1,507 Quotes by Leo Tolstoy

He had but to call to mind what he had been three months before and what he was now. To call to mind with what regularity he had been going downhill for every possibility of hope to be shattered.

A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.

One can no more approach people without love than one can approach bees without care. Such is the quality of bees...

Perhaps you think I'm losing the thread of my thought? Not a bit of it! I'm still telling you the story of how I murdered my wife, They asked me in court how I killed her, what I used to do it with. Imbeciles! They thought I killed her that day, the fifth of October, with a knife. It wasn't that day I killed her, it was much earlier. Exactly in the same way as they're killing their wives now, all of them...

If a man aspires to a righteous life, his first act of abstinence if from injury to animals.

People of limited intelligence are fond of talking about "these days," imagining that they have discovered and appraised the peculiarities of "these days" and that human nature changes with the times.

God knows of love

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

If there was a reason why he preferred the liberal tendency to the conservative one (also held to by many of his circle), it was not because he found the liberal tendency more sensible, but it more closely suited his manner of life.