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People understand the meaning of eating lies in the nourishment of the body only when they cease to consider that the object of that activity is pleasure. ...People understand the meaning of art only when they cease to consider that the aim of that activity is beauty, i.e., pleasure.

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
Philosopher
Playwright
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Writer
Tolstoi
Tolstoy
Lev Nikolaevich
graf Tolstoĭ
Lev Nikolayevich
Count Tolstoy
Count Lev Tolstoy
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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Body
Activity
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Meaning
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Aim
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Cease
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Consider
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Eating
Art
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More quotes by Leo Tolstoy

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A holy spirit lives within you.
Leo Tolstoy
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To love life is to love God. Harder and more blessed than all else is to love this life in one's sufferings, in undeserved sufferings.
Leo Tolstoy
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Where is there any book of the law so clear to each man as that written in his heart?
Leo Tolstoy
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People involve themselves in countless activities which they consider to be important, but they forget about one activity which is more important and necessary than any other, and which includes all other things: the improvement of their soul
Leo Tolstoy
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And so the liberal tendency became a habit with Stepan Arkadyich, and he liked his newspaper, as he liked a cigar after dinner, for the slight haze it produced in his head.
Leo Tolstoy
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Knowledge is real knowledge only when it is acquired by the efforts of your intellect, not by memory
Leo Tolstoy
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It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. A handsome woman talks nonsense, you listen and hear not nonsense but cleverness. She says and does horrid things, and you see only charm. And if a handsome woman does not say stupid or horrid things, you at once persuade yourself that she is wonderfully clever and moral.
Leo Tolstoy
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One may say with one's lips: “I believe that the world was created six thousand years ago” or, “I believe that Jesus flew away into the skies and is sitting on the right hand of the Father” or, “God is One, and also Three” — but no one can believe it, because the words have no sense.
Leo Tolstoy
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The religious superstition is encouraged by means of the institution of churches, processions, monuments, festivities....The so-called clergy stupefy the masses....They befog the people and keep them in an eternal condition of stupefaction.
Leo Tolstoy
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I have found that a story leaves a deeper impression when it is impossible to tell which side the author is on.
Leo Tolstoy
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Perfection is impossible without humility. Why should I strive for perfection, if I am already good enough?
Leo Tolstoy
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Art lifts man from his personal life into the universal life.
Leo Tolstoy
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Art is the uniting of the subjective with the objective, of nature with reason, of the unconscious with the conscious, and therefore art is the highest means of knowledge.
Leo Tolstoy
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These joys were so trifling as to be as imperceptible as grains of gold among the sand, and in moments of depression she saw nothing but the sand yet there were brighter moments when she felt nothing but joy, saw nothing but the gold.
Leo Tolstoy
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Can it be that I have overlooked something, that there is something which I have failed to understand? Is it not possible that this state of despair is common to everyone?
Leo Tolstoy
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The improvement of life was only accomplished to the extent to which it was based on a change of consciousness, that is, to the extent to which the law of violence was replaced in men's consciousness by the law of love.
Leo Tolstoy
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I can't understand how anyone can write without rewriting everything over and over again.
Leo Tolstoy
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The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.
Leo Tolstoy
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Each time of life has its own kind of love.
Leo Tolstoy
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In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.
Leo Tolstoy