Leo Tolstoy

"The greater the state, the more wrong and illegal the violence upon which it is based."

"All men are divided into two classes: the rigid and the rubber. When the rigid meet they shatter; the rubber bend and bounce."

"The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of."

"If you want to be happy, be."

"Everything yields to diligence."

"One can live magnificently in this world, if one knows how to work and how to love."

"Our life is either dreadfully important or dreadfully unimportant, and we seem not to know which."

"True life begins where the small selfish thoughts end."

"The connection is not between the outer life and its manifestation, but between the inner life and its expression."

"Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women."

"It is impossible to conceive of global conditions without understanding the people."

"A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them."

"Distress is spiritual suffering from which much good may come."

"The main source of suffering is desire and attachment."

"Life is a gift; how we live it is up to us."

"Where there is love, there is truth."

"The most important thing in life is to find one's purpose."

"Consciousness is the only door to being, to existing, to becoming."

"Deceit may serve for a time, but the truth is always the strongest."

"There is no greatness where there is no goodness."

"To love life through labor is to protect it."

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

"The awful truth is that the moment we are all born, we start our dying."

"Seek silence and you will find peace."

"The fear of death is the greatest fear of all."

"I simply cannot stop myself from thinking about the meaning of my existence."

"Nothing is permanent in this world except change."

"The question of life is what to do with one's time."

"Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man."

"We are taught to understand life backwards but we must live it forwards."