Leo Tolstoy

I often think that the only way to be happy is to be ignorant.

I am an old man, and I have had many troubles, but most of them never happened.

War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves.

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.

The higher the spiritual development of a people, the more clearly it perceives its own defects.

Respect for the elderly is the first sign of civilization.

The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself.

The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience, not from any external cause, however powerful, nor from any intellectual decision.

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.

What a man is depends on what he believes.

The true life of a man consists in seeing things with the eyes of the spirit.

Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that. Stop him at once to work, and you will be surprised how soon it gets rusty.

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 capable of, and the only thing that gives meaning to life.

The aim of art is not to solve a problem, but to state a problem correctly.

It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a cold and respectable man.

The greatest untruth is to live without love.

Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.

In historical events great men-so-called-are but labels serving to give a name to the event, and like labels, they have but the smallest connection with the event itself.

It is not the quantity but the quality of knowledge that matters.

Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love.