Leo Tolstoy

Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity.

If there existed no external means for dimming their consciences, one-half of the men would at once shoot themselves, because to live contrary to one's reason is a most intolerable state, and all men of our time are in such a state.

The law condemns and punishes only actions within certain definite and narrow limits; it thereby justifies, in a way, all similar actions that lie outside those limits.

Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself.

And all people live, Not by reason of any care they have for themselves, But by the love for them that is in other people.

He never chooses an opinion; he just wears whatever happens to be in style.

Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them.

To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can't eat it.

True life is lived when tiny changes occur.

All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.

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.

Boredom: the desire for desires.

We must not only cease our present desire for the growth of the state, but we must desire its decrease, its weakening.

One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken.

The chief difference between words and deeds is that words are always intended for men for their approbation, but deeds can be done only for God.

Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.

War on the other hand is such a terrible thing, that no man, especially a Christian man, has the right to assume the responsibility of starting it.

Faith is the sense of life, that sense by virtue of which man does not destroy himself, but continues to live on. It is the force whereby we live.

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.

We lost because we told ourselves we lost.