Leo Tolstoy was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time. Born to an aristocratic Russian family in 1828, he is best known for the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina often cited as pinnacles of realist fiction. He first achieved literary acclaim in his twenties with his semi-autobiographical trilogy, Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth, and Sevastopol Sketches, based upon his experiences in the Crimean War. May his quotes inspire you to live a life of love, happiness, and greatness.
1. “Everyone thinks of changing the world but no one thinks of changing himself.” Leo Tolstoy
2. “Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.” Leo Tolstoy
3. “There are no conditions to which a person cannot grow accustomed, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives in the same way.” Leo Tolstoy
4. “Nothing is so necessary for a man as the company of intelligent women.” Leo Tolstoy
5. “Serve humanity.” Leo Tolstoy
6. “Love is life.” Leo Tolstoy
7. “Pay bad people with your goodness; fight their hatred with your kindness. Even if you do not achieve victory over other people, you will conquer yourself.” Leo Tolstoy
8. “The only thing that we know is that we know nothing and that is the highest flight of human wisdom.” Leo Tolstoy
9. “Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.” Leo Tolstoy
10. “Great things are always simple and modest.” Leo Tolstoy
11. “Let us forgive each other – only then will we live in peace.” Leo Tolstoy
12. “Governments not only are not necessary but are harmful and most highly immoral institutions.” Leo Tolstoy
13. “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.” Leo Tolstoy
14. “The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise to the demands of our conscience not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life.” Leo Tolstoy
15. “Happiness does not depend on outward things but on the way we see them.” Leo Tolstoy
16. “Beware of anything that is not approved by your conscience.” Leo Tolstoy
17. “Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.” Leo Tolstoy
18. “Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.” Leo Tolstoy
19. “A truly wise man is always joyful.” Leo Tolstoy
20. “Each person’s task in life is to become an increasingly better person.” Leo Tolstoy
21. “If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.” Leo Tolstoy
22. “Pleasure lies not in discovering truth but in seeking it.” Leo Tolstoy
23. “Joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.” Leo Tolstoy
24. “True life is lived when tiny changes occur.” Leo Tolstoy
25. “The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not informed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.” Leo Tolstoy
26. “There is something in the human spirit that will survive and prevail, there is a tiny and brilliant light burning in the heart of man that will not go out no matter how dark the world becomes.” Leo Tolstoy
27. “Art is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen.” Leo Tolstoy
28. “It was as if a surplus of something so overflowed her being that it expressed itself beyond her will, now in the brightness of her glance, now in her smile.” Leo Tolstoy
29. “Art is not a pleasure, a solace, or an amusement; art is a great matter. Art is an organ of human life, transmitting man’s reasonable perception into feeling.” Leo Tolstoy
30. “There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness, and truth.” Leo Tolstoy
31. “The surest sign of the truth is simplicity and clarity. Lie is always complicated, pretentious and wordy.” Leo Tolstoy
32. “If so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love.” Leo Tolstoy
33. “Have a goal in life. A goal for a certain time, for a year, for a month, for a week, for a day or for an hour and for a minute, sacrificing lower goals to highest.” Leo Tolstoy
34. “In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.” Leo Tolstoy
35. “If you want to be happy, be.” Leo Tolstoy
