Leo Tolstoy Quotes

On this page you can find the TOP of Leo Tolstoy's best quotes! We hope you will find some sayings from Writer Leo Tolstoy's in our collection, which will inspire you to new achievements! There are currently 824 quotes on this page collected since September 9, 1828! Share our collection of quotes with your friends on social media so that they can find something to inspire them!
  • Why am I going?" he repeated, looking straight into her eyes. "You know that I am going in order to be where you are," said he. "I cannot do otherwise." "Not a word, not a movement of yours will I ever forget, nor can I.

    Leo Tolstoy (2012). “Anna Karenina”, p.93, Courier Corporation
  • The essence of all slavery consists in taking the product of another's labor by force. It is immaterial whether this force be founded upon ownership of the slave or ownership of the money that he must get to live.

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

    Leo Tolstoy (2010). “A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul, Written and Se”, p.160, Simon and Schuster
  • I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine.

    graf Leo Tolstoy (1985). “Tolstoy's Diaries”
  • War is like a game of chess ... but with this little difference, that in chess you may think over each move as long as you please and are not limited for time, and with this difference too, that a knight is always stronger than a pawn, and two pawns are always stronger than one, while in war a battalion is sometimes stronger than a division and sometimes weaker than a company. The relative strength of bodies of troops can never be known to anyone.... Success never depends, and never will depend, on position, or equipment, or even on numbers, and least of all on position.

  • I ask one thing only: I ask for the right to hope, to suffer as I do. But if even that cannot be, command me to disappear, and I disappear. You shall not see me if my presence is distasteful to you.

    Leo Tolstoy (2016). “Anna Karenina (World Classics, Unabridged)”, p.121, Vij Books India Pvt Ltd
  • excuse me' he added, taking the opera glasses out of her hands and looking over her bare shoulder at the row of boxes opposite, 'i'm afraid i'm becoming ridiculous

    LEO TOLSTOY (1961). “ANNA KARENINA”
  • 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.

  • He felt that he was himself and did not wish to be anyone else. He only wished now to be better than he had been formerly

    Leo Tolstoy (1998). “Anna Karenina”, p.92, Oxford Paperbacks
  • Good fiction doesn't come out of the basic conflict of good versus bad. Instead, it comes out of a conflict between good and good.

  • Many families remain for years in the same place, though both husband and wife are sick of it, simply because there is neither complete division nor agreement between them.

    Leo Tolstoy (2016). “The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Memoirs, Letters & Essays on Art, Religion and Politics: Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Resurrection, The Death of Ivan Ilych, A Confession, The Cossacks, Correspondences with Gandhi, The Kreutzer Sonata, Fables and Stories for Childrenand Many More”, p.1766, e-artnow
  • Power is the relation of a given person to other persons, in which the more this person expresses opinions, theories and justifications of the collective action the less is his participation in that action.

    Robert Coles, George Eliot, George Orwell, Leo Tolstoy, Anthony Trollope (2007). “Political Leadership: Stories of Power and Politics from Literature and Life”, p.120, Modern Library
  • ... it is the work and not the reward that is precious.

  • One can no more approach people without love than one can approach bees without care. Such is the quality of bees.

  • Prayer is addressed to the personal God, not because he is personal indeed, I know for certain that he is not personal, because personality is limitation, while God is unlimited.

    Leo Tolstoy (graf) (1968). “The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy: My religion. On life. Thoughts of God. On the meaning of life”
  • To know God and to live is the same thing. God is Life.

  • Life did not stop, and one had to live.

    Leo Tolstoy (2011). “War and Peace: Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky”, p.1076, Vintage
  • If it were not so frightening it would be amusing to observe the pride and complacency with which we, like children, take apart the watch, pull out the spring and make a toy of it, and are then surprised when the watch stops working.

    Leo Tolstoy (1987). “A Confession and Other Religious Writings”, p.86, Penguin UK
  • India, which is the nursery of the great faiths of the world

    Leo Tolstoy (2016). “The Spiritual Works of Leo Tolstoy: A Confession, The Kingdom of God is Within You, What I Believe, Christianity and Patriotism, Reason and Religion, The Gospel in Brief and more: Lessons on What it Means to be a True Christian From the Greatest Russian Novelists and Author of War and Peace & Anna Karenina (Including Letter to a Kind YouthandCorrespondences with Gandhi)”, p.779, e-artnow
  • Much unhappiness has come from things left unsaid

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

    Leo Tolstoy, Louise Maude, Aylmer Maude, Amy Mandelker (2010). “War and Peace”, p.1241, Oxford University Press
  • History would be an excellent thing if only it were true.

  • The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness.

    Leo Tolstoy (2011). “War and Peace: Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky”, p.475, Vintage
  • Music is love in search of a voice.

  • In order to understand, observe, deduce, man must first be conscious of himself as alive.

    Leo Tolstoy (2011). “War and Peace: Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky”, p.1201, Vintage
  • In a writer there must always be two people - the writer and the critic.

    Virginia Woolf, Samuel Solomonovitch Koteliansky, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy (graf), Aleksandr Borisovich Golʹdenveĭzer (2006). “Translations from the Russian”
  • I think that when you remember, remember, remember everything like that, you could go on until you remember what was there before you were in the world.

    Leo Tolstoy (2011). “War and Peace: Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky”, p.521, Vintage
  • 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

    Leo Tolstoy (2010). “A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul, Written and Se”, p.15, Simon and Schuster
  • Error is the force that welds men together; truth is communicated to men only by deeds of truth.

    graf Leo Tolstoy (1929). “My confession; My religion; The Gospel in brief”
  • He stepped down, avoiding any long look at her as one avoids long looks at the sun, but seeing her as one sees the sun, without looking.

    Leo Tolstoy (2016). “ANNA KARENINA – Two Unabridged Translations in One Premium Edition (World Classics Series): The Greatest Romantic Tragedy of All Times from the Renowned Author of War and Peace & The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Including Biographies of the Author)”, p.109, e-artnow
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  • We hope you have found the saying you were looking for in our collection! At the moment, we have collected 824 quotes from the Writer Leo Tolstoy, starting from September 9, 1828! We periodically replenish our collection so that visitors of our website can always find inspirational quotes by authors from all over the world! Come back to us again!