Wise Words of Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy (September 9, 1828—November 20, 1910) was a Russian writer and is recognized as one of the greatest authors of all time. War and Peace is widely considered his best work.

Below we list some words of wisdom from Leo Tolstoy.

“The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life.”

“Though the doctors treated him, let his blood, and gave him medications to drink, he nevertheless recovered.”

“Boredom: the desire for desires.”

“Debates conceal rather than reveal the truth. Truth is revealed in solitude.”

“Life could be limitless joy, if we would only take it for what it is, in the way it is given to us.”

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

“If you make it a habit not to blame others, you will feel the growth of the ability to love in
your soul, and you will see the growth of goodness in your life.”

“Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow - that is patience. The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”

“A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.”

“People jump back and forth in pursuit of pleasures only because they see the emptiness of their lives more clearly than they do the emptiness of whichever new entertainment attracts them.”

“The essence of any religion lies solely in the answer to the question: why do I exist, and what is my relationship to the infinite universe that surrounds me? It is impossible for there to be a person with no religion (i.e. without any kind of relationship to the world) as it is for there to be a person without a heart. He may not know that he has a religion, just as a person may not know that he has a heart, but it is no more possible for a person to exist without a religion than without a heart.”

“School is established, not in order that it should be convenient for the children to study, but that teachers should be able to teach in comfort. The children's conversations, motion, merriment are not convenient for the teacher, and so in the schools, which are built on the plan of prisons, are prohibited.”

“Talent is the capacity to direct concentrated attention upon the subject: "the gift of seeing what others have not seen.”

“Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking.”

“Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.”

“As soon as men live entirely in accord with the law of love natural to their hearts and now revealed to them, which excludes all resistance by violence, and therefore hold aloof from all participation in violence - as soon as this happens, not only will hundreds be unable to enslave millions, but not even millions will be able to enslave a single individual.”

“Mathematics is the queen of disciplines.... it will drive the nonsense out of your head!”

“An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person's main task in life—becoming a better person.”

“Just as one candle lights another and can light thousands of other candles, so one heart illuminates another heart and can illuminate thousands of other hearts.”

“In historic events, the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself. Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of history and predestined from eternity”

Copyright © Scott Petullo, Stephen Petullo