49 sensational Lev Tolstoy quotes to remember

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Lev Tolstoy was one of the greatest writers of all time; born in Russia in September 1828, Tolstoy’s full name was ‘Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy’. And he first achieved success in the writing world during his twenties, when he published a trilogy of novels: ‘Childhood’, ‘Boyhood’ and ‘Youth’. Today, he’s best known for the following novels: War & Peace and Anna Karenina.

Below there is a collection of the best Lev Tolstoy quotes.

“A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator the smaller the fraction.”
“All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.”
“Everyone thinks of transforming the world, but no one thinks of transforming himself.”
“I think… if it is true that there are as many consciences as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.”
“If, then, I were asked for the most important advice I could give, that which I considered to be the most useful to the men of our century, I should simply say: in the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.”
“Just as one candle lights another and can light thousands of other candles, so one heart illuminates another heart and can illuminate thousands of other hearts.”
“Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.”
“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 aspect we are interested in here.”
“The only thing that we know is that we know nothing and that is the highest flight of human wisdom.”
“True life is lived when tiny transformations occur.”
“Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.”
“A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor – such is my idea of happiness.”
“And all people live, Not by reason of any care they have for themselves, But by the love for them that is in other people.”
“Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their consciences without prejudice and without fearing to understand aspects that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of conscience is not common, but it is essential for right thinking…”
“I’ve always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be.”
“The most important knowledge is that which guides the way you lead your life.”
“Life could be limitless joy, if we would only take it for what it is, in the way it is given to us.”
“Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself.”
“Some mathematician said: ‘Pleasure lies not in discovering truth, but in seeking it.’”

“The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.”
“Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.”
“Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.”
“A truly wise man is always joyful.”
“Anything is better than lies and deceit!”
“Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.”
“If there existed no external means for dimming their consciences, one-half of the men would at once shoot themselves, because to live contrary to one’s reason is a most intolerable state, and all men of our time are in such a state.”
“Is it really possible to tell someone else what one feels?”
“Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women.”
“Pay bad people with your goodness; fight their hatred with you kindness. Even if you do not achieve victory over other people, you will conquer yourself.”
“Spring is the time of plans and projects.”
“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”
“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”
“All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
“There is something in the human spirit that will survive and prevail, there is a tiny and brilliant light burning in the heart of man that will not go out no matter how dark the world becomes.”
“He stepped down, pursuing not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.”
“If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.”
“It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.”
“One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love.”
“Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.”
“The transformations in our life is necessary to come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience not from our rational resolution to pursue a new form of life.”
“There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.”
“We lost because we told ourselves we lost.”
“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.”
“Boredom: the desire for desires.”
“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 all possible means – except by getting off his back.”
“If you want to be happy, be.”
“Joy can only be real if people look upon their life as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.”
“One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken.”
“Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed.”

yogesoteric
September 27, 2021

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