Leo tolstoy quotes

It is not beauty that endears, it's love that makes us see beauty.

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.

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

All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.

There are two Gods, there is the God that people generally believe in - a God who has to serve them. This God does not exist. But the God whom people forget - the God whom we all have to serve - exists, and is the prime cause of our existence and of all that we perceive.

It is terrible when people do not know God, but it is worse when people identify as God what is not God.

If you look for perfection, you'll never be content.

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

The only significance of life consists in helping to establish the kingdom of God.

My piece of bread only belongs to me when I know that everyone else has a share, and that no one starves while I eat.

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

Muhammad has always been standing higher than the Christianity. He does not consider god as a human being and never makes himself equal to God. Muslims worship nothing except God and Muhammad is his Messenger. There is no any mystery and secret in it.

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

When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you'd like them to be.

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

Once we're thrown off our habitual paths, we think all is lost, but it's only here that the new and the good begins.

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

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.

There is trouble with a wife, but it's even worse with a woman who is not a wife.

There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.

Grow spiritually and help others to do so. It is the meaning of life.

I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole I think knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure human sympathy is more valuable than ideology.

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

If you see that some aspect of your society is bad, and you want to improve it, there is only one way to do so: you have to improve people. And in order to improve people, you begin with only ONE thing: you can become better yourself.

Just imagine that the purpose of life is happinesss only- then life becomes a cruel and senseless thing.You have to embrace what the wisdom of humanity,your intellect and your heart tell you: that the meaning of life is to serve the force that sent you into the world.Then life becomes a joy

Death is more certain than the morrow, than night following day, than winter following summer. Why is it then that we prepare for the night and for the winter time, but do not prepare for death. We must prepare for death. But there is only one way to prepare for death - and that is to live well.

If a man does not work at necessary and good things, then he will work at unnecessary and stupid things

He who has love, is in God, and God is in him, for God is love.

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

A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.

Every lie is a poison; there are no harmless lies. Only the truth is safe. Only the truth gives me consolation - it is the one unbreakable diamond.

If people tell you that you should live your life preparing for the future, do not believe them. Real Life is found only in the present.

Which is worse? the wolf who cries before eating the lamb or the wolf who does not.

Remember that there is only one important time and it is Now. The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion. The most important person is always the person with whom you are, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other person in the future? The most important pursuit is making that person, the one standing at you side, happy, for that alone is the pursuit of life.

it's much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.

Dear Lord, what a madhouse the world is!

If you want to be happy, try only to please God, not people.

Men pray to the Almighty to relieve poverty. But poverty comes not from God's laws-it is blasphemy of the worst kind to say that. Poverty comes from man's injustice to his fellow man.

The more is given the less the people will work for themselves, and the less they work the more their poverty will increase.

What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are but how you deal with incompatibility.

Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.

Debates conceal rather than reveal the truth. Truth is revealed in solitude.

Slavery, you know, is nothing else than the unwilling labor of many. Therefore to get rid of slavery it is necessary that people should not wish to profit by the forced labor of others and should consider it a sin and a shame. But they go and abolish the external form of slavery and arrange so that one can no longer buy and sell slaves, and they imagine and assure themselves that slavery no longer exists, and do not see or wish to see that it does, because people still want and consider it good and right to exploit the labor of others.

If you make it a habit not to blame others, you will feel the growth of the ability to love in your soul, and you will see the growth of goodness in your life.

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

Effort is not a means to lead us to happiness. Effort itself is happiness

Art lifts man from his personal life into the universal life.

Much unhappiness has come from things left unsaid

Everybody wants to change the world, but nobody thinks about changing himself.

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.

The Christian churches and Christianity have nothing in common save in name: they are utterly hostile opposites. The churches are arrogance, violence, usurpation, rigidity, death; Christianity is humility, penitence, submissiveness, progress, life.

If you do not know your place in the world and the meaning of your life, you should know there is something to blame; and it is not the social system, or your intellect, but the way in which you have directed your intellect.

Music is love in search of a voice.

Since corrupt people unite amongst themselves to constitute a force, then honest people must do the same.

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

Patriotism in its simplest, clearest, and most indubitable meaning is nothing but an instrument for the attainment of the government's ambitious and mercenary aims, and a renunciation of human dignity, common sense, and conscience by the governed, and a slavish submission to those who hold power. That is what is really preached wherever patriotism is championed. Patriotism is slavery.

There is something in the human spirit that will survive and prevail, there is a tiny and brilliant light burning in the heart of man that will not go out no matter how dark the world becomes.

What is important is not the quantity of your knowledge but its quality. You can know many things without knowing the most important.

Memento mori - remember death! These are important words. If we kept in mind that we will soon inevitably die, our lives would be completely different. If a person knows that he will die in a half hour, he certainly will not bother doing trivial, stupid, or, especially, bad things during this half hour. Perhaps you have half a century before you die-what makes this any different from a half hour?

History would be a wonderful thing – if it were only true.

The great tragedy of atheists is that they walk through this world and have no one to thank.

The goal of our life should not be to find joy in marriage, but to bring more love and truth into the world. We marry to assist each other in this task. The most selfish and hateful life of all is that of two beings who unite in order to enjoy life. The highest calling is that of the man who has dedicated his life to serving God and doing good, and who unites with a woman in order to further that purpose.

We're asleep until we love.

Just as one candle lights another and can light thousands of other candles, so one heart illuminates another heart and can illuminate thousands of other hearts.

Mathematics is the queen of disciplines.... it will drive the nonsense out of your head!

Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.

Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking.

There can be only one permanent revolution- a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man.

Upon meeting, you're judged by your clothes, upon parting you're judged by your wits.

Boredom: the desire for desires.

The key to success in life is using the good thoughts of wise people.

Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.

Before we can study the central issues of life today, we must destroy the prejudices and fallacies born of previous centuries.

An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person's main task in life—becoming a better person.

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

...the more he did nothing, the less time he had to do anything.

Life could be limitless joy, if we would only take it for what it is, in the way it is given to us.

I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.

The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.

True life is lived when tiny changes occur.

Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait.

There is no genius where there is not simplicity.

Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow - that is patience. The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.

I have found that a story leaves a deeper impression when it is impossible to tell which side the author is on.

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

What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness.

One must put oneself in every one's position. To understand everything is to forgive everything.

The idea, shared by many, that life is a vale of tears, is just as false as the idea shared by the great majority, the idea to which youth and health and riches incline you, that life is a place of entertainment. Life is a place of service, and in that service one has to suffer a great deal that is hard to bear, but more often to experience a great deal of joy. But that joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.

The kinder and more intelligent a person is, the more kindness he can find in other people. Kindness enriches our life; with kindness mysterious things become clear, difficult things become easy and dull things become cheerful.

Many people have ideas on how others should change; few people have ideas on how they should change.

Happiness is pleasure without regret

The most important knowledge is that which guides the way you lead your life.

If you're not enjoying your work, you should either change your attitude, or change your job.

Our whole life is taken up with anxiety for personal security, with preparations for living, so that we really never live at all.

Rest, nature, books, music...such is my idea of happiness.

When ignorance does not know something, it says that what it does not know is stupid.

The most important time is Now

Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.

When you say, 'I can’t do that,' you're expressing yourself incorrectly. You should say, 'I couldn’t do that before.'

…the majority of men do not think in order to know the truth, but in order to assure themselves that the life which they lead, and which is agreeable and habitual to them, is the one which coincides with the truth.

Read less, study less, but think more

Am I mad, to see what others do not see, or are they mad who are responsible for all that I am seeing?

I don't allow myself to doubt myself even for a moment.

A man on a thousand mile walk has to forget his goal and say to himself every morning, 'Today I'm going to cover twenty-five miles and then rest up and sleep.

To sin is a human business, to justify sins is a devilish business.

Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women.

Perhaps it's because I appreciate all I have so much that I don't worry about what I haven't got.

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

Don't seek God in temples. He is close to you. He is within you. Only you should surrender to Him and you will rise above happiness and unhappiness.

Writing laws is easy, but governing is difficult.

Each person's task in life is to become an increasingly better person.

Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.

Real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know.

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

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

Until you do what you believe in, you don't know whether you believe it or not.

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.

People try to do all sorts of clever and difficult things to improve life instead of doing the simplest, easiest thing-refusing to participate in activities that make life bad.

Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait. There is nothing stronger than those two: patience and time, they will do it all.

If you want to be happy, be.

The kinder and the more thoughtful a person is, the more kindness he can find in other people.

Love alone is the only reasonable activity or pursuit of humankind....Fo r 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 is in your ability to love others.

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.

...so remember: great achievements take time, there is no overnight success.