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The time is fast approaching when to call a man a patriot will be the deepest insult you can offer him. Patriotism now means advocating plunder in the interest of the privileged classes of the particular State system into which we have happened to be born.

Leo Tolstoy

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Leo Tolstoy
Age: 82 †
Born: 1828
Born: January 1
Died: 1910
Died: January 1
Diarist
Esperantist
Essayist
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Pedagogue
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Tolstoi
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Lev Nikolaevich
graf Tolstoĭ
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Leo
graf Tolstoy
Lev
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Lev
graf Tolsztoj
Лев Николаевич
c граф Толстой
Lew
graf Tolstoi
Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy
Lev Tolstoy
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I am sure that nothing has such a decisive influence upon a man's course as his personal appearance, and not so much his appearance as his belief in its attractiveness or unattractiveness.
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He knew she was there by the joy and terror that took possession of his heart [...] Everything was lit up by her. She was the smile that brightened everything around.
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But the peasants - how do the peasants die?
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I love her not with my mind or my imagination, but with my whole being. Loving her I feel myself to be an integral part of all God's joyous world.
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Every man had his personal habits, passions, and impulses toward goodness, beauty, and truth.
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Every time I tried to express my most heartfelt desires to be morally good I met with contempt and ridicule and as soon as I would give in to vile passions I was praised and encouraged. Ambition, love of power, self-interest, lechery, pride, anger, vengeance-all of it was highly esteemed.
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Both salvation and punishment for man lie in the fact that if he lives wrongly he can befog himself so as not to see the misery of his position.
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To say that you can love one person all your life is just like saying that one candle will continue burning as long as you live.
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Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.
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Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal - that there is no human relation between master and slave.
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Music is the shorthand of emotion.
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He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others.
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