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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.


Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

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LEO TOLSTOY I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance ...
LEO TOLSTOY it's much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.
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LEO TOLSTOY What is the cause of historical events? Power. What is power? Power is the sum total of wills transf...
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LEO TOLSTOY The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the power of my soul, whom I have tried to portray in all ...
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LEO TOLSTOY Be bad, but at least don't be a liar, a deceiver!
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LEO TOLSTOY But that's the whole aim of civilization: to make everything a source of enjoyment.
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LEO TOLSTOY Anything is better than lies and deceit!
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there are as many minds as there
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LEO TOLSTOY It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and wil...
LEO TOLSTOY Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.
LEO TOLSTOY It's hard to love a woman and do anything.
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LEO TOLSTOY A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he parti...
LEO TOLSTOY We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.
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LEO TOLSTOY In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.
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LEO TOLSTOY I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself.
LEO TOLSTOY Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.
LEO TOLSTOY The best generals I have known were... stupid or absent-minded men. Not only does a good army comman...
LEO TOLSTOY The strongest of all warriors are these two
LEO TOLSTOY I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I ...
LEO TOLSTOY A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally both in mind and body as irresisti...
LEO TOLSTOY We lost because we told ourselves we lost.
LEO TOLSTOY I am always with myself and it is I who am my tormentor.
LEO TOLSTOY Christianity, with its doctrine of humility, of forgiveness, of love, is incompatible with the state...
LEO TOLSTOY The sobs and tears of joy he had not foreseen rose with such force within him that his whole body sh...
LEO TOLSTOY In historic events, the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they ...
LEO TOLSTOY There is no greatness where simplicity, goodness and truth are absent.
LEO TOLSTOY The subject of history is the life of peoples and of humanity. To catch and pin down in words--that ...
LEO TOLSTOY Though it is possible to utter words only with the intention to fulfill the will of God, it is very ...
LEO TOLSTOY What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness.
LEO TOLSTOY He never chooses an opinion, he just wears whatever happens to be in style.
LEO TOLSTOY All happy families are alike, but an unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion.
LEO TOLSTOY Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wid...
LEO TOLSTOY Joy can only be real only if people look upon their life as a service, and have a definite object in...
LEO TOLSTOY Which is worse? the wolf who cries before eating the lamb or the wolf who does not.
LEO TOLSTOY I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom a...
LEO TOLSTOY The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.
LEO TOLSTOY How can one be well...when one suffers morally?
LEO TOLSTOY The Kingdom of God is within you.. and all beings.
LEO TOLSTOY It seldom happens that a man changes his life through his habitual reasoning. No matter how fully he...
LEO TOLSTOY Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
LEO TOLSTOY But every acquisition that is disproportionate to the labor spent on it is dishonest.
LEO TOLSTOY Is it really possible to tell someone else what one feels?
LEO TOLSTOY There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.
LEO TOLSTOY The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.
LEO TOLSTOY There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.
LEO TOLSTOY War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within the...
LEO TOLSTOY The greater the state, the more wrong and cruel its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffer...
LEO TOLSTOY It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.
LEO TOLSTOY Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.
LEO TOLSTOY Faith is the sense of life, that sense by virtue of which man does not destroy himself, but continue...
LEO TOLSTOY Boredom: the desire for desires.
LEO TOLSTOY If you want to be happy, be.
LEO TOLSTOY Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.
LEO TOLSTOY He had never thought the question over clearly, but vaguely imagined that his wife had long suspecte...
LEO TOLSTOY Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else i...
LEO TOLSTOY Everything intelligent is so boring.
LEO TOLSTOY I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others tha...
LEO TOLSTOY Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.
LEO TOLSTOY Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the histori...
LEO TOLSTOY A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he parti...
LEO TOLSTOY The chief difference between words and deeds is that words are always intended for men for their app...
LEO TOLSTOY