Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy; 9 September 1828 – 20 November 1910), usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth28 August 1828
CountryRussian Federation
Leo Tolstoy quotes about
spiritual men two
A new conception of life cannot be imposed on men; it can only be freely assimilated. And it can only be freely assimilated in two ways: one spiritual and internal, the other experimental and external.
waiting god-knows knows
God knows, but He's waiting
talking hearing saws
Konstantin Levin did not like talking and hearing about the beauty of nature. Words for him took away the beauty of what he saw.
advice first-impression firsts
In difficult circumstances always act on first impressions.
teaching men order
People continued regardless of all that leads man forward to try to unite the incompatibles:;: the virtue of love, and what is opposed to love, namely, the restraining of evil by violence. And such a teaching, despite its inner contradiction, was so firmly established that the very people who recognize love as a virtue accept as lawful at the same time an order of life based on violence and allowing men not merely to torture but even to kill one another.
division-of-labor sloth justification
Division of labor is a justification for sloth.
health body machines
Our body is a machine for living.
soul eternity immortal
The soul is immortal- well then, if I shall always live, I must have lived before, lived for a whole eternity.
heart judging people
I understood, not with my intellect but with my whole being, that no theories of the rationality of existence or of progress could justify such an act; I realized that even if all the people in the world from the day of creation found this to be necessary according to whatever theory, I knew that it was not necessary and that it was wrong. Therefore, my judgments must be based-on what is right and necessary and not on what people say and do; I must judge not according to progress but according to my own heart.
boredom desire seeking
Boredom is desire seeking desire.
feet way sun
And so he who looks down at his feet will not know the truth, but he who discerns by the sun which way to go.
happy-marriage knows
The only happy marriages I know are arranged ones.
war lying games
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.
war should-have games
It boils down to this: we should have done with humbug, and let war be war, and not a game ... If there were none of this magnanimity business in warfare, we should never go to war, except for something worth facing certain death for.