A List of Famous Tolstoi Quotes

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

Everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.

There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness and truth.

All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.

It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.

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 happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.

Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised.

He never chooses an opinion, he just wears whatever happens to be in style.

There is only one time that is important -- NOW! It is the most important time because it is the only time hat we have any power.

True life is lived when tiny changes occur.

Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.

To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can't eat it.

Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity.

The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life.

The chief difference between words and deeds is that words are always intended for men for their approbation, but deeds can be done only for God.

I am always with myself and it is I who am my tormentor.

Christianity, with its doctrine of humility, of forgiveness, of love, is incompatible with the state, with its haughtiness, its violence, its punishment and its wars.

The only thing that we know is that we know nothing and that is the highest flight of human wisdom.

True science investigates and brings to human perception such truths and such knowledge as the people of a given time and society consider most important. Art transmits these truths from the region of perception to the region of emotion.

Joy can be real only if people look on their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.