83 Quotes About Tolstoy

The same Sermon on the Mount that influenced Tolstoy to write “The Kingdom of God is Within You”, inspired me to a great extent in my work “Principia Humanitas”.

The Lord had given them the day and the Lord had given them the strength. And the day and the strength had been dedicated to labor, and the labor was its reward. Who was the labor for? What would be its fruits? These were irrelevant and idle questions.

Just as a painter needs light in order to put the finishing touches to his picture, so I need an inner light, which I feel I never have enough of in the autumn.

If you want to consume the cream of Christ's philosophy, then don't read the Bible, read Tolstoy.

They certified that I was sane; but I know that I am mad." This confession gives us the key to what is most important and significant in Tolstoy's hidden life.

The world is kept alive only by heretics: the heretic Christ, the heretic Copernicus, the heretic Tolstoy. Our symbol of faith is heresy. (“Tomorrow”)

Every novel says to the reader: “Things are not as simple as you think.” That is the novel’s eternal truth, but it grows steadily harder to hear amid the din of easy, quick answers that come faster than the question and block it off. In the spirit of our time, it’s either Anna or Karenin who is right, and the ancient wisdom of Cervantes, telling us about the difficulty of knowing and the elusiveness of truth, seems cumbersome and useless.

Pierre's madness consisted in not waiting, as he had formerly done, to discover personal attributes which he called "good qualities" in people before loving them: his heart overflowed with love, and by loving without cause he never failed to discover undeniable reasons for loving.

Vice is punished, but virtue is not rewarded