Leo Tolstoy Quotes
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People try to do all sorts of clever and difficult things to improve life instead of doing the simplest, easiest thing-refusing to participate in activities that make life bad.
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When a person inflates his own importance, he does not see his own sins; and his sins get bigger right along with him.
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Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one consciously, by means of certain external symbols, conveys to others the feelings one has experienced, whereby people so infected by these feelings, also experience them.
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Amid this life based on coercion, one and the same thought constantly emerged among different nations, namely, that in every individual a spiritual element is manifested that gives life to all that exists, and that this spiritual element strives to unite with everything of a like nature to itself, and attains this aim through love.
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The compassionate are not rich; therefore, the rich are not compassionate.
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Настоящее произведение искусства делает то, что в сознании воспринимающего уничтожается разделение между ним и художником...
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It is remarkable that since Nekhludoff understood that he was disgusted with himself, others ceased to be repulsive to him.
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Six feet of land was all that he needed.
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History is the life of nations and of humanity. To seize and put into words, to describe directly the life of humanity or even of a single nation, appears impossible.
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In Nekhludoff, as in all people, there were two beings; one spiritual, who sought only such happiness for himself as also benefited others; and the animal being, seeking his own happiness for the sake of which he is willing to sacrifice that of the world.
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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 through words, so to convey this so that others may experience the same feeling - this is the activity of art.
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Giving alms is only a virtuous deed when you give money that you yourself worked to get.
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Armies are necessary, before all things, for the defense of governments from their own oppressed and enslaved subjects.
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The activity of art is... as important as the activity of language itself, and as universal.
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Wealth is a great sin in the eyes of God. Poverty is a great sin in the eyes of man.
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My reason will still not understand why I pray, but I shall still pray, and my life, my whole life, independently of anything that may happen to me, is every moment of it no longer meaningless as it was before, but has an unquestionable meaning of goodness with which I have the power to invest it.'
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The oppression of a majority by a minority, and the demoralization inevitably resulting from it, is a phenomenon that has always occupied me and has done so most particularly of late.
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A real mother, who knows the will of God by experience, will prepare her children also to fulfil it. Such a mother will suffer if she sees her child overfed, effeminate, and dressed-up, for she knows that these things will make it difficult for it to fulfil the will of God which she recognizes.
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Science is meaningless because it gives no answer to our question, the only question important for us: 'what shall we do and how shall we live
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Division of labor is a justification for sloth.
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Do not resist the evil-doer and take no part in doing so, either in the violent deeds of the administration, in the law courts, the collection of taxes, or above all in soldiering, and no one in the world will be able to enslave you.
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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 any means possible, except getting off his back.
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The appreciation of the merits of art (of the emotions it conveys) depends upon an understanding of the meaning of life, what is seen as good and evil. Good and evil are defined by religions.
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The strongest of all warriors are these two - Time and Patience.