Top 500 Leo Tolstoy Quotes (2025 Update)
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351. “Always the same. Now a spark of hope flashes up, then a sea of despair rages, and always pain; always pain, always despair, and always the same.”

— Leo Tolstoy

352. “The greater the state, the more wrong and cruel its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power is founded.”

— Leo Tolstoy

353. “With friends, one is well; but at home, one is better.”

— Leo Tolstoy

354. “A Christian cannot help being free, because in the pursuit and attainment of his object, no one can either hinder or retard him.”

— Leo Tolstoy

355. “And the angel said – “I have learned that every man lives not through care of himself, but by love”...”

— Leo Tolstoy

356. “Progress consists only in the greater clarification of answers to the basic questions of life.”

— Leo Tolstoy

357. “And not only the pride of intellect, but the stupidity of intellect. And, above all, the dishonesty, yes, the dishonesty of intellect. Yes, indeed, the dishonesty and trickery of intellect.”

— Leo Tolstoy

358. “You say: I am not free. But I have raised and lowered my arm. Everyone understands that this illogical answer is an irrefutable proof of freedom.”

— Leo Tolstoy

359. “The great tragedy of atheists is that they walk through this world and have no one to thank.”

— Leo Tolstoy

360. “God is that infinite All of which man knows himself to be a finite part.”

— Leo Tolstoy

361. “It may be suggested by some books that it is not a sin to kill an animal, but it is written in our own hearts – more clearly than in any book – that we should take pity on animals in the same way as we do on humans.”

— Leo Tolstoy

362. “Do not resist the evil-doer and take no part in doing so, either in the violent deeds of the administration, in the law courts, the collection of taxes, or above all in soldiering, and no one in the world will be able to enslave you.”

— Leo Tolstoy

363. “To regard Christ as God, and to pray to him, are to my mind the greatest possible sacrilege.”

— Leo Tolstoy

364. “The best thoughts most often come in the morning after waking, while still in bed or while walking.”

— Leo Tolstoy

365. “You can’t imagine what a pleasure this complete laziness is to me: not a thought in my brain- you might send a ball rolling through it!”

— Leo Tolstoy

366. “I feel not only that I cannot disappear, as nothing disappears in the world, but that I will always be and have always been. I feel that, besides me, above me, spirits live, and that in this world there is truth.”

— Leo Tolstoy

367. “These joys were so trifling as to be as imperceptible as grains of gold among the sand, and in moments of depression she saw nothing but the sand; yet there were brighter moments when she felt nothing but joy, saw nothing but the gold.”

— Leo Tolstoy

368. “Man’s mind cannot grasp the causes of events in their completeness, but the desire to find the causes is implanted in man’s soul.”

— Leo Tolstoy

369. “People involve themselves in countless activities which they consider to be important, but they forget about one activity which is more important and necessary than any other, and which includes all other things: the improvement of their soul.”

— Leo Tolstoy

370. “Art begins when a man, with a purpose of communicating to other people a feeling he once experienced, calls it up again within himself and expresses it by certain external signs.”

— Leo Tolstoy

371. “Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.”

— Leo Tolstoy

372. “War is not a polite recreation but the vilest thing in life, and we ought to understand that and not play at war.”

— Leo Tolstoy

373. “He was afraid of defiling the love which filled his soul.”

— Leo Tolstoy

374. “He liked fishing and seemed to take pride in being able to like such a stupid occupation.”

— Leo Tolstoy

375. “Life consists in penetrating the unknown, and fashioning our actions in accord with the new knowledge thus acquired.”

— Leo Tolstoy

376. “People of limited intelligence are fond of talking about “these days,” imagining that they have discovered and appraised the peculiarities of “these days” and that human nature changes with the times.”

— Leo Tolstoy

377. “If a man does not work at necessary and good things, then he will work at unnecessary and stupid things.”

— Leo Tolstoy

378. “Where is there any book of the law so clear to each man as that written in his heart?”

— Leo Tolstoy

379. “He sought his former accustomed fear of death and did not find it. “Where is it? What death?” There was no fear because there was no death. In place of death there was light.”

— Leo Tolstoy

380. “If religion is the establishing of a relationship between man and the universe, then morality is the explanation of those activities that automatically result when a person maintains a relationship to the universe.”

— Leo Tolstoy

381. “I can’t think of you and myself apart. You and I are the same to me.”

— Leo Tolstoy

382. “If you no longer believe in the God in whom you believed in before, this comes from the fact that there was something wrong with your belief, and you must strive to understand better that which you call God.”

— Leo Tolstoy

383. “He felt that he was himself and did not wish to be anyone else. He only wished now to be better than he had been formerly.”

— Leo Tolstoy

384. “The life of our class, of the wealthy and the learned, was not only repulsive to me but had lost all meaning. The sum of our action and thinking, of our science and art, all of it struck me as the overindulgences of a spoiled child.”

— Leo Tolstoy

385. “The military world is characterized by the absence of freedom – in other words, a rigorous discipline-enforced inactivity, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery and drunkenness.”

— Leo Tolstoy

386. “But that’s just the aim of civilization – to make everything a source of enjoyment.”

— Leo Tolstoy

387. “God gave the day, God gave the strength.”

— Leo Tolstoy

388. “The ideas of the wise have been tested by centuries. Everything medium is lost and only original, deep and useful things are left.”

— Leo Tolstoy

389. “The improvement of life was only accomplished to the extent to which it was based on a change of consciousness, that is, to the extent to which the law of violence was replaced in men’s consciousness by the law of love.”

— Leo Tolstoy

390. “We should show life neither as it is or as it ought to be, but only as we see it in our dreams.”

— Leo Tolstoy

391. “Levin scowled. The humiliation of his rejection stung him to the heart, as though it were a fresh wound he had only just received. But he was at home, and at home the very walls are a support.”

— Leo Tolstoy

392. “The subject of history is the life of peoples and mankind.”

— Leo Tolstoy

393. “Giving alms is only a virtuous deed when you give money that you yourself worked to get.”

— Leo Tolstoy

394. “Good fiction doesn’t come out of the basic conflict of good versus bad. Instead, it comes out of a conflict between good and good.”

— Leo Tolstoy

395. “It seems as though mankind has forgotten the laws of its divine Saviour, Who preached love and forgiveness of injuries – and that men attribute the greatest merit to skill in killing one another.”

— Leo Tolstoy

396. “We are all created to be miserable, and that we all know it, and all invent means of deceiving each other. And when one sees the truth, what is one to do?”

— Leo Tolstoy

397. “There are always so many conjectures as to the issue of any event that, whatever the outcome, there will always be people to say: ‘I said then that it would be so’”

— Leo Tolstoy

398. “To educate the peasantry, three things are needed: schools, schools and schools.”

— Leo Tolstoy

399. “Power is the relation of a given person to other persons, in which the more this person expresses opinions, theories and justifications of the collective action the less is his participation in that action.”

— Leo Tolstoy

400. “There is no significant idea which cannot be explained to an intelligent twelve year old boy in fifteen minutes.”

— Leo Tolstoy