Leo Tolstoy Quotes That Will Inspire You to Live Your Best Life

1. ...the more he did nothing, the less time he had to do anything. Anna Karenina

2. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor — such is my idea of happiness. Family Happiness

3. And where love ends, hate begins Anna Karenina

4. At the time we were all convinced that we had to speak, write,and publish as quickly as possible and as much as possible and that this was necessary for the good of mankind. Thousands of us published and wrote in an effort to teach others, all the while disclaiming and abusing one another. Without taking note of the fact that we knew nothing, that we did not know the answer to the simplest question of life, the question of what is right and what is wrong, we all went on talking without listening to one another. A Confession

5. Boredom: the desire for desires.

6. Every man had his personal habits, passions, and impulses toward goodness, beauty, and truth. War and Peace

7. Everything I know, I know because of love. War and Peace

8. He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began.

9. He had learned that, as there is no situation in the world in which a man can be happy and perfectly free, so there is no situation in which he can be perfectly unhappy and unfree. War and Peace

10. He looked at her as a man might look at a faded flower he had plucked, in which it was difficult for him to trace the beauty that had made him pick and so destroy it Anna Karenina

11. He was afraid of defiling the love which filled his soul. Anna Karenina

12. I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books , music, love for one's neighbor - such is my idea of happiness. And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children, perhaps - what more can the heart of a man desire? Family Happiness

13. 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. Anna Karenina

14. I'm like a starving man who has been given food. Maybe he's cold, and his clothes are torn, and he's ashamed, but he's not unhappy. Anna Karenina

15. I've always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be. Anna Karenina

16. If only [people] understood that every thought is both false and true! False by one-sidenedness resulting from man's inability to embrace the whole truth, and true as an expression of one fact of human endeavor.

17. If you love me as you say you do,' she whispered, 'make it so that I am at peace. Anna Karenina

18. It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. The Kreutzer Sonata

19. It's hard to love a woman and do anything. Anna Karenina

20. Love those you hate you. Anna Karenina

21. Love. The reason I dislike that word is that it means too much for me, far more than you can understand."- Anna Karenina {Anna Karenina} Anna Karenina

22. Loving the same man or woman all your life, why, that's like supposing the same candle could last you all your life The Kreutzer Sonata

23. Muhammad has always been standing higher than the Christianity. He does not consider god as a human being and never makes himself equal to God. Muslims worship nothing except God and Muhammad is his Messenger. There is no any mystery and secret in it.

24. My life came to a standstill. I could breathe, eat, drink and sleep, and I could not help doing these things; but there was no life, for there were no wishes the fulfilment of which I could consider reasonable. If I desired anything, I knew in advance that whether I satisfied my desire or not, nothing would come of it. Had a fairy come and offered to fulfil my desires I should not have known what to ask. If in moments of intoxication I felt something which, though not a wish, was a habit left by former wishes, in sober moments I knew this to be a delusion and that there was really nothing to wish for. I could not even wish to know the truth, for I guess of what it consisted. The truth was that life is meaningless.

25. No one can attain to truth by himself. Only by laying stone on stone with the cooperation of all, by the millions of generations from our forefather Adam to our own times, is that temple reared which is to be a worthy dwelling place of the Great God.

26. 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.

27. Pierre was right when he said that one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and I now believe in it. Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy. War and Peace

28. Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be. Anna Karenina

29. 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. War and Peace

30. The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness... War and Peace