Quotes from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]

Leo Tolstoy ·  2356 pages

Rating: (211.3K votes)


“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]


“Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]


“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]


“The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]


“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]



“The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness...”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]


“Pierre was right when he said that one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and I now believe in it. Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]


“You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]


“It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]


“If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]



“We are asleep until we fall in Love!”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]


“I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]


“Everything I know, I know because of love.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]


“Because of the self-confidence with which he had spoken, no one could tell whether what he said was very clever or very stupid.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]


“Yes, love, ...but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. I knew that feeling of love which is the essence of the soul, for which no object is needed. And I know that blissful feeling now too. To love one's neighbours; to love one's enemies. To love everything - to Love God in all His manifestations. Some one dear to one can be loved with human love; but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. And that was why I felt such joy when I felt that I loved that man. What happened to him? Is he alive? ...Loving with human love, one may pass from love to hatred; but divine love cannot change. Nothing, not even death, can shatter it. It is the very nature of the soul. And how many people I have hated in my life. And of all people none I have loved and hated more than her.... If it were only possible for me to see her once more... once, looking into those eyes to say...”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]



“How can one be well...when one suffers morally?”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]


“Human science fragments everything in order to understand it, kills everything in order to examine it. ”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]


“Here's my advice to you: don't marry until you can tell yourself that you've done all you could, and until you've stopped loving the women you've chosen, until you see her clearly, otherwise you'll be cruelly and irremediably mistaken. Marry when you're old and good for nothing...Otherwise all that's good and lofty in you will be lost.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]


“Life did not stop, and one had to live.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]


“Kings are the slaves of history.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]



“A Frenchman's self-assurance stems from his belief that he is mentally and physically irresistibly fascinating to both men and women. An Englishman's self-assurance is founded on his being a citizen of the best organized state in the world and on the fact that, as an Englishman, he always knows what to do, and that whatever he does as an Englishman is unquestionably correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets. A Russian is self-assured simply because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe in the possibility of knowing anything fully.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]


“Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]


“Here I am alive, and it's not my fault, so I have to try and get by as best I can without hurting anybody until death takes over.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]


“A man on a thousand mile walk has to forget his goal and say to himself every morning, 'Today I'm going to cover twenty-five miles and then rest up and sleep.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]


“In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to keep wheels turning. ”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]



“One must be cunning and wicked in this world.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]


Video

About the author

Leo Tolstoy
Born place: in Yasnaya Polyana, Tula, Russian Empire
Born date September 9, 1828
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Ала все пак трябва да има токлова много друго, толкова много повече в едно човешко създание от онова, което е разказано и което въобще подлежи на разказване.”
― Jens Christian Grøndahl, quote from Silence in October


“of late
I've had this thought
that this country
has gone backwards
4 or 5 decades
and that all the
social advancement
the good feeling of
person toward
person
has been washed
away
and replaced by the same
old
bigotries

we have
more than ever
the selfish wants of power
the disregard for the
weak
the old
the impoverished
the
helpless.

we are replacing want with
war
salvation with
slavery.

we have wasted the
gains

we have become
rapidly
less.

we have our Bomb
it is our fear
or damnation
and our
shame.

now
something so sad
has hold of us
that
the breath
leaves
and we can't even
cry.

- putrefaction
― Charles Bukowski, quote from The Pleasures of the Damned


“We come forth tonight," she bagen, "in the name of Sisterhood , to bring new Sisters into our fold. We present to you an oppurtunity, young Sisters. We are the new face of women. Our leadership will bring the dawn of a new era.”
― Kay Cassidy, quote from The Cinderella Society


“Look, girls don't care how many push-ups you can do. They just want to get high and wear flowers in their hair. Maybe steal a car.”
― Donald Ray Pollock, quote from Knockemstiff


“The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.”
― quote from Zen in the Martial Arts


Interesting books

Beat the Reaper
(13.8K)
Beat the Reaper
by Josh Bazell
Glory
(1.8K)
Glory
by Vladimir Nabokov
Allan Quatermain
(4K)
Allan Quatermain
by H. Rider Haggard
Hear the Wind Sing
(10.1K)
Hear the Wind Sing
by Haruki Murakami
Smoke
(9.1K)
Smoke
by Ellen Hopkins
Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
(13.5K)
Rump: The True Story...
by Liesl Shurtliff

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.