The chief difference between words and deeds is that words are always intended for men for their approbation, but deeds can be done only for God. - (Tolstoy, Count Leo - Action)

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. - (Tolstoy, Count Leo - Arts and Artists)

We lost because we told ourselves we lost. - (Tolstoy, Count Leo - Attitude)

It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. - (Tolstoy, Count Leo - Beauty)

The Brahmins say that in their books there are many predictions of times in which it will rain. But press those books as strongly as you can, you can not get out of them a drop of water. So you can not get out of all the books that contain the best precepts the smallest good deed. - (Tolstoy, Count Leo - Books - Reading)

Boredom: the desire for desires. - (Tolstoy, Count Leo - Bores and Boredom)

True life is lived when tiny changes occur. - (Tolstoy, Count Leo - Change)

The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life. - (Tolstoy, Count Leo - Change)

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. - (Tolstoy, Count Leo - Change)

Christianity, with its doctrine of humility, of forgiveness, of love, is incompatible with the state, with its haughtiness, its violence, its punishment and its wars. - (Tolstoy, Count Leo - Christians and Christianity)

A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally both in mind and body as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world and therefore, as an Englishman, always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The German's self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth -- science -- which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth. - (Tolstoy, Count Leo - Complacency)

Conceit is incompatible with understanding. - (Tolstoy, Count Leo - Conceit)

But the peasants -- how do the peasants die? - (Tolstoy, Count Leo - Death and Dying)

Though it is possible to utter words only with the intention to fulfill the will of God, it is very difficult not to think about the impression which they will produce on men and not to form them accordingly. But deeds you can do quite unknown to men, only for God. And such deeds are the greatest joy that a man can experience. - (Tolstoy, Count Leo - Deeds and Good Deeds)

All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. - (Tolstoy, Count Leo - Family)