Leo Tolstoy Quotes
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One can insult an honest man or an honest woman, but to tell a thief that he is a thief is merely la constation d'un fait The establishing of a fact.
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In life, in true life, there can be nothing better than what is. Wanting something different than what is, is blasphemy.
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When the woman showed her love for the children that were not her own, and wept over them, I saw in her the living God, and understood What men live by.
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He knew she was there by the joy and fear that overwhelmed his heart.
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Service of the people by sciences and arts will only exist when men live with the people and as the people live, and without presenting any claims will offer their scientific and artistic services, which the people will be free to accept or decline as they please.
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It is often better for a person to recognize a sin than to do a good deed. Recognizing a sin makes a person humble. Doing a good deed often can feed a person’s pride.
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One is ashamed to say how little is needed for all men to be delivered from those calamities which now oppress them; it is only needful not to lie.
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Understand then all of you, especially the young, that to want to impose an imaginary state of government on others by violence is not only a vulgar superstition, but even a criminal work. Understand that this work, far from assuring the well-being of humanity is only a lie, a more or less unconscious hypocrisy, camouflaging the lowest passions we posses.
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Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.
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Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait.
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As soon as men live entirely in accord with the law of love natural to their hearts and now revealed to them, which excludes all resistance by violence, and therefore hold aloof from all participation in violence - as soon as this happens, not only will hundreds be unable to enslave millions, but not even millions will be able to enslave a single individual.
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A king is history's slave.
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The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens … Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere.
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The only thing that we know is that we know nothing - and that is the highest flight of human wisdom.
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All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.
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All state obligations are against the conscience of a Christian: the oath of allegiance, taxes, law proceedings and military service.
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Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here.
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There can be only one permanent revolution - a moral one; the regeneration of the inner man. How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself.
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The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.
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The Churches as Churches have always been and cannot fail to be institutions not only alien to, but directly hostile towards, Christ's teaching.
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Science has adapted itself entirely to the wealthy classes and accordingly has set itself to heal those who can afford everything, and it prescribes the same methods for those who have nothing to spare.
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The revolutionaries say: 'The government organization is bad in this and that respect; it must be destroyed and replaced by this and that.' But a Christian says: 'I know nothing about the governmental organization, or in how far it is good or bad, and for the same reason I do not want to support it.'
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If a poor person envies a rich person, he is no better than the rich person.
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A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.