Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828-1910), usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time.
Leo Tolstoy Quotes
Train yourself to be indifferent to false claims about you. Without such indifference you can’t be free.
—Leo Tolstoy
There’s no governmental system that can correct evil as long as people remain as they are now.
—Leo Tolstoy
Death waits for no one and nothing. Therefore, there’s nothing more important in this world for you than what you’re doing right now.
—Leo Tolstoy
Every time you wake up ask yourself: what good shall I accomplish today?
—Leo Tolstoy
Social life is based on consciousness, not science. If there’s no honesty, no respect for truth, no respect for responsibilities, no love of one’s neighbor—in a word, if there’s no virtue—everything is in danger, everything crumbles.
—Leo Tolstoy
Nothing will beautify your life and the life of others like establishing kindness as a habit.
—Leo Tolstoy
I’m ashamed to recall how often I failed to live according to my conscience and instead submitted to foolish customs and rules that everyone else accepts.
—Leo Tolstoy
What lies within you is far more vital for your happiness than what you own.
—Leo Tolstoy
Bad people who can corrupt us don’t harm us as much as the mindless mob, which pulls us in like a tide.
—Leo Tolstoy
True compassion begins only when you imagine yourself in the place of the person who’s suffering and experience true pain.
—Leo Tolstoy
Just as all the water will flow out of a barrel if there’s so much as one little hole in it, so all the joy of love will drain out of your soul if in your soul there is enmity toward so much as a single person.
—Leo Tolstoy
Don’t fear ignorance, don’t fear doubt, don’t fear studying, fear one thing: asserting that you know what you don’t.
—Leo Tolstoy
Love—not love toward a specific person but the spiritual condition of readiness to love everything—is the only condition in which we are conscious of the true spiritual source of our souls.
—Leo Tolstoy
You should speak without thinking about what you’re going to say only when you feel calm, kind, and sympathetic. If you’re agitated and annoyed, beware of saying something harmful.
—Leo Tolstoy
Remember that the same spirit that lives in you lives in every other person, and therefore don’t just love but honor as holy the soul of every person as much as your own.
—Leo Tolstoy
After a long conversation, try to remember all that was said and you’ll be astonished by how empty, unnecessary, and often bad it all was.
—Leo Tolstoy
In order to live by its own law, a bird must fly, a snake must crawl, a fish must swim, and a man must love. Therefore, if instead of loving people a man does evil to them, he behaves as strangely as a bird that tries to swim or a fish that tries to fly.
—Leo Tolstoy
In order not to commit evil acts, you must learn to restrain yourself from unkind conversation and most of all from unkind thoughts.
—Leo Tolstoy
It doesn’t cost anything to be honest, but without honesty people can’t have good lives.
—Leo Tolstoy
True religion needs no churches. Church religion is slavery.
—Leo Tolstoy
There’s no kind of external organization of the world, no sort of external laws and regulations that can change the life of the world; only the inner effort of each individual can.
—Leo Tolstoy
Live so that you neither fear death nor desire it.
—Leo Tolstoy
People who submit to a single leader, who believe and listen to him, most assuredly wander in the dark along with their leader.
—Leo Tolstoy
Truly good people don’t expect rewards for their good deeds. They forget about them the way a person forgets about his breathing.
—Leo Tolstoy
He who listens attentively, questions rationally, answers calmly and stops talking when he has nothing more to say is in command of the qualities that are most needed in life. Johann Lavater
—Leo Tolstoy
You can kill a person who speaks the truth, but once spoken the truth remains.
—Leo Tolstoy
Changes in our lives always come about through changes in our thoughts. Therefore effort to change our thoughts is far more important than the effort we exert to change our physical lives.
—Leo Tolstoy
If you simply talk to a person and look clearly into his eyes, you’ll feel that he’s related to you and that you’ve known him for a long time. Why? Because that which gives us life is the same in you and in him and in all people.
—Leo Tolstoy
We’re inseparably united not only with all people, but with all living things.
—Leo Tolstoy
Wean yourself from using your words to condemn others and you’ll feel an increase in your ability to live in your soul; you’ll feel an increase in life and happiness.
—Leo Tolstoy