Inspirational Quotes by Leo Tolstoy (Russian Novelist)

Inspirational Quotations by Leo Tolstoy (Russian Novelist)

Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828–1910,) usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian novelist and social reformer. He is the author of two of the greatest works of fiction ever written: War and Peace (1869,) an epic novel of the Napoleonic invasion and the lives of three aristocratic families, and Anna Karenina (1877,) the tale of a married woman’s passion for a young officer and her tragic fate.

Born into Russia’s nobility, Tolstoy was an excellent novelist with unsurpassed creative abilities. However, from 1880, Tolstoy’s constant concern with moral inquiries advanced into a spiritual crisis, which led to radical changes in his life. He abandoned his literary ambitions, believing them to be incompatible with his deepest convictions. He transformed himself into a prophetic philosopher who tried to follow a comprehensive vision of primitive Christian austerity. He lived in great simplicity, renouncing property and the happiness of family life, engaging in manual labor, and striving for the relief of social distress during the Russian famine of 1891–92.

All of Tolstoy’s later works were on moral and religious subjects, and his output was substantial. His writings on the virtues of nonviolent resistance, spirituality, and anarchism got him excommunicated from the Orthodox Church, and he then started writing against organized religion. He was a significant influence in the developments of Christian anarchism, nonviolent resistance movements such as those of as Mohandas K. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and James Bevel.

The foremost fictional works bearing the imprint of changes in Tolstoy’s philosophy are The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886,) The Kreutzer Sonata (1891,) Master and Man (1895,) Resurrection (1899,) and Hadji Murad (1904.)

Tolstoy is also the author of numerous stories for children. His collections of folk tales for peasant children were simple in structure and style and contained clear morals. His most famous fairy tale, “The Three Bears,” is an adaptation of the fairy tale “Goldilocks.” He opened several schools for the education of peasants but quickly closed them down after harassment by the secret police.

Tolstoy declined the first Nobel Prize in Literature concerned that the prize money would corrupt him and unjustifiably complicate his life.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Leo Tolstoy

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.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Liberalism

The Brahmins say that in their books there are many predictions of times in which it will rain. But press those books as strongly as you can, you can not get out of them a drop of water. So you can not get out of all the books that contain the best precepts the smallest good deed.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Reading

You should respond with kindness toward evil done to you, and you will destroy in an evil person that pleasure which he derives from evil.
—Leo Tolstoy

Conceit is incompatible with understanding.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Conceit, Vanity

There are no conditions to which a man cannot become accustomed.
—Leo Tolstoy

The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Time, Patience

History would be an excellent thing if only it were true.
—Leo Tolstoy

The difference between real material poison and intellectual poison is that most material poison is disgusting to the taste, but intellectual poison, which takes the form of cheap newspapers or bad books, can unfortunately sometimes be attractive.
—Leo Tolstoy

Patriotism in its simplest, clearest and most indubitable signification is nothing else but a means of obtaining for the rulers their ambitions and covetous desires, and for the ruled the abdication of human dignity, reason, conscience, and a slavish enthrallment to those in power.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Patriotism

The sobs and tears of joy he had not foreseen rose with such force within him that his whole body shook and for a long time prevented him from speaking. Falling on his knees by her bed. He held his wife’s hand to his lips and kissed it, and her hand responded to his kisses with weak movement of finger. Meanwhile, at the foot of the bed, in the midwife’s expert hands, like the flame of a lamp, flickered the life of a human being who had never existed before…
—Leo Tolstoy

Love is real only when a person can sacrifice himself for another person. Only when a person forgets himself for the sake of another, and lives for another creature, only this kind of love can be called true love, and only in this love do we see the blessing and reward of life. This is the foundation of the world.
—Leo Tolstoy

It’s too easy to criticize a man when he’s out of favor, and to make him shoulder the blame for everybody else’s mistakes.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Criticism

Let us forgive each other—only then will we live in peace
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Forgiveness

Though it is possible to utter words only with the intention to fulfill the will of God, it is very difficult not to think about the impression which they will produce on men and not to form them accordingly. But deeds you can do quite unknown to men, only for God. And such deeds are the greatest joy that a man can experience.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Deeds, Good Deeds, Goodness

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 Tolstoy
Topics: Hypocrisy

The subject of history is the life of peoples and of humanity. To catch and pin down in words—that is, to describe directly the life, not only of humanity, but even of a single people, appears to be impossible.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: History

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.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Love, Understanding, Romance

The simplest and shortest ethical precept is to be served as little as possible . . . and to serve others as much as possible.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Ethics

Boredom: the desire for desires.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Bores, Boredom, Desire, One liners

Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Gold, Growth, Truth

It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Beauty

Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Sorrow

To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can’t eat it.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Arts, Artists, Art

True life is lived when tiny changes occur.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Change

A Gentleman is a man who will pay his gambling debts even when he knows he has been cheated.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Gambling

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.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Writing, Writers, Authors & Writing

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.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Peace

To tell the truth is the same as to be a good tailor, or to be a good farmer, or to write beautifully. To be good at any activity requires practice: no matter how hard you try, you cannot do naturally what you have not done repeatedly. In order to get accustomed to speaking the truth, you should tell only the truth, even in the smallest of things.
—Leo Tolstoy

Man is meant for happiness and this happiness is in him, in the satisfaction of the daily needs of his existence.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Happiness

Faith is the force of life.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Belief, Faith

The greatest truth is the most simple one.
—Leo Tolstoy

We should show life neither as it is nor as it ought to be, but only as we see it in our dreams.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Dreams

Drama, instead of telling us the whole of a man’s life, must place him in such a situation, tie such a knot, that when it is untied, the whole man is visible.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Writing

The kinder and the more thoughtful a person is, the more kindness he can find in other people.
—Leo Tolstoy

Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Purpose

The best generals I have known were… stupid or absent-minded men. Not only does a good army commander not need any special qualities, on the contrary he needs the absence of the highest and best human attributes—love, poetry, tenderness, and philosophic inquiring doubt. He should be limited, firmly convinced that what he is doing is very important (otherwise he will not have sufficient patience), and only then will he be a brave leader. God forbid that he should be humane, should love, or pity, or think of what is just and unjust.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: The Military

Music is the shorthand of emotion.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Music, Emotions

We lost because we told ourselves we lost.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Attitude

Some mathematician has said pleasure lies not in discovering truth, but in seeking it.
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Pleasure

Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us
—Leo Tolstoy
Topics: Government