Quote

By patriotism is meant, not only spontaneous, instinctive love for one's own nation, and preference for it above all other nations, but also the belief that such love and preference are good and useful.

Leo Tolstoy

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Leo Tolstoy
Age: 82 †
Born: 1828
Born: January 1
Died: 1910
Died: January 1
Diarist
Esperantist
Essayist
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Pedagogue
Philosopher
Playwright
Prosaist
Writer
Tolstoi
Tolstoy
Lev Nikolaevich
graf Tolstoĭ
Lev Nikolayevich
Count Tolstoy
Count Lev Tolstoy
Leo
graf Tolstoy
Lev
Count Tolstoy
Lev
graf Tolsztoj
Лев Николаевич
c граф Толстой
Lew
graf Tolstoi
Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy
Lev Tolstoy
Count Leo Tolstoy
Also
Preference
Good
Spontaneous
Love
Patriotism
Useful
Meant
Nation
Belief
Nations
Instinctive

More quotes by Leo Tolstoy

Image
We are all created to be miserable, and that we all know it, and all invent means of deceiving each other. And when one sees the truth, what is one to do?
Leo Tolstoy
Image
Since corrupt people unite amongst themselves to constitute a force, then honest people must do the same.
Leo Tolstoy
Image
In spite the mountains of books written about art, no precise definition of art has been constructed. And the reason for this is that the conception of art has been based on the conception of beauty.
Leo Tolstoy
Image
For if we allow that human life is always guided by reason, we destroy the premise that life is possible at all.
Leo Tolstoy
Image
Not all of life's roads are set fast, for a man may do this or a man may do that and not even the gods know the mind of a man.
Leo Tolstoy
Image
In former times the chief method of justifying the use of violence and thereby infringing the law of love was by claiming a divine right for the rulers: the Tsars, Sultans, Rajahs, Shahs and other heads of states.
Leo Tolstoy
Image
One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken.
Leo Tolstoy
Image
In order to know what he is, a man must first know what the sum of this mysterious humanity is, a humanity made up of people who, like himself, do not understand what they are.
Leo Tolstoy
Image
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.
Leo Tolstoy
Image
It seldom happens that a man changes his life through his habitual reasoning. No matter how fully he may sense the new plans and aims revealed to him by reason, he continues to plod along in old paths until his life becomes frustrating and unbearable-he finally makes the change only when his usual life can no longer be tolerated.
Leo Tolstoy
Image
An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person's main task in life—becoming a better person.
Leo Tolstoy
Image
Today, nobody sees, or wishes to see, that in our time the enslavement of the majority of men is based on money taxes, levied on land and otherwise, which are collected by government from the subjects.
Leo Tolstoy
Image
History, that is to say, the unconscious, universal life of humanity, in the aggregate, every moment profits by the life of kings for itself, as an instrument for the accomplishment of its own ends.
Leo Tolstoy
Image
ٰThe Most difficult thing but an essential one – is to love Life, to love it even while one suffers, because Life is all, Life is God, and to love Life means to love God.
Leo Tolstoy
Image
Loving the same man or woman all your life, why, that's like supposing the same candle could last you all your life
Leo Tolstoy
Image
It seems that it is impossible to live without discovering the purpose of your life. And the first thing which a person should do is to understand the meaning of life. But the majority of people who consider themselves to be educated are proud that they have reached such great height that they cease to care about the meaning of existence.
Leo Tolstoy
Image
Christianity, with its doctrine of humility, of forgiveness, of love, is incompatible with the state, with its haughtiness, its violence, its punishment, its wars
Leo Tolstoy
Image
Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed.
Leo Tolstoy
Image
A Gentleman is a man who will pay his gambling debts even when he knows he has been cheated.
Leo Tolstoy
Image
Smiling with pleasure, they went through their memories, not sad, old people's memories, but poetic, youthful ones, those impressions from the very distant past where dream merges with reality, and they laughed softly, rejoicing at something.
Leo Tolstoy