The Wisest Quotes by Leo Tolstoy

All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.Anna Karenina (1877), (Vintage Books, ed. 2010), Part I, Chapter 1, Page 1

If no one fought except on his own conviction, there would be no wars.War and Peace (1869), (Oxford University Press, ed. 2010), Book I, Part I, Chapter 5, Page 27

Respect was invented to cover up the empty place where there should be love.Anna Karenina (1877), (Oxford University Press, ed. 2016), Part VII, Chapter 24, Page 746

Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the society of clever women.War and Peace (1869), (Oxford University Press, ed. 2010), Book I, Part I, Chapter 3, Page 16

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…The Life of Tolstoy: Later years by Aylmer Maude (1911), Page 519

There is nothing stronger than those two: patience and time, they will do it all.War and Peace (1869), (Oxford University Press, ed. 2010), Book III, Part II, Chapter 16, Page 799

There is no greatness there where simplicity, goodness, and truth are absent.War and Peace (1869), (Oxford University Press, ed. 2010), Book IV, Part III, Chapter 18, Page 1152

Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed.Anna Karenina (1877), (Penguin Books, ed. 2010), Part II, Chapter 9, Page 147

If you feel that you are not free, look for the reason inside you.A Calendar of Wisdom (1909), (Scribner, ed. 1997), July 3, Page 197

Everyone thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself.Pamphlets: Translated from the Russian (1900), Three Methods Of Reform, Page 29

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.Letter to Dr. Eugen Heinrich Schmitt

Man can be master of nothing while he fears death, but he who does not fear it possesses all.War and Peace (1869), (Oxford University Press, ed. 2010), Book III, Part III, Chapter 9, Page 905

If you look for perfection, you will never be satisfied.Anna Karenina (1877), (Oxford University Press, ed. 2016), Part VII, Chapter 4, Page 686

Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.War and Peace (1869), (Oxford University Press, ed. 2010), Book IV, Part IV, Chapter 1, Page 1157

Is it possible to tell another person what you are feeling?Anna Karenina (1877), (Oxford University Press, ed. 2016), Part VII, Chapter 29, Page 762

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you, consider what you are and what you ought to be, – think of the ideal.Essays, Letters, and Miscellanies (Charles Scribner's Sons, ed. 1900), Stop and Think!, Page 473

Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.War and Peace (1869), (Oxford University Press, ed. 2010), Book IV, Part I, Chapter 16, Page 1058

If one loves anyone, one loves the whole person just as they are and not as one would like them to be.Anna Karenina (1877), (Modern Library, ed. 2000), Part VI, Chapter 18, Page 696

Love… The reason I don’t like that word is because it means too much to me, far more than you can understand.Anna Karenina (1877), (Oxford University Press, ed. 2016), Part II, Chapter 7, Page 144

Only people capable of loving deeply can experience profound grief; but the very necessity they feel to love serves as an antidote to grief and heals them.Childhood, Boyhood, Youth (1856), (Penguin Books, ed. 1964), Part I. Childhood, Chapter 28, Page 100

If it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.Anna Karenina (1877), (Vintage Books, ed. 2010), Part II, Chapter 7, Page 163

Love them that hate you, but to love those one hates is impossible.Anna Karenina (1877), (Modern Library, ed. 2000), Part IV, Chapter 12, Page 451

The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.The Kingdom of God is Within You (1893), (The Cassell Publishing Co., ed. 1894), Chapter XII, Page 368

Life in this world is not a vale of tears, not a trial, but a thing that surpasses our imagination.A Calendar of Wisdom (1909), (Scribner, ed. 1997), April 4, Page 107

Life could be limitless joy, if we would only take it for what it is, in the way it is given to us.A Calendar of Wisdom (1909), (Scribner, ed. 1997), April 4, Page 107

If it seems to us that we are not satisfied with life, we should see this as a reason to be unsatisfied with ourselves.A Calendar of Wisdom (1909), (Scribner, ed. 1997), May 31, Page 164

If life is given us for life’s sake, there is no reason for living.The Kreutzer Sonata (1889), (Oxford University Press, ed. 2016), Chapter XI, Page 109

It is not beauty that endears, it’s love that makes us see beauty.War and Peace (1869), (Oxford University Press, ed. 2010), Epilogue, Part I, Chapter 9, Page 1241

It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.The Kreutzer Sonata (1889), (Oxford University Press, ed. 2016), Chapter V, Page 100

All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.Anna Karenina (1877), (Random House, ed. 1950), Part I, Chapter 11, Page 59

The idea of beauty is the fundamental idea of everything. In the world we see only distortions of the fundamental idea, but art, by imagination, may lift itself to the height of this idea. Art is therefore akin to creation.What Is Art? (1897), (Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., ed. 1899), Chapter III, Page 27

Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.War and Peace (1869), (Oxford University Press, ed. 2010), Book II, Part I, Chapter 11, Page 355

If you want to be happy, try only to please God, not people.Wise Thoughts for Every Day (2005), September 13. Vanity and Fame, Page 257

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.Family Happiness (1859), (Dover Publications, ed. 2005), Part I, Chapter V, Page 30

Art is not a handicraft; it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.What Is Art? (1897), (Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., ed. 1899), Chapter XIX, Page 195

Art lifts man from his personal life into the universal life.What Is Art? (1897), (Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., ed. 1899), Chapter III, Page 33

Art is the uniting of the subjective with the objective, of nature with reason, of the unconscious with the conscious, and therefore art is the highest means of knowledge.What Is Art? (1897), (Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., ed. 1899), Chapter III, Page 27

All we can know is that we know nothing. And that’s the height of human wisdom.War and Peace (1869), (Oxford University Press, ed. 2010), Book II, Part II, Chapter 1, Page 372

The only real science is the knowledge of how a person should live his life. And this knowledge is open to everyone.A Calendar of Wisdom (1909), (Scribner, ed. 1997), January 18, Page 30

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.The Kingdom of God is Within You (1893), (The Cassell Publishing Co., ed. 1894), Chapter III, Page 49