The goal of our life should not be to find joy in marriage, but to bring more love and truth into the world. We marry to assist each other in this task. The most selfish and hateful life of all is that of two beings who unite in order to enjoy life. The highest calling is that of the man who has dedicated his life to serving God and doing good, and who unites with a woman in order to further that purpose.
Leo TolstoyMen are so accustomed to maintaining external order by violence that they cannot conceive of life being possible without violence.
Leo TolstoyIf people lacked the capacity to receive the thoughts of the men who preceded them and to pass on to others their own thoughts, men would be like wild beasts. And if men lacked this other capacity of being infected by art, people would be almost more savage still, and, above all, more separated from and more hostile to one another. Therefore the activity of art is a most important one, as important as the activity of speech itself and as generally diffused.
Leo TolstoyThe law of violence is not a law, but a simple fact which can only be a law when it does not meet with protest and opposition. It is like the cold, darkness and weight, which people had to put up with until recently when warmth, illumination and leverage were discovered.
Leo TolstoyThe recognition of the sanctity of the life of every man is the first and only basis of all morality.
Leo TolstoyOne may say with one's lips: โI believe that the world was created six thousand years ago;โ or, โI believe that Jesus flew away into the skies and is sitting on the right hand of the Father;โ or, โGod is One, and also Three;โ โ but no one can believe it, because the words have no sense.
Leo Tolstoy