Leo Tolstoy Quotes

“If no one fought except on his own conviction, there would be no wars,”
― Leo Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Novels and Novellas

“In my opinion, it is in the smile of a face that the essence of what we call beauty lies. If the smile heightens the charm of the face, then the face is a beautiful one. If the smile does not alter the face, then the face is an ordinary one. But if the smile spoils the face, then the face is an ugly one indeed. Mamma”
― Leo Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Novels and Novellas

“For an instant her face fell, and the mocking gleam in her eyes died away; but the word love threw her into revolt again. She thought: “Love? Can he love? If he hadn’t heard there was such a thing as love, he would never have used the word. He doesn’t even know what love is.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Novels and Novellas

“She had not time to undo, and so carried back with her, the parcel of toys she had chosen the day before in a toy shop with such love and sorrow.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Novels and Novellas

“His mental sufferings were due to the fact that that night, as he looked at Gerasim’s sleepy, good-natured face with it prominent cheek-bones, the question suddenly occurred to him: “What if my whole life has been wrong?”
― Leo Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Novels and Novellas

“The moral nature of man is more tenacious of life than the physical, and grief never kills.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Novels and Novellas

“A dog asked a donkey to eat with him and gave him meat, the donkey asked the dog and gave him hay: they both went hungry.’ He smiled. ‘Every people finds its own ways good.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Novels and Novellas

“If you deal carelessly with bees you will injure them, and will yourself be injured. And so with men. It cannot be otherwise, because natural love is the fundamental law of human life. It is true that a man cannot force another to love him, as he can force him to work for him; but it does not follow that a man may deal with men without love, especially to demand anything from them. If you feel no love, sit still,” Nekhludoff thought; “occupy yourself with things, with yourself, with anything you like, only not with men. You can only eat without injuring yourself when you feel inclined to eat, so you can only deal with men usefully when you love. Only let yourself deal with a man without love, as I did yesterday with my brother-in-law, and there are no limits to the suffering you will bring on yourself, as all my life proves. Yes, yes, it is so,” thought Nekhludoff; “it is good; yes, it is good,”
― Leo Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Novels and Novellas

“but a new feeling of love for my children and the father of my children laid the foundation of a new life and a quite different happiness; and that life and happiness have lasted to the present time.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Novels and Novellas

“I strove to shatter and destroy that love, which had come to torture me. I did not destroy it, but I destroyed that part of it which gave me pain. Then I grew calm; and I feel love still, but it is a different kind of love.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Novels and Novellas

“when clear sunlight illuminates everything, yet sheds no warmth, when rivulets run trickling under one’s feet, when the air is charged with an odorous freshness, and when the bright blue sky is streaked with long, transparent clouds.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Novels and Novellas

“I never could understand the fondness some people have for confusing their minds by dwelling on mystical books that merely awaken their doubts and excite their imagination, giving them a bent for exaggeration quite contrary to Christian simplicity.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Novels and Novellas

“Ah, if we had not religion to console us life would be very sad.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Novels and Novellas

“At nighttime in the moon’s fair glow How sweet, as fancies wander free, To feel that in this world there’s one Who still is thinking but of thee!”
― Leo Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Novels and Novellas

“People are always too clever with their eldest children and try to make something exceptional of them,”
― Leo Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Novels and Novellas

“Never, never marry, my dear fellow! That’s my advice: never marry till you can say to yourself that you have done all you are capable of, and until you have ceased to love the woman of your choice and have seen her plainly as she is, or else you will make a cruel and irrevocable mistake. Marry when you are old and good for nothing—or all that is good and noble in you will be lost. It will all be wasted on trifles.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Novels and Novellas