1,507 Quotes by Leo Tolstoy

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

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

If there is a God and future life, there is truth and good, and man's highest happiness consists in striving to attain them. We must live, we must love, and we must believe that we live not only today on this scrap of earth, but have lived and shall live

Some one dear to one can be loved with human love; but an enemy can only be loved with divine love.

Anything is better than lies and deceit!

The true meaning of Christ's teaching consists in the recognition of love as the supreme law of life, and therefore not admitting any exceptions.

I looked more widely around me. I looked at the lives of the multitudes who have lived in the past and who live today. And of those who understood the meaning of life I saw not two, or three, or ten, but hundreds, thousands and millions. And all of them, endlessly varied in their customs, minds, educations and positions, and in complete contrast to my ignorance, knew the meaning of life and death, endured suffering and hardship, lived and died and saw this not as vanity but good.

I led the life of so many other so-called respectable people,—that is, in debauchery. And like the majority, while leading the life of a debauche, I was convinced that I was a man of irreproachable morality.

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