To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can’t eat it.


Leo Tolstoy

896

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.


Leo Tolstoy

896

War on the other hand is such a terrible thing, that no man, especially a Christian man, has the right to assume the responsibility of starting it.


Leo Tolstoy

896

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


Leo Tolstoy

896

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.


Leo Tolstoy

896

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


Leo Tolstoy

896

Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.


Leo Tolstoy

896

If there existed no external means for dimming their consciences, one-half of the men would at once shoot themselves, because to live contrary to one’s reason is a most intolerable state, and all men of our time are in such a state.


Leo Tolstoy

896

The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.


Leo Tolstoy

896

The greater the state, the more wrong and cruel its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power is founded.


Leo Tolstoy

896

The greater the state, the more wrong and cruel its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power is founded.


Leo Tolstoy

896

The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.


Leo Tolstoy

896

Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself.


Leo Tolstoy

896

One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken.


Leo Tolstoy

896

Music is the shorthand of emotion.


Leo Tolstoy

896

True life is lived when tiny changes occur.


Leo Tolstoy

896

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.


Leo Tolstoy

896

It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.


Leo Tolstoy

896

Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.


Leo Tolstoy

896

To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can’t eat it.


Leo Tolstoy

896

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