Quotes by Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) — Schriftsteller · keine · Russland

Leo Tolstoi (1828–1910) war ein russischer Schriftsteller und Religionsphilosoph, der vor allem auf seinem Familiengut Jasnaja Poljana sowie in Moskau und Sankt Petersburg wirkte. Neben Monumentalwerken wie „Krieg und Frieden“ steht er für einen radikalen christlichen Pazifismus, die Ablehnung von Privateigentum und eine fundamentale Kritik an staatlicher wie kirchlicher Autorität. Für Bibelleser bleibt seine kompromisslose Konzentration auf die Bergpredigt anregend, während seine Ablehnung von Wundern und zentralen Glaubensdogmen 1901 zu seiner Exkommunikation durch die Russisch-Orthodoxe Kirche führte.

Era: The 20th Century

Recurring topics: Wisdom & Understanding, Meaning & Identity, Love, Ethical Questions, Relationships & Family, Growth & Character, Freedom & Truth, Joy & Gratitude

Quotes by Leo Tolstoy

The whole point is that people believe there are situations in which one may treat human beings without love; but there are no such situations!
Leo Tolstoy

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

Life can have no other goal than happiness, joy. Only this goal – joy – is completely worthy of life. Renunciation, the cross, devotion of life, all for joy.
Leo Tolstoy

Just as fire does not extinguish fire, evil cannot suffocate evil. Only the good, when it encounters evil and is not infected by it, overcomes evil.
Leo Tolstoy

Everyone thinks only about how to change humanity, but no one thinks of changing themselves.
Leo Tolstoy

One can chop wood without love, mold bricks, forge iron, but one cannot deal with people without love.
Leo Tolstoy

One cannot live for oneself alone. That is death.
Leo Tolstoy

Everything that goes deep is clear to the point of transparency.
Leo Tolstoy

One must be like a lamp, shielded from external disturbances the wind, insects, and at the same time pure, transparent, and burning with a hot flame.
Leo Tolstoy

Music is the shorthand of emotion.
Leo Tolstoy

Kindness is to the soul what health is to the body.
Leo Tolstoy

Freedom is not attained by striving for freedom, but by striving for truth. Freedom is not a goal, but a consequence.
Leo Tolstoy

One cannot live without faith. Faith is the knowledge of the meaning of human life. Faith is the force of life. If man lives, it is because he believes in something.
Leo Tolstoy

The secret of happiness is not in always doing what one wants, but in always wanting what one does.
Leo Tolstoy

One might say that mankind has forgotten the commandments of its divine Redeemer, who bade us to love one another and forgive insults, and now seeks its greatest merit in the art of mutual slaughter.
Leo Tolstoy

Better to try and do poorly than to do nothing at all.
Leo Tolstoy

Happiness is cheaply bought with fatigue and muscle soreness.
Leo Tolstoy

Where there is content, the forms arrange themselves.
Leo Tolstoy

Learned explanations usually give the impression that everything that was clear and understandable becomes dark and confused.
Leo Tolstoy

To be good only means having the desire to be good more often. And I have this desire.
Leo Tolstoy

Cheerfulness is one of the ways of fulfilling God's will.
Leo Tolstoy

To die means to go where we came from.
Leo Tolstoy

Condemn the sin, be reconciled with the sinner.
Leo Tolstoy

Marriage is a boat carrying two people across a stormy sea; if one of the two makes a sudden movement, the boat sinks.
Leo Tolstoy

Debauchery does not lie in anything physical—physical indecency is by no means debauchery yet; debauchery consists precisely in a man considering himself free from any moral relationship with the woman with whom he enters into physical intimacy.
Leo Tolstoy

While reading, one can think exquisitely.
Leo Tolstoy

The more persecution, the more evident truth becomes.
Leo Tolstoy

To love is a blessing, to be loved is happiness.
Leo Tolstoy

One can speak out everything, vent one's feelings, without condemning anyone.
Leo Tolstoy

The more you satisfy one of your desires, the stronger it grows; and the less you satisfy it, the less it asserts itself.
Leo Tolstoy

Avoid everything that divides people, and do everything that unites them!
Leo Tolstoy

We know that without physical effort we can achieve nothing. Why then do we believe that in the spiritual realm something could be achieved without effort?
Leo Tolstoy

Everything ends well for those who can wait.
Leo Tolstoy

The only meaning of this life consists in helping to establish the kingdom of God.
Leo Tolstoy

The child recognizes its mother by her smile.
Leo Tolstoy

If only we always managed to see the beam in our own eye at the right time, how much better we would be!
Leo Tolstoy

As soon as one assumes that the life of humanity can be guided and directed by reason, one makes life as such impossible.
Leo Tolstoy

Had my hair cut yesterday, and even that seems to me like a sign of my rebirth.
Leo Tolstoy

Only among peasants am I completely natural, that is, truly human.
Leo Tolstoy

One must live up to one's calling to serve in purity and with love.
Leo Tolstoy

80 quotes in total — browse the collection.

Sources: factsanddetails.com, macleans.ca, grunge.com, morethanourchildhoods.org

All quotes · lumen.bible