Top 40 Leo Tolstoy Quotes (WAR AND PEACE)

16 Leo Tolstoy Quotes to Inspire Radical Thinking

There is something in the human spirit that will survive and prevail, there is a tiny and brilliant light burning in the heart of man that will not go out no matter how dark the world becomes.”
Leo Tolstoy

The two most powerful warriors are **patience** and **time**.

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.

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

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.

Pay bad people with your goodness; fight their hatred with your kindness. Even if you do not achieve victory over other people, you will conquer yourself.

One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love. — One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to **work** and how to **love**.

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.”
Leo Tolstoy

If you want to be happy, be. - Leo Tolstoy — If you want to be **happy**, be. – Leo Tolstoy

Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.

You see, if you take pains and learn in order to get a reward, the work will seem hard; but when you work… if you love your work, you will find your reward in that.

Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold. — **Truth**, like gold, is to be obtained not by its **growth**, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.

The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.

If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.

If, then, I were asked for the most important advice I could give, that which I considered to be the most useful to the men of our century, I should simply say: in the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.”
Leo Tolstoy

24 Wise Leo Tolstoy Quotes on Love & Life (WISDOM)

We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.

Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.

When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you’d like them to be.

True life is lived when tiny changes occur.

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

You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love.

Let us forgive each other – only then will we live in peace. — Let us **forgive** each other – only then will we live in **peace**.

It’s not given to people to judge what’s right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.”
Leo Tolstoy

Each person’s task in life is to become an increasingly better person.

Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.

It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.

Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be. — **Respect** was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.

There is no greatness where simplicity, goodness, and truth are absent. — There is no greatness where simplicity, goodness, and **truth** are absent.

Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.

All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.

I think… if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.

Some mathematician said - ‘Pleasure lies not in discovering truth, but in seeking it. — Some mathematician said: ‘Pleasure lies not in discovering **truth**, but in seeking it.

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

And all people live, not by reason of any care they have for themselves, But by the love for them that is in other people.

Anything is better than lies and deceit!

Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed.

Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself. — Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its **nature**. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself.

Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women.

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.

Leo Tolstoy Short Biography

Lev Nikolayevich, Graf (count) Tolstoy, commonly known in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a highly prolific Russian writer who wrote the acclaimed novels ‘War and Peace (1869),’ ‘Anna Karenina (1877)’ and ‘The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886).’

Born on 9 September 1828, in Yasnaya Polyana, Tula province, Russian empire, Tolstoy had won the Nobel Prize in Literature for four consecutive years from 1902 to 1906.

He was nominated three times for Nobel Peace Prize in 1901, 1902, and 1910.

The fact that he had never won a Nobel Peace Prize is a major controversy even till this day.

Further reading:

Leo Tolstoy on Finding Meaning in a Meaningless World – Brain Pickings
12 Life Lessons to Gain From Reading Leo Tolstoy – Tolstoy Therapy
Leo Tolstoy’s 17 “Rules of Life:” Wake at 5am, Help the Poor, & Only Two Brothel Visits Per Month – Open Culture

Here are the best Leo Tolstoy quotes so you can be mesmerized by the wisdom of one of the world’s greatest authors.

(AUDIOBOOK)

Also read:

16 Leo Tolstoy Quotes to Inspire Radical Thinking

24 Wise Leo Tolstoy Quotes on Love & Life (WISDOM)

Leo Tolstoy Short Biography

59 Helen Keller Quotes on Life & Happiness (VISION)

Top 24 Sun Tzu Quotes (THE ART OF WAR)