Leo Tolstoy

"All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. "

"And all people live, Not by reason of any care they have for themselves, But by the love for them that is in other people. "

"Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced. "

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. "

"Everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. "

"Happy families are all alike every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. "

"Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them. "

"I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means -- except by getting off his back. "

"If one has no vanity in this life of ours, there is no sufficient reason for living. "

"In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you. "

"Music is the shorthand of emotion. "

"One ought only to write when one leaves a piece of ones flesh in the ink-pot each time one dips one's pen. "

"The chief difference between words and deeds is that words are always intended for men for their approbation, but deeds can be done only for God. "

"The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life. "

"The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity. "

"The two most powerful warriors are patience and time. "

"Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold. "