Top 500 Leo Tolstoy Quotes (2022 Update)

1. “If you want to be happy, be.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Featured in: Happiness Quotes

2. “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Featured in: Patience Quotes

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

— Leo Tolstoy

Featured in: Change Quotes

4. “In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.”

— Leo Tolstoy

5. “The strongest of all warriors are these two – Time and Patience.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Featured in: Patience Quotes

6. “We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”

— Leo Tolstoy

7. “When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you'd like them to be.”

— Leo Tolstoy

8. “We are asleep until we fall in love.”

— Leo Tolstoy

9. “Love is the only way to rescue humanity from all ills.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Featured in: Quotes About Humanity, Love Is Quotes

10. “Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.”

— Leo Tolstoy

11. “If you look for perfection, you'll never be content.”

— Leo Tolstoy

12. “The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Featured in: Quotes About Humanity

13. “Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.”

— Leo Tolstoy

14. “Boredom: the desire for desires.”

— Leo Tolstoy

15. “Happy people have no history.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Featured in: History Quotes, Quotes About People

16. “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.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Featured in: Math Quotes

17. “Music is the shorthand of emotion.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Featured in: Music Quotes

18. “What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are but how you deal with incompatibility.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Featured in: Relationship Quotes, Marriage Quotes, Love You Quotes

19. “If you’re not enjoying your work, you should either change your attitude, or change your job.”

— Leo Tolstoy

20. “He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Featured in: Romance Quotes, Romantic Quotes

21. “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.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Featured in: Important Quotes

22. “Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow – that is patience. The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Featured in: Patience Quotes, Powerful Quotes

23. “It's hard to love a woman and do anything.”

— Leo Tolstoy

24. “All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.”

— Leo Tolstoy

25. “The most important time is Now.”

— Leo Tolstoy

26. “Read less, study less, but think more.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Featured in: Study Quotes

27. “If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed.”

— Leo Tolstoy

28. “The key to success in life is using the good thoughts of wise people.”

— Leo Tolstoy

29. “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.”

— Leo Tolstoy

30. “There are no conditions to which a person cannot grow accustomed, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives in the same way.”

— Leo Tolstoy

31. “The only purpose of education is freedom; the only method is experience.”

— Leo Tolstoy

32. “Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Featured in: Quotes About Waiting

33. “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.”

— Leo Tolstoy

34. “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.”

— Leo Tolstoy

35. “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.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Featured in: Health Quotes, Quotes About Veganism

36. “As long as there are slaughter houses there will always be battlefields.”

— Leo Tolstoy

37. “Many people have ideas on how others should change; few people have ideas on how they should change.”

— Leo Tolstoy

38. “It is not enough to be a hardworking person. Think: what do you work at?”

— Leo Tolstoy

39. “It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.”

— Leo Tolstoy

40. “Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Featured in: Quotes About Trust, Truth Quotes

41. “Let us forgive each other – only then will we live in peace.”

— Leo Tolstoy

42. “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.”

— Leo Tolstoy

43. “Life is fragile and absurd.”

— Leo Tolstoy

44. “Every lie is a poison; there are no harmless lies. Only the truth is safe. Only the truth gives me consolation – it is the one unbreakable diamond.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Featured in: Truth Quotes

45. “The legislation of Quran will spread all over the world, because it agrees with the mind, logic and wisdom.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Featured in: Mind Quotes, Quotes About World

46. “In the midst of winter, I find within me the invisible summer...”

— Leo Tolstoy

Featured in: Summer Quotes

47. “Each person’s task in life is to become an increasingly better person.”

— Leo Tolstoy

48. “Upon meeting, you’re judged by your clothes, upon parting you’re judged by your wits.”

— Leo Tolstoy

49. “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.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Featured in: Love You Quotes

50. “Perfection is impossible without humility. Why should I strive for perfection, if I am already good enough?”

— Leo Tolstoy

Featured in: Perfection Quotes, Humility Quotes