“Progress consists only in the greater clarification of answers to the basic questions of life.”

— Leo Tolstoy, Diaries (translated by R. F. Christian)

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.”

“Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.”

“Life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.”

“Indeed, life would be unliveable, even if I did not notice the change.”

“What's old collapses, times change, / And new life blossoms in the ruins.”

“Progress is / The law of life: man is not Man as yet.”

“The greatest changes in social life are wrought imperceptibly, and are only seen from afar.”