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Leo Tolstoy

251 quotes

“Vengeance is mine; I will repay.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Все счастливые семьи похожи друг на друга, каждая несчастливая семья несчастлива по-своему.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There was no answer, except the general answer life gives to all the most complex and insoluble questions. That answer is: one must live for the needs of the day, in other words, become oblivious. To become oblivious in dreams was impossible now, at least till night-time; it was impossible to return to that music sung by carafe-women; and so one had to become oblivious in the dreams of life.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Stephan Arkadievich chose neither his attitudes nor his opinions, no, the attitudes and opinions came to him on their own, just as he chose neither the style of his hat nor of his coats but got what people were wearing.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He knew she was there by the joy and fear that overwhelmed his heart.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All his life Alexey Alexandrovitch had lived and worked in official spheres, having to do with the reflection of life. And every time he had stumbled against life itself he had shrunk away from it. Now he experienced a feeling akin to that of a man who, wile calmly crossing a precipice by a bridge, should suddenly discover that the bridge is broken, and that there is a chasm below. That chasm was life itself, the bridge that artificial life in which Alexey Alexandrovitch had lived.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There was something in her higher than what surrounded her. There was in her the glow of the real diamond among glass imitations. This glow shone out in her exquisite, truly enigmatic eyes. The weary, and at the same time passionate, glance of those eyes, encircled by dark rings, impressed one by its perfect sincerity. Everyone looking into those eyes fancied he knew her wholly, and knowing her, could not but love her.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you want him defined, here he is: a prime, well-fed beast such as takes medals at the cattle shows, and nothing more," he said, with a tone of vexation that interested her. "No; how so?" she replied. "He's seen a great deal, anyway; he's cultured?" "It's an utterly different culture—their culture. He's cultivated, one sees, simply to be able to despise culture, as they despise everything but animal pleasures.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One can insult an honest man or an honest woman, but to tell a thief that he is a thief is merely la constation d'un fait [The establishing of a fact.]”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (voice of Anna) C. Garnett, trans. (New York: 2003), Part 7, Chapter 24 p. 685
“Reason has discovered the struggle for existence and the law that I must throttle all those who hinder the satisfaction of my desires. That is the deduction reason makes. But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is one evident, indubitable manifestation of the Divinity, and that is the laws of right which are made known to the world through Revelation.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My reason will still not understand why I pray, but I shall still pray, and my life, my whole life, independently of anything that may happen to me, is every moment of it no longer meaningless as it was before, but has an unquestionable meaning of goodness with which I have the power to invest it.'”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Go — take the mother's soul, and learn three truths: Learn What dwells in man, What is not given to man, and What men live by. When thou hast learnt these things, thou shalt return to heaven.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I thought: "I am perishing of cold and hunger, and here is a man thinking only of how to clothe himself and his wife, and how to get bread for themselves. He cannot help me. When the man saw me he frowned and became still more terrible, and passed me by on the other side. I despaired, but suddenly I heard him coming back. I looked up, and did not recognize the same man: before, I had seen death in his face; but now he was alive, and I recognized in him the presence of God.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Then I remembered the first lesson God had set me: "Learn what dwells in man." And I understood that in man dwells Love! I was glad that God had already begun to show me what He had promised, and I smiled for the first time.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The man is making preparations for a year, and does not know that he will die before evening. And I remembered God's second saying, "Learn what is not given to man." 'What dwells in man" I already knew. Now I learnt what is not given him. It is not given to man to know his own needs.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the woman showed her love for the children that were not her own, and wept over them, I saw in her the living God, and understood What men live by.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Quite often a man goes on for years imagining that the religious teaching that had been imparted to him since childhood is still intact, while all the time there is not a trace of it left in him.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I cannot recall those years without horror, loathing, and heart-rending pain. I killed people in war, challenged men to duels with the purpose of killing them, and lost at cards; I squandered the fruits of the peasants' toil and then had them executed; I was a fornicator and a cheat. Lying, stealing, promiscuity of every kind, drunkenness, violence, murder — there was not a crime I did not commit... Thus I lived for ten years.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Several times I asked myself, "Can it be that I have overlooked something, that there is something which I have failed to understand? Is it not possible that this state of despair is common to everyone?" And I searched for an answer to my questions in every area of knowledge acquired by man. For a long time I carried on my painstaking search; I did not search casually, out of mere curiosity, but painfully, persistently, day and night, like a dying man seeking salvation. I found nothing.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One can only live while one is intoxicated with life; as soon as one is sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere fraud and a stupid fraud!”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 5, translated by David Patterson, 1983
“For man to be able to live he must either not see the infinite, or have such an explanation of the meaning of life as will connect the finite with the infinite.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ivan Ilych saw that he was dying, and he was in continual despair. In the depth of his heart he knew he was dying, but not only was he not accustomed to the thought, he simply did not and could not grasp it. The syllogism he had learnt from Kiesewetter's Logic: "Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal," had always seemed to him correct as applied to Caius, but certainly not as applied to himself. That Caius — man in the abstract — was mortal, was perfectly correct, but he was not Caius, not an abstract man, but a creature quite, quite separate from all others.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The positivist philosophy of Comte and the I doctrine deduced from it that humanity is an organism, and Darwin's doctrine of a law of the struggle for existence that is supposed to govern life, with the differentiation of various breeds of people which follows from it, and the anthropology, biology, and sociology of which people are now so fond-all have the same aim. These have all become favourite sciences because they serve to justify the way in which people free themselves from the human obligation to labour, while consuming the fruits of other people's labour.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science has adapted itself entirely to the wealthy classes and accordingly has set itself to heal those who can afford everything, and it prescribes the same methods for those who have nothing to spare.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science may fall back on its stupid excuse that science works for science, and that when it has been developed by the scientists it will become accessible to the people also; but art, if it be art, should be accessible to all, and particularly to those for whom it is produced. And the position of our art strikingly arraigns the producers of art for not wishing, not knowing how, and being unable, to serve the people.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Service of the people by sciences and arts will only exist when men live with the people and as the people live, and without presenting any claims will offer their scientific and artistic services, which the people will be free to accept or decline as they please.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To say that the activity of science and art helps humanity's progress, if by that activity we mean the activity which now calls itself by those names, is as though one said that the clumsy, obstructive splashing of oars in a boat moving down stream assists the boat's progress. It only hinders it... The proof of this is seen in the confession made by men of science that the achievements of the arts and sciences are inaccessible to the labouring masses on account of the unequal distribution of wealth.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A real mother, who knows the will of God by experience, will prepare her children also to fulfil it. Such a mother will suffer if she sees her child overfed, effeminate, and dressed-up, for she knows that these things will make it difficult for it to fulfil the will of God which she recognizes.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If one has no vanity in this life of ours, there is no sufficient reason for living.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The condition of life to which people of the well-to-do classes are accustomed is that of an abundant production of various articles necessary for their comfort and pleasure, and these things are obtained only thanks to the existence of factories and works organized as at present. And, therefore, discussing the improvement of the workers' position, the men of science belonging to the well- to-do classes always have in view only such improvements as will not do away with the system of factory-production and those conveniences of which they avail themselves.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If the slave-owner of our times has no slave, John, whom he can send to the cesspool, he has five shillings, of which hundreds of such Johns are in such need that the slave-owner of our times may choose any one out of hundreds of Johns and be a benefactor to him by giving him the preference, and allowing him, rather than another, to climb down into the cesspool.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To be good and lead a good life means to give to others more than one takes from them.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a scale of virtues, and it is necessary, if one would mount the higher steps, to begin with the lowest; and the first virtue a man must acquire if he wishes to acquire the others, is that which the ancients called ἐγκράτεια or σωφροσύνη — i.e., self-control or moderation.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are not ostriches, and cannot believe that if we refuse to look at what we do not wish to see, it will not exist. This is especially the case when what we do not wish to see is what we wish to eat. If it were really indispensable, or, if not indispensable, at least in some way useful! But it is quite unnecessary ... And this is continually being confirmed by the fact that young, kind, undepraved people — especially women and girls — without knowing how it logically follows, feel that virtue is incompatible with beefsteaks, and, as soon as they wish to be good, give up eating flesh.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the year 1884 I wrote a book under the title "What I Believe," in which I did in fact make a sincere statement of my beliefs. In affirming my belief in Christ's teaching, I could not help explaining why I do not believe, and consider as mistaken, the Church's doctrine... Among the many points in which this doctrine falls short of the doctrine of Christ I pointed out as the principal one the absence of any commandment of non-resistance to evil by force. The perversion of Christ's teaching by the teaching of the Church is more clearly apparent in this than in any other point of difference.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I know—as we all do—very little of the practice and the spoken and written doctrine of former times on the subject of non-resistance to evil. I knew what had been said on the subject by the fathers of the Church—Origen, Tertullian, and others—I knew too of the existence of some so-called sects of Mennonites, Herrnhuters, and Quakers, who do not allow a Christian the use of weapons, and do not enter military service; but I knew little of what had been done by these so-called sects toward expounding the question.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Quakers sent me books, from which I learnt how they had, years ago, established beyond doubt the duty for a Christian of fulfilling the command of non-resistance to evil by force, and had exposed the error of the Church's teaching in allowing war and capital punishment.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Further acquaintance with the labors of the Quakers and their works — with Fox, Penn, and especially the work of Dymond (published in 1827) — showed me not only that the impossibility of reconciling Christianity with force and war had been recognized long, long ago, but that this irreconcilability had been long ago proved so clearly and so indubitably that one could only wonder how this impossible reconciliation of Christian teaching with the use of force, which has been, and is still, preached in the churches, could have been maintained in spite of it.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Churches as Churches have always been and cannot fail to be institutions not only alien to, but directly hostile towards, Christ's teaching.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Churches as Churches—as institutions affirming their own infallibility—are anti-Christian institutions. Between the Churches as such and Christianity, not only is there nothing in common except the name, but they are two quite opposite and opposing principles. The one represents pride, violence, self-assertion, immobility and death: the other humility, penitence, meekness, progress, and life.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The savage recognizes life only in himself and his personal desires. His interest in life is concentrated on himself alone. The highest happiness for him is the fullest satisfaction of his desires. The motive power of his life is personal enjoyment. His religion consists in propitiating his deity and in worshiping his gods, whom he imagines as persons living only for their personal aims.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The civilized pagan recognizes life not in himself alone, but in societies of men—in the tribe, the clan, the family, the kingdom —and sacrifices his personal good for these societies. The motive power of his life is glory. His religion consists in the exaltation of the glory of those who are allied to him—the founders of his family, his ancestors, his rulers—and in worshiping gods who are exclusively protectors of his clan, his family, his nation, his government”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The man who holds the divine theory of life recognizes life not in his own individuality, and not in societies of individualities (in the family, the clan, the nation, the tribe, or the government), but in the eternal undying source of life—in God; and to fulfill the will of God he is ready to sacrifice his individual and family and social welfare. The motor power of his life is love. And his religion is the worship in deed and in truth of the principle of the whole—God.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The whole historic existence of mankind is nothing else than the gradual transition from the personal, animal conception of life to the social conception of life, and from the social conception of life to the divine conception of life.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source