Quotes from Leo Tolstoy

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

So he lived, not knowing and not seeing any chance of knowing what he was and for what purpose he had been placed in the word.

All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.

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

Boredom is desire seeking desire.

Meanwhile spring arrived. My old dejection passed away and gave place to the unrest which spring brings with it, full of dreams and vague hopes and desires.

Man's mind cannot grasp the causes of events in their completeness, but the desire to find the causes is implanted in man's soul.

Without Greek studies there is no education.

Power, from the standpoint of experience, is merely the relation that exists between the expression of someone's will and the execution of that will by others.

Faith is the force of life.

I was now prepared to accept any faith so long as it did not demand a direct denial of reason, which would have been a deceit.

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

All happy families resemble one another every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Music is the shorthand of emotion.

A human can be healthy without killing animals for food.

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

In education, once more, the chief things are equality and freedom.

The military world is characterized by the absence of freedom - in other words, a rigorous discipline-enforced inactivity, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery and drunkenness.

You say: I am not free. But I have raised and lowered my arm. Everyone understands that this illogical answer is an irrefutable proof of freedom.

You can't imagine what a pleasure this complete laziness is to me: not a thought in my brain- you might send a ball rolling through it!

He felt that all his hitherto dissipated and dispersed forces were gathered and directed with terrible energy towards one blissful goal.

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way

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