Quotes from Leo Tolstoy

Prevention is better than cure,

I understood that men only think that they live by caring only about themselves: in reality they live by love alone.

he was one of those diplomats who like and know how to work, and, despite his laziness, he occasionally spent nights at his desk.

He was not thinking that the Christian law which he had wanted to follow all his life prescribed that he forgive and love his enemies; but the joyful feeling of love and forgiveness of his enemies filled his soul.

He wanted and needed their love, but felt none towards them. He now had neither love nor humility nor purity

One may deal with things without love...but you cannot deal with men without it...It cannot be otherwise, because natural love is the fundamental law of human life.

My brother's death: wise, good, serious, he fell ill while still a young man, suffered for more than a year, and died painfully, not understanding why he had lived and still less why he had to die. No theories could give me, or him, any reply to these questions during his slow and painful dying.

The shore was God, the stream was tradition, and the oars were the free will given to me to make it to the shore where I would be joined with God. Thus the force of life was renewed within me, and I began to live once again.

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

The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens ... Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere.

Boredom is desire seeking desire.

That one must either explain life to oneself so that it does not seem to be an evil mockery by some sort of devil, or one must shoot oneself.

And once he had seen this, he could never again see it otherwise, just as we cannot reconstruct an illusion once it has been explained.

One must try to make one's life as pleasant as possible. I'm alive and it's not my fault, which means I must somehow go on living the best I can, without bothering anybody, until I die.' 'But what makes you live? With such thoughts, you'll sit without moving, without undertaking anything...' 'Life won't leave one alone as it is.

All at once I felt clearly and calmly that the feeling of that time had gone never to return, like the time itself, and that to bring it back now would be not only impossible, but painful and forced.

He was not to blame for being born with an irrepressible charachter and a mind some how constrained.

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.

But when, as is most often the case, the husband and wife accept the external obligation to live together all their lives and have, by the second month, come to loathe the sight of each other, want to get divorced and yet go on living together, it usually ends in that terrible hell that drives them to drink, makes them shoot themselves, kill and poison each other

Life and death are in God's hands

One can only live while one is intoxicated with life; as soon as one is sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere fraud and a stupid fraud! That is precisely what it is: there is nothing either amusing or witty about it, it is simply cruel and stupid.

If you get a hard word from any one, keep silent, and his own conscience will accuse him.

I do not live when I loose belief in the existence of God. I should long ago have killed myself had I not had a dim hope of finding Him. I live really live only when I feel him and seek Him

The doctor arrived towards dinnertime and said, of course, that although recurring phenomena might well elicit apprehension, nonetheless there was, strictly speaking, no positive indication, yet since neither was there any contraindication, it might, on the one hand, be supposed, but on the other hand it might also be supposed. And it was therefore necessary to stay in bed, and although I don't like prescribing, nevertheless take this and stay in bed.

Ca era dimineata ori seara, vineri ori duminica ? ii era totuna; era la fel, aceeasi durere surda, chinuitoare, care nu-l lasa o clipa; mereu constiinta vietii care se stinge fara putinta de impotrivire, dar care mai dainuie; moartea care se apropia, cumplita si hada ? numai ea singura era realitatea, iar celelalte toate...minciuna. La ce bun sa mai tii socoteala zilelor, saptamanilor, ceasurilor ?