1,507 Quotes by Leo Tolstoy

True life is given to men and they know it and hear its call, but constantly distracted by the cares of the moment they deprive themselves of it.

And people strive not for the good in life, but for goods they can call their own

Respect is an invention of people who want to cover up the empty place where love should be.

I'm getting old, that's the thing! What's in me now won't be there anymore.

Every monarch in the world, except the Emperor of China, wears a military uniform, and bestows the greatest rewards on the man who kills the greatest number of his fellow-creatures.

Ah, if everyone was as sensitive as you! There's no girl who hasn't gone through that. And it's all so unimportant!

...suffering and freedom have their limits...those limits are very near together.

And as a sign that everything was now all right in the world, she opened her mouth a fraction, and after arranging her sticky lips better around her old teeth, smacked them and settled down into a state of blissful rest. Levin watched these last movements of hers closely. ‘I’m just the same!’ he said to himself; ‘Just the same! Never mind... All is well.

Either you are so undeveloped that you can't see all that you can do, or you won't sacrifice your ease, your vanity, or whatever it is, to do it.