Leo Tolstoy

No matter what the work you are doing, be always ready to drop it. And plan it, so as to be able to leave it.

Though the doctors treated him let his blood and gave him medications to drink he nevertheless recovered.

Art must destroy violence, only it can do it.

The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life.

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.

In the spiritual realm nothing is indifferent: what is not useful is harmful.

Time is a perpetual motion, without a single moment of rest.

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

Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity.

Life could be limitless joy, if we would only take it for what it is, in the way it is given to us.

Boredom: the desire for desires.

If you want to be happy be

If there existed no external means for dimming their consciences, one-half of the men would at once shoot themselves, because to live contrary to one's reason is a most intolerable state, and all men of our time are in such a state.

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

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

Let us forgive each other - only then will we live in peace.

Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.

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

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

Vengeance is mine; I will repay.

Remember that there is only one important time and it is Now. The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion.

The chief difference between words and deeds is that words are always intended for men for their approbation, but deeds can be done only for God.

In order to understand, observe, deduce, man must first be conscious of himself as alive.

Persecution is precious because it reveal whether a person lives with real faith.

Happiness consists of living each day as if it were the first day of your honeymoon and the last day of your vacation.

By patriotism is meant, not only spontaneous, instinctive love for one's own nation, and preference for it above all other nations, but also the belief that such love and preference are good and useful.

A writer is dear and necessary for us only in the measure of which he reveals to us the inner workings of his very soul.

Its much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.

Joy can only be real if people look upon their life as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.

In difficult circumstances always act on first impressions.

Each persons task in life is to become an increasingly better person.

Boredom the desire for desires.

A person who has spoiled his stomach will criticize his meal saying that the food is bad the same thing happens with people who are not satisfied with their lives.

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

Faith is the sense of life, that sense by virtue of which man does not destroy himself, but continues to live on. It is the force whereby we live.

Thoughts about the meaningless of life is the only form of leisure available to a person.

The greater the state, the more wrong and cruel its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power is founded.

A Gentleman is a man who will pay his gambling debts even when he knows he has been cheated.

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.

Life is a transition from one form to another. The life of this world is the material for a new form.

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

Love those that hate you but to love those one hates is impossible.

The earth is the general and equal possession of all humanity and therefore cannot be the property of individuals.

And all people live, Not by reason of any care they have for themselves, But by the love for them that is in other people.

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.

The first rule of achieving goodness is this: think only about self-perfection.

Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs.

Even in the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make six.

Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.

A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite.

Music is the shorthand of emotion.

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

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.

There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.

Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.

We lost because we told ourselves we lost.

Let us forgive each other " only then will we live in peace.

If you want to be happy, be.

Only misconceptions need to be supported by elaborate arguments. Truth can always stand alone.

A human can be healthy without killing animals for food. Therefore if he eats meat he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite.

A bad mood is often the reason for blaming others but very often blaming others causes bad feelings in us The more we blame others the worse we feel.

Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself.

Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself.

There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.

True life is lived when tiny changes occur.

The only thing we can know is that we know nothing and that is the highest flight of human wisdom.

The Jew is the emblem of civil and religious toleration. Love the stranger and the sojourner, Moses commands, because you have been strangers in the land of Egypt.

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.

Every misconception is a poison: there are no harmless misconceptions.

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.

Kings are the slaves of history.

The key to success in life is using the good thoughts of wise people.

All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.

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

Art is a microscope which the artist fixes on the secrets of his soul, and shows to people these secrets which are common to all.

Everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.

He had the unlucky capacity many men have of seeing and believing in the possibility of goodness and truth, but of seeing the evil and falsehood of life too clearly to take any serious part in it.

Respect is an invention of people who want to cover up the empty place where love should be.

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.

Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself.

The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.

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

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

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.

A cigar is a sort of thing not exactly a pleasure but the crown and outward sign of pleasure.

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

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

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

The vocation of every man and woman is to serve other people.

Time and patience are the strongest warriors.

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

To feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to visit the ill in the hospital "these are acts of mercy, but there is one charitable deed which cannot be compared to them: to free your brother from misconception.

The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.

Christianity with its doctrine of humility of forgiveness of love is incompatible with the state with its haughtiness its violence its punishment and its wars.

A quiet secluded life in the country with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good and who are not accustomed to have it done to them then work which one hopes may be of some use then rest nature books music love for ones neighbor such is my idea of happiness.

A holy spirit lives within you.

What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility.

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

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.

If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself.