the books which you read, only those things which
you really need and which you really want to know.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We do not love people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we do
them”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When one's head is gone one doesn't weep over one's hair!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A battle is won by him who is firmly resolved to win it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Pierre's insanity consisted in the face that he did not wait, as before, for personal reasons,
which he called people's merits, in order to love them, but love overflowed his heart, and
loving people without reason, he discovered the unquestionable reasons for which it was
worth loving them.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The doctrine of Christ, which teaches love, humility, and self-denial, had always attracted
me. But I found a contrary law, both in the history of the past and in the present organization of
our lives – a law repugnant to my heart, my conscience, and my reason, but one that flattered
my animal instincts. I knew that if I accepted the doctrine of Christ, I should be forsaken,
miserable, persecuted, and sorrowing, as Christ tells us His followers will be. I knew that if I
accepted that law of man, I should have the approbation of my fellow-men; I should be at
peace and in safety; all possible sophisms would be at hand to quiet my conscience and I
should ‘laugh and be merry,’ as Christ says. I felt this, and therefore I avoided a closer
examination of the law of Christ, and tried to comprehend it in a way that should not prevent
my still leading my animal life. But, finding that impossible, I desisted from all attempts at
comprehension.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He felt that he was himself and did not wish to be anyone else. He only wished now to be
better than he had been formerly”
―
Leo Tolstoy
