Leo Tolstoy Quotes

“A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.”

“A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.”

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

“Boredom: the desire for desires.”

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

“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.”

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

“He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began.”

“If you want to be happy, be.”

“In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The best stories don't come from 'good vs. bad' but 'good vs. good'.”

“The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life.”

“The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.”

“There is no deed in this life so impossible that you cannot do it. Your whole life should be lived as a heroic deed.”

“True life is lived when tiny changes occur.”

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

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

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

“I always loved you, and if one loves anyone, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be.”

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

“All the girls in the world were divided into two classes: one class included all the girls in the world except her, and they had all the usual human feelings and were very ordinary girls; while the other class – herself alone – had no weaknesses and was superior to all humanity.”

“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.”

“Anything is better than lies and deceit!”

“Be bad, but at least don't be a liar, a deceiver!”

“But I'm glad you'll see me as I am. Above all, I wouldn't want people to think that I want to prove anything. I don't want to prove anything, I just want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. I have that right, haven't I?”

“But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.”

“He soon felt that the fulfillment of his desires gave him only one grain of the mountain of happiness he had expected.

This fulfillment showed him the eternal error men make in imagining that their happiness depends on the realization of their desires.”