“I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness.”

— Leo Tolstoy, Family Happiness (1859), Part 1

About Leo Tolstoy

1828 – 1910

Russian novelist and moral philosopher, author of 'War and Peace' and 'Anna Karenina'.

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

“Art is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen.”

“Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait.”

“For God made all mankind to be happy, to be serene.”

“Love the little trade which thou hast learned, and be content therewith.”

“Why does this magnificent applied science which saves work and makes life easier bring us so little happiness?”

“A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.”

“What is happiness? The feeling that power increases—that a resistance is overcome.”

“Only it takes time to be happy. A lot of time. Happiness, too, is a long patience.”