Leo Tolstoy

There is something in the human spirit that will survive and prevail, there is a tiny and brilliant light burning in the heart of man that will not go out no matter how dark the world becomes.

Be bad, but at least don’t be a liar, a deceiver!

Everything I know, I know because of love.

To get rid of an enemy one must love him.

She had no need to ask why he had come. She knew as certainly as if he had told her that he was here to be where she was.

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. And to act so is immoral.

Don’t think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drive into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.

Because they did not see merit where they should have seen it, people, to express their regret, will go and leave a lot of money to the very people who will be the first to throw stones at the next person who has anything to say and finds a difficulty in getting a hearing.

The wise man applauds he who he thinks most virtuous; the rest of the world applauds the wealthy.

Society always consists in the greatest part, of young and foolish persons.

A hen is only a egg’s way of making another egg.

Only trust thyself, and another shall not betray thee.

Prosperity is the best protector of principle.

It is possible to be free and loving no matter what your circumstances.

We must train hard. It’s not about denying a weakness may exist but about denying its right to persist.

We are always getting ready to live but never living.

To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion.

My own experience and development deepen everyday my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.

All professions are conspiracies against the laity.

Genial manners are good, and power of accommodation to any circumstance, but the high prize of life, the crowning fortune of a man is to be born with a bias to some pursuit, which finds him in employment and happiness, — whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statutes, or songs. I doubt not this was the meaning of Socrates, when he pronounced artists the only truly wise, as being actually, not apparently so.

The egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief.