Leo Tolstoy Quotes page 3 456 Quotes on Self-Reflection, Patience, Love, and the Essence of Life

“It's hard to love a woman and do anything.”

Source: War and Peace

“But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.”

Source: Anna Karenina

“If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed.”

Pt. VIII, ch. 13
Source: Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)
Context: Reason has discovered the struggle for existence and the law that I must throttle all those who hinder the satisfaction of my desires. That is the deduction reason makes. But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.

“I often think that men don't understand what is noble and what is ignorant, though they always talk about it.”

Source: War and Peace

“What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are but how you deal with incompatibility.”

Source: Anna Karenina

“He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began.”

“Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here.”

“Love those you hate you.”

Book IV, ch. 11
War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)

“He was afraid of defiling the love which filled his soul.”

Source: Anna Karenina

“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.”

Source: Anna Karenina

“Something magical has happened to me: like a dream when one feels frightened and creepy, and suddenly wakes up to the knowledge that no such terrors exist. I have wakened up.”

“I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself.”

Source: Anna Karenina

“Not one word, not one gesture of yours shall I, could I, ever forget…”

Source: War and Peace

“Whatever our fate is or may be, we have made it and do not complain of it."

- Vronksy {Anna Karenina}”

Source: Anna Karenina

“Every lie is a poison; there are no harmless lies. Only the truth is safe. Only the truth gives me consolation - it is the one unbreakable diamond.”

Source: Anna Karenina

“I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.”

“Everything I know, I know because of love.”

“I'm like a starving man who has been given food. Maybe he's cold, and his clothes are torn, and he's ashamed, but he's not unhappy.”

Thoughts of Prince Andrew Bk XII, Ch. 16
Variant: All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.
Source: War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)
Context: Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.

“Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself.”

Source: Anna Karenina

“All the diversity, all the charm, and all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.”

Source: War and Peace

“She had no need to ask why he had come. She knew as certainly as if he had told her that he was here to be where she was.”

Variant: All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.
Source: Anna Karenina

“Which is worse? the wolf who cries before eating the lamb or the wolf who does not.”

Source: Anna Karenina, Vol 1 of 8

“Music is the shorthand of emotion”

“How can one be well… when one suffers morally?”

“Instead of going to Paris to attend lectures, go to the public library, and you won't come out for twenty years, if you really wish to learn.”

Source: War and Peace

“Every heart has its own skeletons.”

“To tell the truth is very difficult, and young people are rarely capable of it.”

Source: Anna Karenina

“Human science fragments everything in order to understand it, kills everything in order to examine it.”

“It's all God's will: you can die in your sleep, and God can spare you in battle.”

Source: War and Peace

“There are no conditions to which a person cannot grow accustomed, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives in the same way.”

Source: War and Peace

“Everything depends on upbringing.”

Source: Anna Karenina

“He stepped down, avoiding any long look at her as one avoids long looks at the sun, but seeing her as one sees the sun, without looking.”

Variant: Everything intelligent is so boring.
Source: War and Peace

“Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”

Pt. I, ch. 9
Variant: He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.
Source: Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)

“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.”

“The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.”

Writings on Civil Disobedience and Nonviolence (1886)
Source: What Then Must We Do?

Leo Tolstoy book A Confession

Source: Confession (1882), Ch. 5, translated by David Patterson, 1983
Source: A Confession

“And you know, there's less charm in life when you think about death--but it's more peaceful.”