Works By Leo Tolstoy

"If there is something great in you, it will not appear on your first call. It will not appear and come to you easily, without any work and effort."

"In order not to pour out a vessel full of water, you should hold it evenly. In order to have a razor sharp, you should sharpen it. The same should happen with your soul if you are looking for real goodness."

"I praise Christianity because it develops, strengthens, and elevates my intellectual nature."

"When you suffer, think not on how you can escape suffering, but concentrate your efforts on what kind of inner moral and spiritual perfection this suffering requires."

"In order to feel complete love, we can either delude ourselves that some imperfect object of our love is “perfection” or we can love perfection, which is God."

"If you love a person without loving God, which is the goodness inside of him, then you plant the seeds for future disappointments and sufferings with this love."

"The commandments of God should be followed because of love of God, not because of fear of God."

"A person who understands the law but who is far from the love of God is like a bank official who has the keys for the inside of the building but not the key for the front door."

"The more strictly and mercilessly you judge yourself, the more just and kind you will be in the judgment of others."

"We regret losing a purse full of money, but a good thought which has come to us, which we’ve heard or read, a thought which we should have remembered and applied to our life, which could have improved the world—we lose this thought and promptly forget about it, and we do not regret it, although it is more precious than millions."

"All material changes in our everyday life are small in comparison with those in our spiritual life."

"The more respect that objects, customs, or laws are given, the more attentively you must question the right these things have to this respect."

"He who is looking for wisdom is already wise; and he who thinks that he has found wisdom is a stupid man."

"Cruel people are busy all the time, as if to find justification for the cruelty of their dealings."

"If it seems to us that we are not satisfied with life, we should see this as a reason to be unsatisfied with ourselves."

"A person who has spoiled his stomach will criticize his meal saying that the food is bad; the same thing happens with people who are not satisfied with their lives."

"If you see that you are not behaving according to your inner desires, but because of some outer influence, stop and consider whether what drives you is good or bad."

"All thinking beings have the same basic intellect. Therefore, all wise men share the same idea of perfection."

"It is not enough to be a hardworking person. Think: what do you work at?"

"Do not fear the lack of knowledge, but truly fear unnecessary knowledge which is acquired only to please vanity."

"We cannot prevent birds from flying over our heads, but we can keep them from making nests on top of our heads. Similarly, bad thoughts sometimes appear in our mind, but we can choose whether we allow them to live there, to create a nest for themselves, and to breed evil deeds."

"A person cries out from pain when he takes up hard physical work after a period of idleness. Any rest from the struggle for spiritual improvement brings the same pain."

"In real life illusions can only transform our life for a moment, but in the domain of thoughts and the intellect, misconceptions may be accepted as truth for thousands of years, and make a laughingstock of whole nations, mute the noble wishes of mankind, make slaves from people and lie to them. These misconceptions are the enemies with which the wisest men in the history of mankind try to struggle. The force of truth is great, but its victory is difficult."

"Our life would become wonderful if we could see all the disgusting things which exist in it."

"The more upset a person is with other people, and with circumstances, and the more satisfied he is with himself, the further he is from wisdom."

"You should treat your thoughts the way you treat yourself, and treat your wishes the way you treat your children."

"Excessive dress prevents the body from moving freely. Excessive wealth interferes with the movements of our soul."

"The love of great wealth commands you, “Bring me your soul as a sacrifice,” and people do so."

"No matter how great our knowledge may be, it cannot help us fulfill our life’s major purpose—our moral perfection."

"Science fulfills its purpose, not when it explains the reasons for the dark spots on the sun, but when it understands and explains the laws of our own life, and the consequences of violating these laws."

"There is a condition in which a person feels himself the architect of his life. It occurs when he concentrates all his efforts and all his intellect on the present moment."

"A misconception remains a misconception, even when it is shared by the majority of people."

"When I translated thoughts by German, French, or Italian thinkers, I did not strictly follow the original, usually making it shorter and easier to understand, and omitting some words. ... In some cases I even express the thought entirely in my own words. I did this because the purpose of my book is not to give exact, word-for-word translations of thoughts created by other authors, but to use the great and fruitful intellectual heritage created by different writers to present for a wide reading audience an easily accessible, everyday circle of reading which will arouse their best thought and feelings."

"Perhaps it is even more important to know what one should not think about than what one should think about."

"If you throw some nuts and cookies on a road, you will eventually see children come, pick them up, and start to argue and fight for them. Adults would not fight for such things. And even children would not pick up the nuts’ empty shells. For a wise man, the wealth, the glory and the rewards of this world are like sweets or empty shells on a road. Let the children pick them up and fight for them. Let them kiss the hands of the rich men, the rulers, and their servants. For the wise one, all these are but empty shells."

"A man is free only when he lives in truth, and truth can be perceived only by the intellect."

"An unbeliever says: “What is spirit? What I ate and what I enjoyed, this is what I possess, this is material and real!” And such a person, without thinking much, takes care only of the outer things, arranging in order only his own mean, dirty affairs; he becomes a liar, a snob, a slave, and does not feel any higher needs: freedom, truth, and love."

"When people wanted to kill a bear in the ancient times, they hung a heavy log over a bowl of honey. The bear would push the log away in order to eat the honey. The log would swing back and hit the bear. The bear would become irritated and push the log even harder, and it would hit him harder in return. The would continue until the log killed the bear. People behave in the same way when they return evil of the evil they receive."

"It seems to us that the most important work in the world is the work which we can see: building a house, plowing the land, feeding cattle, gathering fruits; and that the work which is invisible, the work done by our soul, is not important. But our invisible work at the improvement of our soul is the most important work in the world, and all other visible kinds of work are useful only when we do this major work."

"We would think a man insane who, instead of covering his house with a roof and putting windows in his window frames, goes out in stormy weather, and scolds the wind, the rain, and the clouds. But we all do the same when we scold and blame the evil in other people instead of fighting the evil which exists in us. It is possible to get rid of the evil inside of us, as it is possible to make a roof and windows for our house. This is possible. But it is not possible for us to destroy evil in this world, just as we cannot order the weather to change and the clouds to disappear. If, instead of teaching others, we would educate and improve ourselves, then there would be less evil in this world, and all people would live better lives."

"The most important feature of Christ's character was ... his confidence in the greatness of the human soul."

"Perfection is impossible without humility. Why should I strive for perfection, if I am already good enough?"

"Learn from your teachers and from the books you read only those things which you really need and really want to know."

"Read less, study less, but think more."

"A constant flow of thoughts expressed by other people can stop and deaden your own thought and your own initiative. ... That is why constant learning softens your brain. ... Stopping the creation of your own thoughts to give room for the thoughts from books reminds me of Shakespeare's remark about his contemporaries who sold their land in order to see other countries."

"Only when we forget what we are taught do we start to have real knowledge."

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

"Those who know the rules of true wisdom are baser than those who love them. Those who love them are baser than those who follow them."

"The difference between real material poison and intellectual poison is that most material poison is disgusting to the taste, but intellectual poison, which takes the form of cheap newspapers or bad books, can unfortunately sometimes be attractive."

"I hope the readers of this book may experience the same benevolent and elevating feeling which I have experienced when I was working on its creation, and which I experience again and again, when I reread it every day, working on the enlargement and improvement of the previous edition."