Tolstoy, Leo (Leo Tolstoy)

True life is lived when tiny changes occur.
-- Leo Tolstoy

The strongest of all warriors are these two - Time and Patience.
-- Leo Tolstoy

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.
-- Leo Tolstoy

Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised.
-- Leo Tolstoy

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

A writer is dear and necessary for us only in the measure of which he reveals to us the inner workings of his very soul.
-- Leo Tolstoy

And all people live, not by reason of any care they have for themselves, but by the love for them that is in other people.
-- Leo Tolstoy

Error is the force that welds men together; truth is communicated to men only by deeds of truth.
-- Leo Tolstoy

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

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

Governments need armies to protect them against their enslaved and oppressed subjects.
-- Leo Tolstoy

Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them.
-- Leo Tolstoy

History would be wonderful thing
-- Leo Tolstoy

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.
-- Leo Tolstoy

If I were told that what I shall write will be read in twenty years by the children of today and that they will weep and smile over it and will fall in love with life, I would devote all my life and all my strengths to it.
-- Leo Tolstoy

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.
-- Leo Tolstoy

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.
-- Leo Tolstoy

It seldom happens that a man changes his life through his habitual reasoning. No matter how fully he may sense the new plans and aims revealed to him by reason, he continues to plod along in old paths until his life becomes frustrating and unbearable
-- Leo Tolstoy

Joy can be real only if people look on their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.
-- Leo Tolstoy

Laws are rules, made by people who govern by means of organized violence, for non-compliance with which the non-complier is subjected to blows, to loss of liberty, or even to being murdered.
-- Leo Tolstoy

Life consists in penetrating the unknown, and fashioning our actions in accord with the new knowledge thus acquired.
-- Leo Tolstoy

Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal
-- Leo Tolstoy

Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity.
-- Leo Tolstoy

The poet takes the best things out of his life and puts them into his work. Hence his work is beautiful and his life bad.
-- Leo Tolstoy

The only thing that we know is that we know nothing
-- Leo Tolstoy

The simplest and shortest ethical precept is to be served by others as little as possible, and to serve others as much as possible.
-- Leo Tolstoy

The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.
-- Leo Tolstoy

There is only one time that is important -- NOW! It is the most important time because it is the only time that we have any power.
-- Leo Tolstoy

To get rid of an enemy one must love him.
-- Leo Tolstoy

True life is lived when tiny changes occur.
-- Leo Tolstoy

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

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

It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.

-- Leo Tolstoy

If you want to be happy, be.
-- Leo Tolstoy