Quotes by Leo Tolstoy

About Leo Tolstoy:

Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian novelist regarded as one of the greatest of all time.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

What she did not know, and would never have believed, was that though her soul seemed to have been grown over with an impenetrable layer of mould, some delicate blades of grass, young and tender, were already pushing their way upwards, destined to ta...

Leo Tolstoy

He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died.

Leo Tolstoy

Rostov kept thinking about that brilliant feat of his, which, to his surprise, had gained him the St. George Cross and even given him the reputation of a brave man - and there was something in it that he was unable to understand. "So they're even mor...

Leo Tolstoy

The subject of history is the life of peoples and mankind.

Leo Tolstoy

What is the cause of historical events? Power. What is power? Power is the sum total of wills transferred to one person. On what condition are the willso fo the masses transferred to one person? On condition that the person express the will of the wh...

Leo Tolstoy

War is the most painful act of subjection to the laws of God that can be required of the human will.

Leo Tolstoy

Man lives consciously for himself but unconsciously he serves as an instrument for the accomplishment of historical and social ends.

Leo Tolstoy

Every monarch in the world, except the Emperor of China, wears a military uniform, and bestows the greatest rewards on the man who kills the greatest number of his fellow-creatures.

Leo Tolstoy

Only by assuming an infinitesimally small unit for observation - a differential of history (that is, the common tendencies of men) - and arriving at the art of integration (finding the sum of the infinitesimals) can we hope to discover the laws of hi...

Leo Tolstoy

In historical events great men - so-called - are but labels serving to give a name to the event, and like labels they have the least possible connexion with the event itself.

Leo Tolstoy

There are two sides to the life of every man: there is his individual existence which is free in proportion as his interests are abstract; and his elemental life as a unit in the human swarm, in which he must inevitably obey the laws laid down for hi...

Leo Tolstoy

We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.

Leo Tolstoy

There are such repulsive faces in the world.

Leo Tolstoy

Davout looked up and gazed intently at him. For some seconds they looked at one another, and that look saved Pierre. Apart from conditions of war and law, that look established human relations between the two men. At that moment an immense number of ...

Leo Tolstoy

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

Leo Tolstoy

Man lives consciously for himself, but serves as an unconscious instrument for the achievement of historical, universally human goals.

Leo Tolstoy

You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love.

Leo Tolstoy

Life did not stop, and one had to live.

Leo Tolstoy

A battle is won by him who is firmly resolved to win it.

Leo Tolstoy

It is beyond the power of the human intellect to encompass all the causes of any phenomenon. But the impulse to search into causes is inherent in man's very nature.

Leo Tolstoy

Pierre had for the first time experienced that strange and fascinating feeling in the Slobodsky palace, when he suddenly felt that wealth and power and life, all that men build up and guard with such effort ,is only worth anything through the joy wit...

Leo Tolstoy

Author Bio

  • NameLeo Tolstoy
  • DescriptionRussian writer
  • AliasesTolstoi; Tolstoy
  • BornAugust 28, 1828
  • DiedNovember 7, 1910
  • CountryRussian Empire
  • ProfessionWriter; Playwright; Philosopher; Novelist; Esperantist; Children's Writer; Educationist
  • WorksWar And Peace; Anna Karenina; A Confession; The Kingdom Of God Is Within You; Sebastopol Sketches; What Is Art?; What Is To Be Done?; Boyhood; Childhood; The Cossacks; The Death Of Ivan Ilyich; Family Happiness; Hadji Murat; The Kreutzer Sonata; Resurrection; The Forged Coupon; Youth; The Fruits Of Enlightenment; The Light Shines In The Darkness; The Living Corpse; The Power Of Darkness; The Devil; Albert; Alyosha The Pot; The Big Oven; Croesus And Fate; Father Sergius; God Sees The Truth, But Waits; The Grain; How Much Land Does A Man Need?; Ivan The Fool (story); Kholstomer; A Lost Opportunity; Master And Man; Promoting A Devil; Quench The Spark; The Raid; Repentance; The Snowstorm; The Three Hermits; Three Deaths; The Three Questions; Too Dear!; What Men Live By; Where Love Is, God Is; Wisdom Of Children; Work, Death, And Sickness