Leo Tolstoy: Man

Leo Tolstoy was Russian writer. Explore interesting quotes on man.

Leo Tolstoy: 912 quotes64 likes

““That is the principal thing,” thought Nekhludoff. “We all live in the silly belief that we ourselves are the lords of our world, that this world has been given us for our enjoyment. But this is evidently untrue. Somebody must have sent us here for some reason. And for this reason it is plain that we will suffer like those laborers suffer who do not fulfill the wishes of their Master. The will of the Lord is expressed in the teachings of Christ. Let man obey Him, and the Kingdom of the Lord will come on earth, and man will derive the greatest possible good.
“Seek the truth and the Kingdom of God, and the rest will come of itself. We seek that which is to come, and do not find it, and not only do we not build the Kingdom of God, but we destroy it.
“So this will henceforth be the task of my life!”
And indeed, from that night a new life began for Nekhludoff; not so much because he had risen into a new stage of existence, but because all that had happened to him till then assumed for him an altogether new meaning.”

Leo Tolstoy book Resurrection

Source: Resurrection (1899), Ch. 92

“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.”

Pt. I, ch. 1
Confession (1882)

“In the depth of his soul he knew that his action was so base, abominable and cruel that, with that action upon his conscience, not only would he have no right to condemn others but he should not be able to look others in the face, to say nothing of considering himself the good, noble, magnanimous man he esteemed himself. And he had to esteem himself as such in order to be able to continue to lead a valiant and joyous life. And there was but one way of doing so, and that was not to think of it. This he endeavored to do.”

Leo Tolstoy book Resurrection

Source: Resurrection (1899), Ch. 18

“Once … I was offered a lift by some carters … It was the Thursday before Easter. I was seated in the first cart, with a strong, red, coarse carman, who evidently drank. On entering a village we saw a well-fed, naked, pink pig being dragged out of the first yard to be slaughtered. It squealed in a dreadful voice, resembling the shriek of a man. Just as we were passing they began to kill it. A man gashed its throat with a knife. The pig squealed still more loudly and piercingly, broke away from the men, and ran off covered with blood. Being near-sighted I did not see all the details. I saw only the human-looking pink body of the pig and heard its desperate squeal; but the carter saw all the details and watched closely. They caught the pig, knocked it down, and finished cutting: its throat. When its squeals ceased the carter sighed heavily. 'Do men really not have to answer for such things?”

he said.
Source: The First Step (1892), Ch. IX

“He crossed his hands on his breast, as he used to do when a child, raised his eyes and said:
"Lord, help me, teach me; come and enter within me and purify me of all this abomination."
He prayed, asked God to help him and purify him, while that which he was praying for had already happened. Not only did he feel the freedom, vigor and gladness of life, but he also felt the power of good. He felt himself capable of doing the best that man can do.”

Leo Tolstoy book Resurrection

Source: Resurrection (1899), Ch. 28

“Simonson, in rubber jacket and similar galoshes, bound with whip-cord over woolen socks (he was a vegetarian and did not use the skin of animals), was also awaiting the departure of the party. He stood near the entrance of the house, writing down in a note-book a thought that occurred to him. “If,” he wrote, “a bacterium were to observe and analyze the nail of a man, it would declare him an inorganic being. Similarly, from an observation of the earth’s surface, we declare it to be inorganic. That is wrong.””

Leo Tolstoy book Resurrection

Source: Resurrection (1899), Ch. 83

“'BUT science and art! You are denying science and art: that is you are denying that by which humanity lives.' People constantly make this rejoinder to me, and they employ: this method in order to reject my arguments without examination. 'He rejects science and art, he wishes man to revert to a state of savagery - why listen to him or discuss with him?' But this is unjust. Not only do I not repudiate science, that is, the reasonable activity of humanity, and art - the expression of that reasonable activity - but it is just on behalf of that reasonable activity and its expression that I speak, only that It may be possible for mankind to escape from the savage state into which it is rapidly lapsing thanks to the false teaching of our time. It is only on that account that I speak as I do.”

What then must we do? (1886)

“The attitude of the ruling classes to the laborers is that of a man who has felled his adversary to the earth and holds him down, not so much because he wants to hold him down, as because he knows that if he let him go, even for a second, he would himself be stabbed, for his adversary is infuriated and has a knife in his hand. And therefore, whether their conscience is tender or the reverse, our rich men cannot enjoy the wealth they have filched from the poor as the ancients did who believed in their right to it. Their whole life and all their enjoyments are embittered either by the stings of conscience or by terror.”

Leo Tolstoy The Kingdom of God Is Within You

Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Chapter V, Contradiction Between our Life and our Christian Conscience

“The man is making preparations for a year, and does not know that he will die before evening. And I remembered God's second saying, "Learn what is not given to man."”

Leo Tolstoy book What Men Live By

'What dwells in man" I already knew. Now I learnt what is not given him. It is not given to man to know his own needs.
Source: What Men Live By (1881), Ch. XI