Leo Tolstoy Quotes

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.

An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person’s main task in life – becoming a better person.

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

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

Until you do what you believe in, you don’t know whether you believe it or not.

If so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love.

A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.

The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.

War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves.

Music is the shorthand of emotion.

I sit on a man’s back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means – except by getting off his back.

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

One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken.

The law condemns and punishes only actions within certain definite and narrow limits; it thereby justifies, in a way, all similar actions that lie outside those limits.

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

War on the other hand is such a terrible thing, that no man, especially a Christian man, has the right to assume the responsibility of starting it.

The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.