Leo Tolstoy quotes - page 18

Progress consists only in the greater clarification of answers to the basic questions of life. The truth is always accessible to a man. It can't be otherwise, because a man's soul is a divine spark, the truth itself. (Leo Tolstoy)
The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order, and in the assertion that, without authority, there could not be worse violence than that of authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy can be instituted by a revolution. "To establish Anarchy." "Anarchy will be instituted." View quote
Leo Tolstoy
Not only does the action of Governments not deter men from crimes; on the contrary, it increases crime by always disturbing and lowering the moral standard of society. View quote
Leo Tolstoy
But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require protection from governmental power, and by there being more and more people who will be ashamed of applying this power. View quote
Leo Tolstoy
Such are the scientific justifications of the principle of coercion. They are not merely weak but absolutely invalid, yet they are so much needed by those who occupy privileged positions that they believe in them as blindly as they formerly believed in the immaculate conception, and propagate them just as confidently. View quote
Leo Tolstoy
And leaving the most powerful of weapons - thought and its expression - which move the world, each man employs the weapon of social activity, not noticing that every social activity is based on the very foundations against which he is bound to fight. View quote
Leo Tolstoy
This union with the lives of other beings is accomplished through love. God is not love, but the more there is of love, the more man manifests God, and the more he truly exists... We acknowledge God only when we are conscious of His manifestation in us. View quote
Leo Tolstoy
Evidently the Greek sages began to draw close to the perception of goodness which is expressed in Buddhism and in Christianity, but they got entangled in defining the relationship between goodness and beauty. And it was just this confusion of ideas that those Europeans of a later age ... tried to elevate into law. View quote
Leo Tolstoy
Tell people that war is an evil, and they will laugh; for who does not know it? Tell them that patriotism is an evil, and most of them will agree, but with a reservation. View quote
Leo Tolstoy
What is now happening to the people of the East as of the West is like what happens to every individual when he passes from childhood to adolescence and from youth to manhood. View quote
Leo Tolstoy
If only free men would not rely on that which has no power, and is always fettered - upon external aids; but would trust in that which is always powerful and free - the truth and its expression! (Leo Tolstoy)
Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace. View quote
Leo Tolstoy
Learn What dwells in man, What is not given to man, and What men live by. View quote
Leo Tolstoy
These new justifications are termed "scientific". But by the term "scientific" is understood just what was formerly understood by the term "religious": just as formerly everything called "religious" was held to be unquestionable simply because it was called religious, so now all that is called "scientific" is held to be unquestionable. View quote
Leo Tolstoy
In order that the conditions of a life contrary to the consciousness of humanity should change and be replaced by one which is in accord with it, the outworn public opinion must be superseded by a new and living one. View quote
Leo Tolstoy
Those who neither struggle against violence nor take part in it can no more be enslaved than water can be cut. View quote
Leo Tolstoy
People saw more and more clearly, and now the majority see quite clearly, the senselessness and immorality of subordinating their wills to those of other people just like themselves, when they are bidden to do what is contrary not only to their interests but also to their moral sense. View quote
Leo Tolstoy
Educated people write long, nebulous treatises on beauty as a member of the aesthetic trinity of beauty, truth, and goodness... and they all think that by pronouncing these sacrosanct words, they speak of something quite definite and solid... on which they can base their opinions. View quote
Leo Tolstoy
It is as if a man, who was given a blade so marvelously keen that it would sever anything, should use its edge for driving in nails. View quote
Leo Tolstoy
A commercial company enslaved a nation comprising two hundred millions. Tell this to a man free from superstition and he will fail to grasp what these words mean. View quote
Leo Tolstoy
To all these questions there were answers admirably stated, and answers admitting no shade of doubt, since they were not a product of human thought, always liable to error, but were all the product of official activity. (Leo Tolstoy)
I cannot recall those years without horror, loathing, and heart-rending pain. View quote
Leo Tolstoy
The conscience of a man of our circle, if he retains but a scrap of it, cannot rest, and poisons all the comforts and enjoyments of life supplied to us by the labour of our brothers, who suffer and perish. View quote
Leo Tolstoy
Martin understood that his dream had come true; and that the Saviour had really come to him that day, and he had welcomed him. View quote
Leo Tolstoy
One free man will say with truth what he thinks and feels amongst thousands of men who by their acts and words attest exactly the opposite. It would seem that he who sincerely expressed his thought must remain alone, whereas it generally happens that every one else, or the majority at least, have been thinking and feeling the same things but without expressing them. View quote
Leo Tolstoy