Leo Tolstoy Quotes
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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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All state obligations are against the conscience of a Christian: the oath of allegiance, taxes, law proceedings and military service.
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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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In the spiritual realm nothing is indifferent: what is not useful is harmful.
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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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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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He knew she was there by the joy and fear that overwhelmed his heart.
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Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait.
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The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.
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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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You will die - and it will all be over. You will die and find out everything - or cease asking.
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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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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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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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A king is history's slave.
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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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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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The only thing that we know is that we know nothing - and that is the highest flight of human wisdom.
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Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.
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If one has no vanity in this life of ours, there is no sufficient reason for living.
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The only significance of life consists in helping to establish the kingdom of God; and this can be done only by means of the acknowledgment and profession of the truth by each one of us.
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An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person’s main task in life-becoming a better person.
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For us, with the rule of right and wrong given us by Christ, there is nothing for which we have no standard. And there is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.
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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.