Lev Tolstoy

Russia
9 Sep 1828 // 20 Nov 1910
Writer

Quotes

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If you want to be happy, be
If so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love
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
Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them
Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself
Boredom: the desire for desires
Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced
All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love
All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do
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On Anger: "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."
Essays
On Destiny: "Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today."
Human, All Too Human
On Friendship: "A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."
Essays