Leo Tolstoy Quotes

1. Honest work is much better than a mansion.
    
2. The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.
    
3. I sit on a man's back, choking him, and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by any means possible, except getting off his back.
    
4. The only thing that we know is that we know nothing — and that is the highest flight of human wisdom.
    
5. When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you'd like them to be.
    
6. If you look for perfection, you'll never be content.
    
7. Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.
    
8. Writing laws is easy, but governing is difficult.
    
9. Remember death! These are important words. If we kept in mind that we will soon inevitably die, our lives would be completely different. If a person knows that he will die in a half hour, he certainly will not bother doing trivial, stupid, or, especially, bad things during this half hour. Perhaps you have half a century before you die—what makes this any different from a half hour?
    
10. The only significance of life consists in helping to establish the kingdom of God; and this can be done only by means of the acknowledgment and profession of the truth by each one of us.
     
11. To love life is to love God. Harder and more blessed than all else is to love this life in one's sufferings, in undeserved sufferings.
     
12. Quite often a man goes on for years imagining that the religious teaching that had been imparted to him since childhood is still intact, while all the time there is not a trace of it left in him.
     
13. There are no conditions to which a person cannot grow accustomed, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives in the same way.
     
14. “He who exalts himself shall be humbled; and he who humbles himself shall be exalted.” (Matthew 23:12) The person who exalts himself ... will be humbled, because a person who considers himself to be good, intelligent, and kind will not even try to become better, smarter, kinder. The humble person will be exalted, because he considers himself bad and will try to become better, kinder, and more reasonable.
     
15. War is not a courtesy but the most horrible thing in life; and we ought to understand that, and not play at war. We ought to accept this terrible necessity sternly and seriously. It all lies in that: get rid of falsehood and let war be war and not a game. As it is now, war is the favourite pastime of the idle and frivolous.