Tolstoy's sayings about the meaning of life. The wisest quotes from Leo Tolstoy that everyone should know

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is one of the most famous Russian writers. Participant in the defense of Sevastopol. Educator, publicist, thinker, whose authoritative opinion caused the emergence of a new religious and moral movement - Tolstoyism. Corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, honorary academician in the category of fine literature. During his lifetime, he was recognized as the patriarch of Russian literature, whose work marked a new stage in the development of world realism, becoming a bridge between the traditions of the classic novel of the 19th century and the literature of the 20th century. Tolstoy had a huge influence on the evolution of European humanism. His works have been filmed many times and staged on stages all over the world.

What begins in anger ends in shame.

Salvation does not lie in rituals, sacraments, or in the confession of this or that faith, but in a clear understanding of the meaning of one’s life.

The unspoken word is golden.

Thought is the beginning of everything. And thoughts can be controlled. And therefore, the main thing to improve is to work on thoughts.

In a moment of indecision, act quickly and try to take the first step, even if it’s the wrong one.

Happiness is pleasure without remorse.

Aphorisms are perhaps the best form for presenting philosophical opinions.

I haven't eaten meat for almost a year now and I feel great. To think that meat is necessary is nonsense. This is just the opinion of science, and science is always happy to seize on any absurdity. Half the world does not eat meat - and lives well.

The word is a great thing. Great because with a word you can unite people, with a word you can separate them, with a word you can serve love, but with a word you can serve enmity and hatred. Beware of such a word that divides people.

Strong people are always simple.

We often repeat that a person is judged by his deeds, but sometimes we forget that a word is also an action. A person's speech is a mirror of himself. Everything false and deceitful, vulgar and vulgar, no matter how we try to hide it from others, all emptiness, callousness or rudeness breaks through in speech with the same force and obviousness with which sincerity and nobility, the depth and subtlety of thoughts and feelings are manifested.

The main rule is to come up with as many activities as possible for yourself.

Crazy people are always better than healthy people in achieving their goals. This happens because for them there are no moral barriers, no shame, no justice, or even fear.

The more love a person shows, the more people love him. And the more he is loved, the easier it is for him to love others.

By killing animals for food, a person suppresses the highest spiritual feelings in himself - compassion and pity for other living beings like him - and, overstepping himself, hardens his heart. How can we hope for peace and prosperity on earth if our bodies are living graves in which slaughtered animals are buried?

The only condition on which success depends is patience.

Love is a priceless gift. This is the only thing we can give and yet you still have it.

Happiness comes more willingly into a home where a good mood always reigns.

A person is like a fraction: the denominator is what he thinks about himself, the numerator is what he really is. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.

Power does not spoil a person, a person is spoiled by the fear of losing power.

Happiness does not lie in always doing what you want, but in always wanting what you do.

It is not beauty that causes love, but love that makes us see beauty.

Children are more moral, much more insightful than adults, and they, often without showing it or even realizing it, see not only the shortcomings of their parents, but also the worst of all shortcomings - the hypocrisy of their parents, and lose respect for them...

What we say is nothing compared to what we feel.

People learn how to speak, but the main science is how and when to remain silent.

The battle is won by the one who is determined to win it.

A cowardly friend is worse than an enemy, because you fear an enemy, but rely on a friend.

The most common and widespread reason for lying is the desire to deceive not people, but oneself.

Any discussion about love destroys love.

Knowing each other too much or too little equally hinders intimacy.

We are only tormented by the past and spoil our future because we are not occupied with the present. The past was, there is no future, there is only one present.

Do you think war is necessary? Wonderful. Who preaches war - to a special, advanced legion and to storm, to attack, ahead of everyone.

One of the most common temptations that leads to the greatest disasters is the temptation to say: “everyone does it.”

The property of love is precisely that it gives benefit to the one who experiences it.

Kindness is for the soul what health is for the body, but often our good qualities harm us more in life than bad ones.

Why is gambling prohibited, but women in provocative outfits are not prohibited? They are a thousand times more dangerous!

Do good in secret and regret it when they find out about it, and you will learn the joy of doing good.

We must always marry in the same way as we die, that is, only when it is impossible otherwise.

The hypocrisy of people who cannot kill animals, but do not refuse to eat them, is great and unforgivable.

Act as if you are alone in this world, and people will never know about your action.

All great changes in the life of one person, as well as of all humanity, begin and are accomplished in thought. In order for a change of feelings and actions to occur, a change of thought must first occur.

Dissatisfaction with oneself is a necessary condition for a rational life. Only this dissatisfaction motivates us to work on ourselves.

The more beautiful a woman is, the smarter she should be. For only with her mind can she resist the harm that beauty brings her.

Speak only about what is clear to you, otherwise remain silent. It’s not shameful or harmful not to know... but it’s shameful and harmful to pretend that you know what you don’t know.

You often hear young people say: I don’t want to live in someone else’s mind, I’ll think it over myself. Why should you think about what you have thought about? Take what is ready and move on. This is the strength of humanity.

The one who has nothing to say talks the most.

This is the most terrible reasoning: if I can’t do everything, then I won’t do anything.

A triple recipe against grief and resentment: 1) Think about how unimportant it will be in 10, 20 years, how unimportant now is what tormented 10, 20 years ago; 2) Remember what you yourself did, things that are no better than those that upset you. 3) Think about the hundred times worse thing that could happen. You can also add to this to think about the situation, the soul of the person upsetting you, to understand that he cannot act differently.

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He was the first to renounce copyright, was an opponent of the state system, and was excommunicated from the church for denying religious authorities. He refused the Nobel Prize, hated money and took the side of the peasants. No one had ever known him like this. His name is Leo Tolstoy.

1. The strength of the government rests on the ignorance of the people, and it knows this and therefore will always fight against enlightenment. It's time for us to understand this.
2. Everyone wants to change humanity, but no one thinks about how to change themselves.
3. Everything comes to those who know how to wait.
4. All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
5. Strong people are always simple.
6. Let everyone sweep in front of his own door. If everyone does this, the whole street will be clean.
7. It always seems that they love us because we are so good. But we don’t realize that they love us because those who love us are good.
8. It's easier to live without love. But without it there is no point.
9. I don't have everything I love. But I love everything I have.
10. The world moves forward because of those who suffer.
11. The greatest truths are the simplest.
12. The point is not to know a lot, but to know the most necessary of all that can be known.
13. People often pride themselves on the purity of their conscience simply because they have a short memory.
14. There is no scoundrel who, having searched, would not find scoundrels in some respect worse than himself and who therefore could not find a reason to be proud and pleased with himself.
15. Evil is only inside us, that is, where it can be taken out from.
16. A person should always be happy; If happiness ends, look where you went wrong.
17. I am sure that the meaning of life for each of us is simply to grow in love.
18. Everyone is making plans, and no one knows whether he will survive until the evening.
19. There are no conditions to which a person cannot get used, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives the same way.
20. One of the most amazing misconceptions is that a person’s happiness lies in doing nothing.

P.S. In his lectures, Vladimir Nabokov used the following technique. He closed all the curtains in the room, achieving complete darkness. “In the firmament of Russian literature, this is Gogol,” and at the end of the hall a lamp flashed. “This is Chekhov,” another star lit up on the ceiling. “This is Dostoevsky,” Nabokov flipped the switch. “And this is Tolstoy!” - the lecturer threw open the drapery of the window, and the room was flooded with blinding sunlight.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy - born August 28, 1828, Yasnaya Polyana, Tula province. One of the most significant Russian writers and thinkers. Educator, publicist, at the end of his life the founder of a new religious and moral teaching - Tolstoyism. Author of works - “Decembrists”, “War and Peace”, “Anna Karenina”, “Two Hussars”, “Hadji Murat”, “Kreutzer Sonata”, etc. Died on November 7, 1910, Astapovo station, Tambov province.

Aphorisms, quotes, sayings Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich

• In art, everything is a little bit.
• Knowledge is a tool, not a goal.
• Only those who do good live.
• The greatest truths are the simplest.
• Happy is he who is happy at home.
• Happiness is pleasure without remorse.
• Reasonable and moral always coincide.
• Any discussion about love destroys love.
• He who has learned to think finds it difficult to believe.
• The better a person is, the less he fears death.
• Life should and can be unceasing joy.
• The fear of death is inversely proportional to a good life.
• Knowledge without a moral basis means nothing.
• The purpose of dinner is nutrition and the purpose of marriage is family.
• He who does nothing always has many helpers.
• Nothing encourages idleness more than empty talk.
• The obscurity of the word is an invariable sign of the obscurity of thought.
• Work is only joyful when it is undoubtedly needed.
• A teacher needs to know life deeply in order to prepare for it.
• You cannot scare off children with harshness; they only cannot stand lies.
• Our good qualities harm us more in life than bad ones.
• Art is the highest manifestation of power in man.
• It was smooth on paper, but they forgot about the ravines and walked along them!
• Don't be afraid of ignorance, be afraid of false knowledge. All the evil in the world comes from him.
• The true strength of a person is not in impulses, but in unshakable calm.
• Effort is a necessary condition for moral improvement.
• The need for happiness is embedded in a person; therefore, it is legal.
• Life, whatever it is, is a good, beyond which there is no one.
• Try to fulfill your duty, and you will immediately know what you are worth.
• Truth expressed in words is a powerful force in people's lives.
• Aphorisms are perhaps the best form for presenting philosophical opinions.
• Never listen to those who speak bad about others and good about you.
• True social progress lies in greater and greater unity of people.
• Any slander only receives more meaning from the objection to it.
• It is bad if a person does not have something for which he is ready to die.
• Beauty, joy, only as joy, regardless of goodness, is disgusting.
• A cowardly friend is worse than an enemy, because you fear an enemy, but rely on a friend.
• Do not believe the words of either your own or those of others, believe only the deeds of both your own and those of others.
• The consequences of war will always be general disaster and general corruption.
• If how many heads - so many minds, then how many hearts - so many kinds of love.
• Shame in front of people is a good feeling, but the best feeling is shame in front of yourself.
• A drunkard never moves forward either mentally or morally.
• I know only two real misfortunes in life: remorse and illness.
• Knowledge humbles the great, astonishes the ordinary, and inflates the little man.
• Short thoughts are good because they force the serious reader to think for himself.
• Eloquence, like pearls, sparkles with content. True wisdom is terse.
• The right way is this: learn what your predecessors did and move on.
• Progress consists in the increasing predominance of reason over the animal law of struggle.
• Most men demand from their wives virtues that they themselves are not worth.
• If only people believed that power does not lie in force, but in truth, and would boldly express it.
• The more a person is satisfied with himself, the less there is in him with which to be satisfied.
• The degree of truthfulness of a person is an indicator of the degree of his moral perfection.
• A woman who tries to look like a man is just as ugly as an effeminate man.
• If you regret not saying it once, you will regret it a hundred times. that he did not remain silent.
• Everyone wants to change humanity, but no one thinks about how to change themselves.
• Faith is an understanding of the meaning of life and recognition of the responsibilities arising from this understanding.
• A man who has come to know his life is like a slave man who suddenly finds out that he is a king.
• What is important has always been and will be only what is needed for the good of not just one person, but of all people.
• It is not the quantity of knowledge that is important, but its quality. You can know a lot without knowing what you really need.
• If a person did not desire, then there would be no person. The cause of all activity is desire.
• Time is endless movement, without a single moment of rest - and it cannot be conceived otherwise.
• Where labor turns into creativity, naturally, even physiologically, the fear of death disappears.
• Love cannot be harmful, as long as it is love, and not the wolf of selfishness in the sheep's clothing of love.
• The wickedest man's face lights up when he is told that he is loved. Therefore, this is happiness.
• The essence of any faith is that it gives life a meaning that is not destroyed by death.
• One can and should be ashamed not of any work, even the most unclean one, but of only one thing: idle life.
• Only then is it easy to live with a person when you do not consider yourself higher or better than him, or him higher and better than yourself.
• Church. This whole word is the name of deception, through which some people want to rule over others.
• A good deed is done with effort, but when the effort is repeated several times, the same deed becomes a habit.
• All people of the world have the same rights to enjoy the natural benefits of the world and the same rights to respect.
• Dissatisfaction with oneself is a necessary condition for a rational life. Only this dissatisfaction motivates us to work on ourselves.
• A good actor can, it seems to me, perfectly play the stupidest things and thereby enhance their harmful influence.
• People differ in that some people think first, then speak and do, while others speak and do first, and then think.
• There are two desires, the fulfillment of which can constitute a person's true happiness - to be useful and to have a clear conscience.
• No matter how unpleasant anger is for others, it is more painful for the one who experiences it. What begins in anger ends in shame.
• The more a person gives to people and demands less for himself, the better he is; The less he gives to others and the more he demands for himself, the worse he is.
• Good is the eternal, highest goal of our life. No matter how we understand good, our life is nothing more than a desire for good.
• To become happy, you need to constantly strive for this happiness and understand it. It depends not on the circumstances, but on you.
• Every abstinence requires effort, but of all such efforts, the most difficult is the effort of tongue abstinence. It is also the most necessary.
• A person is like a fraction, the numerator is what he is, and the denominator is what he thinks about himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.
• The mistakes and oversights of a clear-eyed person can be more useful than the half-truths of people who prefer to remain in uncertainty
• The evil of war and the good of peace are known to people to such an extent that since we have known people, the best wish has been the greeting “peace be with you.”
• If only people knew that the goal of humanity is not material progress, that this progress is inevitable growth, and there is one goal - the good of all people.
• Have a goal for your whole life, a goal for a certain time, a goal for the year, for the month, for the week, for the day, and for the hour, and for the minute, sacrificing the lower goals to the higher ones.
• The shortest expression of the meaning of life can be this: the world moves and improves. The main task is to contribute to this movement, submit to it and cooperate with it.
• Civilization went on and on and came to a dead end. There's nowhere else to go. Everyone promised that science and civilization would lead us out, but now it’s clear that they won’t lead us anywhere: we need to start something new.
• Vanity, concern for human glory is the last dress to be taken off. It is difficult to remove it, and it is terribly burdensome, because most of all it interferes with the freedom of the soul.
• A person must be happy. If he is unhappy, then he is to blame, and is obliged to work on himself until he eliminates this inconvenience or misunderstanding.
• No matter what you say, your native language will always remain native. When you want to speak to your heart’s content, not a single French word comes to mind, but if you want to show off, then it’s a different matter.
• A person who has stopped drinking and smoking acquires that mental clarity and calmness of view that illuminates for him all the phenomena of life from a new, correct perspective.
• A vocation can only be recognized and proven by the sacrifice that a scientist or artist makes to his peace and well-being in order to devote himself to his vocation.
• I always tried not to get irritated and give in in a quarrel, which was how I achieved peace, and then in a calm state the matter was settled by itself. You almost always regret that the quarrel was not stopped at the beginning.
• What to do? Throw away all those improvements in life, all the power that humanity has acquired? Forget what it has learned? Impossible. No matter how harmfully these mental acquisitions are used, they are still acquisitions, and people cannot forget them.
• The difference between material and mental poisons is that most material poisons taste disgusting, while mental poisons, in the form of... bad books, unfortunately, are often attractive.
• War is murder. And no matter how many people come together to commit murder, and no matter what they call themselves, murder is still the worst sin in the world.
• The grain is invisible in the ground, but only from it does a huge tree grow. Thought is also imperceptible, and only from thought do the greatest events of human life grow.
• The tenderness and delight that we experience from contemplating nature is a memory of the time when we were animals, trees, flowers, earth. More precisely: this is the consciousness of unity with everything, hidden from us by time.
• True love in itself feels so much holiness, innocence, strength, enterprise and independence that for it there is no crime, no obstacles, or the whole prosaic side of life.
• One of the first and universally recognized conditions of happiness is a life in which the connection between man and nature is not broken, that is, life in the open air, in the light of the sun, in the fresh air; communication with the earth, plants, animals.
• Isn’t it the usual course of progress that inventions and material improvements are made that destroy the moral order of life? When this disorder becomes very severe, moral questions arise.
• If your mind does not show you your place in the world and your purpose, then know that it is not the bad structure of the world, not your mind, that is to blame, but the false direction that you gave it.
• One must marry not for love, but certainly with calculation, only understanding these words exactly the opposite of how they are usually understood, that is, marry not for sensual love and for calculation of where and how to live, but according to the calculation of how likely it is that my future wife will help, and not interfere with, me living a human life.
• A person will be the happier the more clearly he understands that his calling is not to accept services from other people, but to serve others and put his life at the disposal of many people. A person who does this will be worthy of his possessions and will never fail.

The most famous Russian writer of the late nineteenth century is Leo Tolstoy. Quotes and aphorisms, as Cortazar said, are needed in order not to say bad things about what someone has already managed to say well. The great Russian thinker was and remains unsurpassed in his ability to simply talk about family, love, and kindness. On the pages of any of his novels, the reader finds truths that should be known to everyone. But in order to reach them, the writer overcame a long, difficult path. The article contains some quotes from Leo Tolstoy.

Happy is he who is happy at home

Tolstoy's works are included in the school curriculum. One of them tells about the author’s childhood, adolescence and youth. Modern teenagers hardly keep quotes from Leo Tolstoy in their memory. And not every schoolchild thinks about the deep philosophical meaning of his books. The serene life of children from the high society of the 19th century is too far away for today’s youths.

However, the autobiographical book of the great classic should be reread after graduation. Despite the immaturity of the main character, it contains the wisdom of a man who has seen life. This is a book about family. About how important it is to learn to understand and love loved ones. After all, as the great humanist said: “Happy is he who is happy at home.”

“Childhood” is the first work that Leo Tolstoy published. The writer's quotes about family are actively used by scholars in their speech. People who read little take them for folk aphorisms. But the most famous saying of Lev Nikolaevich about the family is known to everyone. Even for those who have not read Anna Karenina, it was on the first page of this novel that the author expressed one of the most brilliant thoughts in the history of mankind regarding the relationship between spouses.

Degree of truthfulness - level of morality

But let's return to Tolstoy's literary debut. When the book “Childhood” was published, which later became part of the famous trilogy, its author was only twenty-four years old. An aspiring writer saw his story on the pages of a literary magazine and did not recognize it. The censors found a lot of unreliable judgments in it, and as the author later expressed in a letter to one of his friends, they “disfigured” it. The same fate awaited “Boyhood.”

Quotes from Leo Tolstoy about life, love, and family could hardly be heard from the lips of one of his contemporaries at an evening party. Lev Nikolayevich had difficult relations with the church, and with the nobility, and even for some time with the Third Department.

But what could be suspicious and unreliable in the words that a person who has not known love is not capable of experiencing strong grief, that knowing each other too closely prevents distance, that living without love, although it is easier, does not make sense? Perhaps it’s all about the sincerity and honesty of the writer. Society was not ready for them. Tolstoy believed that without truth it is impossible to achieve moral perfection, to which he himself strived all his life.

Purity of family relationships

Tolstoy raised this topic not only in Anna Karenina, but also in his other works. But it was the novel about an unfaithful wife that caused a huge amount of controversy, which continues today, a hundred years or more after the death of the writer. What did the author of Anna Karenina want to say? Quotes from Leo Tolstoy are so common that it is sometimes difficult to remember which work a particular phrase belongs to. Meanwhile, not only excerpts from works of art are famous, but also excerpts from journalism. And even the words that Tolstoy uttered in conversations with critics and literary colleagues.

So, someone once asked the living classic about the meaning of the novel Anna Karenina. The writer uttered a phrase that later became world famous: “In order to answer this question, I will have to write another novel.”

But such a novel was never written. That’s why critics and literary scholars have been trying for many years to reveal the meaning of the brilliant book, analyzing the work as a whole and its individual fragments, quoting Tolstoy and trying to find something new between the lines. For ordinary readers, Anna Karenina is a novel about love, passion, family relationships, a deceitful and cruel society.

Tolstoy and the peasantry

As you know, over the years the thinker became closer to the people. It is no coincidence that one of the heroes of the above-mentioned novel spent most of his time at work, not recognizing secular entertainment. We are talking about Levin, whose image, like the image of Bezukhov from the epic “War and Peace,” is partly autobiographical.

Tolstoy was involved in charity work. Not the one that was popular among the nobility - bright, beautiful, but often fake, for show. The author of the greatest novels of the 19th century did good deeds, which is never easy. Their basis was mercy. Leo Tolstoy spent two years in the Volga region during a terrible famine. The writer organized a fundraiser. As a result, more than two hundred canteens were opened.

About charity

And many years before Tolstoy visited the Volga lands, a dispute broke out between him and another classic of Russian literature, Turgenev, which grew into a long-term quarrel. The author of “Fathers and Sons” had the imprudence to boast in the presence of Lev Nikolaevich of his daughter, who was involved in charity work: the girl darned peasant clothes with her own hands. Tolstoy did not admire the good deeds performed by the daughter of his colleague, but said: “A dressed-up girl, holding pathetic cast-offs in her hands, plays her role insincerely.”

The books of this writer should be read and re-read. They contain answers to the questions that every person asks: “Who am I?”, “Why do I live?”, “What is my place in society?” Tolstoy's sayings are still relevant today. However, the correct thing to do is to find them yourself on the pages of imperishable novels.

Sacrifice is a measure of knowledge, dedication and hard work. A scientist, musician or artist sacrifices peace and well-being in order to devote himself completely to his favorite work.

When doubts arise and indecision is detrimental to business, act, even at the expense of prudence, the first step will mean everything. He will save you from inaction. - Lev Tolstoy

The ruler is destroyed by the system of power, the intoxication of power, the very thought of power and superiority.

It is not human lies that kill knowledge, but the semblance of truth, behind which the truth is not visible, the truth is covered in the darkness of obscurity and mystery.

A person must initially be a slave. The question is: “Who rules over the slaves? Human passions or human spirituality?

Leo Tolstoy: When people irritate you, and society weighs you down, there is only one way left - solitude. Although loneliness is akin to suicide.

I don't understand hairpieces at all. To caress your beloved daughter, you have to stroke the hair of some dead, unknown ladies.

Two things cannot confuse a man of action: do not be upset when you are unable to help or when you provided help in vain.

Activities are always useful and spiritual if there is no personal interest.

Read the continuation of beautiful quotes from Leo Tolstoy on the pages:

Family selfishness is crueler than personal selfishness. A person who is ashamed to sacrifice the benefits of another for himself alone considers it his duty to take advantage of misfortune, the need of people for the good of the family.

In folk speech, the laws of the birth of language live and always operate.

Respect was invented in order to hide the empty place where love should be.

The strength of an army depends on its spirit.

But it is difficult for a dissatisfied person not to reproach someone else, and the very one who is closest to him, for what he is dissatisfied with.

One of the most amazing misconceptions is the misconception that human happiness lies in doing nothing.

Pretense in anything can deceive the most intelligent, insightful person: but the most limited child, no matter how skillfully it is hidden, recognizes it and is disgusted.

If you love, then you love the whole person as he is, and not as I want him to be.

There is no one to blame in the world.

The better a person is, the less he fears death.

The conversation started out nice, but precisely because it was too nice, it stopped again.

To love means to live the life of the one you love.

He who does nothing always has many helpers.

Everything comes to those who know how to wait.

Knowledge is only knowledge when it is acquired through the efforts of one’s thoughts, and not through memory.

All thoughts that have huge consequences are always simple.

Every openly expressed thought, no matter how false, every clearly conveyed fantasy, no matter how absurd, cannot fail to find sympathy in some soul.

People are not punished for their sins, but are punished by the sins themselves. And this is the heaviest and most certain punishment.

All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

In order to perceive other people's thoughts, you must not have your own.

All people of the world have the same rights to enjoy the natural benefits of the world and the same rights to respect.

Conscience is the memory of society, assimilated by an individual.

The language should be kept clean in all departments, not that it is monotonous, but on the contrary, so that there is not that monotonous literary language that always covers up emptiness.

It's only a step from a five-year-old child to me. There is a terrible distance from the newborn to me.

Strong people are always simple.

A person who separates himself from other people deprives himself of happiness, because the more he separates himself, the worse his life.

There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.

Knowledge without a moral basis means nothing.

People who cannot do anything should make people, and the rest should contribute to their enlightenment and happiness.

“What are you talking about? What are you? Shut up, stupid.” - he turned to his heart"

The best kind of person is the one who lives primarily by his own thoughts and other people's feelings, and the worst kind of person is the one who lives by other people's thoughts and his own feelings. From the various combinations of these four fundamentals, the motives of activity are the difference between people.

Digging into our souls, we often unearth things that would lie there unnoticed.

There is no complete freedom, but a person approaches freedom as he unites his mind and love with God.

She didn't need to ask why he was there. She knew this as surely as if he had told her that he was here to be where she was.

It’s easier to give in than to bend others...

The good that you do from your heart, you always do to yourself.

The first and undoubted duty of a person is to participate in the struggle with nature for his life and the lives of other people.

Shame and disgrace! The only thing you're afraid of is meeting Russians abroad.

“It’s amazing how complete the illusion that beauty is good can be. A beautiful woman says stupid things, you listen and don’t see stupid things, but see smart things. She talks, does nasty things, and you see something cute. When she doesn’t say anything stupid or nasty, but is beautiful, then you are now convinced that she is a miracle, how smart and moral.”

The root of evil deeds is evil thoughts.

Faith is an understanding of the meaning of life and recognition of the responsibilities arising from this understanding.

The movement towards the good of humanity is accomplished not by torturers, but by martyrs.

Most men demand from their wives virtues that they themselves are not worth.

It is a mistake to think that knowledge is a virtue. It is not the quantity, but the quality of knowledge that is important.

Happiness does not lie in always doing what you want, but in always wanting what you do.

Of the passions, the most powerful, evil and persistent is sexual, carnal love, and therefore if the passions are destroyed, and the last, strongest of them is carnal love, then the prophecy will be fulfilled: people will unite together, the goal of humanity will be achieved and there will be no reason for it to live.

The aesthetic and the ethical are two arms of the same lever: as one side lengthens and becomes lighter, the other becomes shorter and heavier. As soon as a person loses moral meaning, he becomes especially sensitive to the aesthetic.

The more we love, the larger, fuller and more joyful our life becomes.

The surest sign of truth is simplicity and clarity. A lie is always complex, elaborate and verbose.

Wisdom is to know what the work of life is and how to carry it out.

If a savage has stopped believing in his wooden god, this does not mean that there is no God, but only that God is not wooden.

Do not believe the words of either your own or those of others, believe only the deeds of both your own and those of others.

No matter what you say, your native language will always remain native. When you want to speak to your heart’s content, not a single French word comes to mind, but if you want to show off, then it’s a different matter.

Before talking about the benefit of satisfying needs, we must decide which needs constitute the benefit.

We must always marry in the same way as we die, that is, only when it is impossible otherwise.

Nothing encourages idleness more than empty talk.

Women, especially those who have gone through the men's school, know very well that talking about lofty subjects is just talk, and what a man needs is the body and everything that shows him in the most deceptive but attractive light; and this is exactly what is being done.

Never bother someone else with something you can do yourself.

Only with strong, ideal aspirations can people fall low morally.

Have a goal for your whole life, a goal for a certain time, a goal for the year, for the month, for the week, for the day and for the hour and for the minute, sacrificing the lower goals to the higher ones.

If good has a cause, it is no longer good; if it has a consequence - a reward, it is also not good. Therefore, good is outside the chain of cause and effect.

A person who has stopped drinking and smoking acquires that mental clarity and calmness of view, which illuminates for him all the phenomena of life from a new, correct perspective.

in life there is only one undoubted happiness - to live for another.

The essence of any faith is that it gives life a meaning that is not destroyed by death.

The one who has nothing to say talks the most.

To handle the language somehow means to think differently.

Short thoughts are good because they force the serious reader to think for himself.

Our good qualities harm us more in life than bad ones.

In the matter of cunning, a stupid person deceives smarter ones.

Loves? Can he love? If he had not heard that love exists, he would never have used this word.

The harm comes not so much from the fact that we do not do what we should, but from the fact that we do not refrain from doing what we should not do.

Great objects of art are great only because they are understandable and accessible to everyone.

Love is the essence of the soul; it must be strengthened and cleansed of all bad feelings, irritation and irony directed against a person.

The difference between material and mental poisons is that most material poisons taste disgusting, while mental poisons in the form of... bad books, unfortunately, are often attractive.

The main property in any art is a sense of proportion.

She, blushing, reached out to him [her father], expecting a kiss, but he only ruffled her hair and said:

We do not like people because they are evil, but we consider them evil because we do not love them.

A person can serve to improve social life only to the extent that he fulfills the demands of his conscience in his life.

Man is unthinkable outside of society.

I know only two real misfortunes in life: remorse and illness. And happiness is only the absence of these two evils.

In order to make it easy to live with each person, think about what connects you, and not about what separates you from him.

To believe in goodness, you need to start doing it.

Real life happens where it is unnoticed.

If only people knew that the goal of humanity is not material progress, that this progress is inevitable growth, and there is one goal - the good of all people...

People who live only by their feelings are animals.

The most outstanding talents are ruined by idleness.

Beware of thinking that you have virtues that others do not have.

The word is the deed.

The most powerful suggestion of goodness is an example of a good life.

Church. This whole word is the name of deception, through which some people want to rule over others.

Happiness is pleasure without remorse.

Language is a tool of thinking.

A state that treats animals poorly will always be poor and criminal.

The battle is won by the one who is determined to win it.

People learn how to speak, but the main science is how and when to remain silent.

Let people's approval be a consequence of your action, not a goal.

Oddly enough, the firmest, most unshakable beliefs are the most superficial. Deep convictions are always mobile.

Vanity... It must be a characteristic feature and a special disease of our age.

The need for happiness is embedded in a person; therefore it is legal.

In order for the situation of people to become better, it is necessary for the people themselves to become better. This is the same truism as the fact that in order for a vessel of water to heat up, all its drops must be heated.

It was necessary to resort to the right, never changing means - slander.

How much of what seemed beautiful and inaccessible to me then has become insignificant, and what was then is now forever inaccessible.

In the presence of death, you must either voluntarily leave life, or change it, find in it the meaning that would not be destroyed by death.

It always seems that we are loved because we are good. But we don’t realize that they love us because those who love us are good.

One girl was asked what is the most important person, what is the most important time and what is the most necessary thing? And she answered, thinking that the most important person is the one with whom you are communicating at a given moment, the most important time is the one in which you are living now, and the most necessary thing is to do good to the person with whom you are dealing at every given moment.

You can only hate life due to apathy and laziness.

There are no situations and no matters so insignificant in which wisdom cannot be manifested.

Everything was mixed up in the Oblonskys’ house.

Lately my life has become difficult. I see that I have begun to understand too much.

A person is like a fraction, the numerator is what he is, and the denominator is what he thinks about himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.

Music is a shorthand for feelings.

All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.