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

In the midst of winter, I find within me the invisible summer...

Leo Tolstoy

The sanctification of political power by Christianity is blasphemy; it is the negation of Christianity.

Leo Tolstoy

Because of the self-confidence with which he had spoken, no one could tell whether what he said was very clever or very stupid.

Leo Tolstoy

To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others may experience the same feeling - this is...

Leo Tolstoy

The business of art lies just in this, -- to make that understood and felt which, in the form of an argument, might be incomprehensible and inaccessible.

Leo Tolstoy

It never before happened that the rich ruling and more educated minority, which has the most influence on the masses, not only disbelieved the existing religion but was convinced that no religion is no longer needed.

Leo Tolstoy

He never chooses an opinion, he just wears whatever happens to be in style.

Leo Tolstoy

A man's every action is inevitably conditioned by what surrounds him and by his own body.

Leo Tolstoy

A battle is won by the side that is absolutely determined to win. Why did we lose the battle of Austerlitz? Our casualties were about the same as those of the French, but we had told ourselves early in the day that the battle was lost, so it was lost...

Leo Tolstoy

To us, it is incomprehensible that millions of Christian men killed and tortured each other because Napoleon was ambitious or Alexander was firm, or because England's policy was astute or the Duke of Oldenburg was wronged. We cannot grasp what connec...

Leo Tolstoy

Every man had his personal habits, passions, and impulses toward goodness, beauty, and truth.

Leo Tolstoy

But the princess had never seen the beautiful expression of her eyes; the expression that came into them when she was not thinking of herself. As is the case with everyone, her face assumed an affected, unnatural, ugly expression as soon as she looke...

Leo Tolstoy

Her eyes, always sad, now looked into the mirror with particular hopelessness. "She's flattering me," thought the princess, and she turned away and went on reading. Julie, however, was not flattering her friend: indeed, the princess's eyes, large, de...

Leo Tolstoy

The old oak, utterly transformed, draped in a tent of sappy dark green, basked faintly, undulating in the rays of the evening sun. Of the knotted fingers, the gnarled excrecenses, the aged grief and mistrust- nothing was to be seen. Through the rough...

Leo Tolstoy

...there was apparent in all a sort of anxiety, a softening of the heart, and a consciousness of some great, unfathomable mystery being accomplished... the most solemn mystery in the world was being accomplished. Evening passed, night came on. And th...

Leo Tolstoy

It's too easy to criticize a man when he's out of favour, and to make him shoulder the blame for everybody else's mistakes.

Leo Tolstoy

Sitting in his old schoolroom on the sofa with little cushions on the arms and looking into Natasha's wildly eager eyes, Rostov was carried back into that world of home and childhood which had no meaning for anyone else, but gave him some of the grea...

Leo Tolstoy

Spiritual activity, education, civilization, culture, the idea are all vague, indefinite concepts, under the banner of which it is quite convenient to use words that have a still less clear meaning and therefore can easily be plugged into any theory.

Leo Tolstoy

...but most of all he liked to listen to stories of real life. He smiled gleefully as he listened to such stories, putting in words and asking questions, all aiming at bringing out clearly the moral beauty of the action of which he was told. Attachme...

Leo Tolstoy

This history of culture will explain to us the motives, the conditions of life, and the thought of the writer or reformer.

Leo Tolstoy

At the advent of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal force in the human heart: one very reasonably invites a man to consider the nature of the peril and the means of escaping it; the other, with a still greater show of reason, ar...

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