Quotes from Leo Tolstoy

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

If you want to be happy, be.

Just as one candle lights another and can light thousands of other candles, so one heart illuminates another heart and can illuminate thousands of other hearts.

My piece of bread only belongs to me when I know that everyone else has a share, and that no one starves while I eat.

Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait.

People jump back and forth in pursuit of pleasures only because they see the emptiness of their lives more clearly than they do the emptiness of whichever new entertainment attracts them.

Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.

When you feel the desire for power, you should stay in solitude for some time

The true meaning of Christ's teaching consists in the recognition of love as the supreme law of life, and therefore not admitting any exceptions.

When joy disappears, look for your mistake

I feel that I am entitled to my share of lightheartedness and there is nothing wrong with enjoying one's self simply, like a boy.

Read less, study less, but think more

God is that infinite All of which man knows himself to be a finite part.

What is important is not the length of life, but the depth of life. What is important is not to make life longer, but to take your soul out of time, as every sublime act does.

Knowledge is real knowledge only when it is acquired by the efforts of your intellect, not by memory

Art can compel people freely, gladly, and spontaneously to sacrifice themselves in the service of man.

Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here.

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

Music is the shorthand of emotion. Emotions, which let themselves be described in words with such difficulty, are directly conveyed to man in music, and in that is its power and significance.

Every revolution by force only puts more violent means of enslavement into the hands of the persons in power.

In order to obtain and hold power a man must love it. Thus the effort to get it is not likely to be coupled with goodness, but with the opposite qualities of pride, craft and cruelty.

I am used to praying when I am alone thank God. But when I come together with other people when I need more than ever to pray I still cannot get used to it.

Not one word, not one gesture of yours shall I, could I, ever forget.

Everything intelligent is so boring.