Mind Quotes by Leo Tolstoy

Very often, all the activity of the human mind is directed not in revealing the truth, but in hiding the truth

— Leo Tolstoy

I love her not with my mind or my imagination, but with my whole being. Loving her I feel myself to be…

— Leo Tolstoy

Man's mind cannot grasp the causes of events in their completeness, but the desire to find the causes is implanted in man's…

— Leo Tolstoy

Not all of life's roads are set fast, for a man may do this or a man may do that and not…

— Leo Tolstoy

“He felt himself, and did not want to be anyone else. All he wanted now was to be better than before.”

— Leo Tolstoy

I felt a wish never to leave that room - a wish that dawn might never come, that my present frame of…

— Leo Tolstoy

He felt that all his hitherto dissipated and dispersed forces were gathered and directed with terrible energy towards one blissful goal.

— Leo Tolstoy

He felt that he was himself and did not wish to be anyone else. He only wished now to be better than…

— Leo Tolstoy

“But the more intensely he thought, the clearer it became to him that it was indubitably so, that in reality, looking upon…

— Leo Tolstoy

“At that moment it meant nothing to him who might be standing over him, or what was said of him; he was…

— Leo Tolstoy

“At times he would become so absorbed in reading, that all the kerosene in the lamp would burn out, and still he…

— Leo Tolstoy

He felt like a man who, after straining his eyes to peer into the remote distance, finds what he was seeking at…

— Leo Tolstoy

The more mental effort he made the clearer he saw that it was undoubtedly so: that he had really forgotten and overlooked…

— Leo Tolstoy

And yet, now that years have passed, I recall it and wonder that it could distress me so much. It will be…

— Leo Tolstoy

Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their…

— Leo Tolstoy

In vain do science and philosophy pose as the arbiters of the human mind, of which they are in fact only the…

— Leo Tolstoy

“Formerly...when he tried to do anything for the good of everybody, for humanity...for the whole village, he had noticed that the thoughts…

— Leo Tolstoy

“[...] but just as formerly these pursuits and ideas had seemed petty and insignificant in comparison with the darkness that overshadowed all…

— Leo Tolstoy

I'll get angry in the same way with the coachman Ivan, argue in the same way, speak my mind inappropriately, there will…

— Leo Tolstoy

“Nicholas felt a dread of their wanting to take him away from surroundings in which, protected from all the entanglements of life,…

— Leo Tolstoy

“Alexei Alexandrovich stood face to face with life, confronting the possibility of his wife loving someone else besides him, and it was…

— Leo Tolstoy

Memento mori-remember death! These are important words. If we kept in mind that we will soon inevitably die, our lives would be…

— Leo Tolstoy

“He felt that he could not turn aside from himself the hatred of men, because that hatred did not come from his…

— Leo Tolstoy

“...but most of all he liked to listen to stories of real life. He smiled gleefully as he listened to such stories,…

— Leo Tolstoy

“Pierre’s heart thrilled to these words as he gazed with shining eyes into the mason’s face. He listened without interrupting or asking…

— Leo Tolstoy

“Formerly (it had begun almost from childhood and kept growing till full maturity), whenever he had tried to do something that would…

— Leo Tolstoy

“Then these moments of perplexity began to recur oftener and oftener, and always in the same form. They were always expressed by…

— Leo Tolstoy

The Jew - is the symbol of eternity. ... He is the one who for so long had guarded the prophetic message…

— Leo Tolstoy

“He had been stricken with horror, not so much of death, as of life, without any knowledge of whence, and why, and…

— Leo Tolstoy

To regard Christ as God, and to pray to him, are to my mind the greatest possible sacrilege.

— Leo Tolstoy

“Three days after the quarrel, Prince Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky—Stiva, as he was called in the fashionable world— woke up at his usual…

— Leo Tolstoy

“At moments of departure and a change of life, people capable of reflecting on their actions usually get into a serious state…

— Leo Tolstoy

“He looked back on his past life, which had been so wretched. How had he been able to bear that terrible burden?…

— Leo Tolstoy

“Pierre had for the first time experienced that strange and fascinating feeling in the Slobodsky palace, when he suddenly felt that wealth…

— Leo Tolstoy

“But the more he strained to think, the clearer it became to him that it was undoubtedly so, that he had actually…

— Leo Tolstoy

“It was as if the main screw in his head, which held his whole life together, had become stripped. The screw would…

— Leo Tolstoy

One can often hear from the young people:" I do not want to live according to others' mind. I can think of…

— Leo Tolstoy

“the idea presented itself definitely to his mind that it was in his power to exchange the dreary, artificial, idle, and individualistic…

— Leo Tolstoy

“Now he experienced a feeling akin to that of a man whom while calmly crossing a bridge over a precipice, should suddenly…

— Leo Tolstoy