Leo Tolstoy

By words one transmits thoughts to another, by means of art, one transmits feelings.

Death destroys the body, as the scaffolding is destroyed after the building is up and finished. And he whose building is up rejoices at the destruction of the scaffolding and of the body.

When you feel the desire for power, you should stay in solitude for some time

People involve themselves in countless activities which they consider to be important, but they forget about one activity which is more important and necessary than any other, and which includes all other things: the improvement of their soul

Knowledge is real knowledge only when it is acquired by the efforts of your intellect, not by memory

Read less, study less, but think more

When joy disappears, look for your mistake

Seize the moment of happiness... love and be loved.

It is possible to live only as long as life intoxicates us; once we are sober we cannot help seeing that it is all a delusion, a stupid delusion.

You can't imagine what a pleasure this complete laziness is to me: not a thought in my brain- you might send a ball rolling through it!

There is only one way to put an end to evil, and that is to do good for evil.

By patriotism is meant, not only spontaneous, instinctive love for one's own nation, and preference for it above all other nations, but also the belief that such love and preference are good and useful.

A Gentleman is a man who will pay his gambling debts even when he knows he has been cheated.

Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings, and also experience them.

The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens... Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere.

Art is a microscope which the artist fixes on the secrets of his soul, and shows to people these secrets which are common to all.

God is that infinite All of which man knows himself to be a finite part.

In a writer there must always be two people - the writer and the critic.

The possibility of killing one's self is a safety valve. Having it, man has no right to say life is unbearable.

It is a rude feeling, because it is natural only to people standing on the lowest level of morality, and expecting from other nations such outrages as they themselves are ready to inflict.

It would, therefore, seem obvious that patriotism as a feeling is bad and harmful, and as a doctrine is stupid. For it is clear that if each people and each State considers itself the best of peoples and States, they all live in a gross and harmful delusion.