“A better life can only come when the consciousness of men is altered for the better; and
therefore, those who wish to improve life must direct all their efforts towards changing both
their own and other people’s consciousness.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The more is given the less the people will work for themselves, and the less they work the
more their poverty will increase.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In his Petersburg world all people were divided into utterly opposed classes. One, the
lower class, vulgar, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people, who believe that one husband
ought to live with the one wife whom he has lawfully married; that a girl should be innocent, a
woman modest, and a man manly, self-controlled, and strong; that one ought to bring up one's
children, earn one's bread, and pay one's debts; and various similar absurdities. This was the
class of old-fashioned and ridiculous people. But there was another class of people, the real
people. To this class they all belonged, and in it the great thing was to be elegant, generous,
plucky, gay, to abandon oneself without a blush to every passion, and to laugh at everything
else.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The same talk, the same thoughts, and always about the same things! And they are all
satisfied and confident that it should be so, and will go on living like that till they die.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“True life is lived when tiny changes occur.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“She did worse than break the law, she broke the rules”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“the chief if not the sole cause of the enslavement of the Indian peoples by the English lies
in this very absence of a religious consciousness and of the guidance for conduct which
should flow from it—a lack common in our day to all nations East and West, from Japan to
England and America alike.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Do not seek quiet and rest in those earthly realms where delusions and desires are
engendered, for if thou dost, thou wilt be dragged through the rough wilderness of life, which is
far from Me.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In order to undertake anything in family life, it is necessary that there be either complete
discord between the spouses or loving harmony.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Man must not check reason by tradition, but contrariwise, must check tradition by reason.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What energy!' I thought. 'Man has conquered everything, and destroyed millions of plants,
yet this one won't submit.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In order to understand, observe, deduce, man must first be conscious of himself as alive
―
Leo Tolstoy
“To tell the truth is very difficult, and young people are rarely capable of it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When Levin thought what he was and what he was living for, he could find no answer to
the questions and was reduced to despair; but when he left off questioning himself about it, it
seemed as though he knew both what he was and what he was living for, acting and living
resolutely and without hesitation.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
