Leo Tolstoy Quotes

It's good for everyone to understand that they are to love their enemies, simply because your enemies show you things about yourself you need to change. So in actuality enemies are friends in reverse.

Happy are those who find fault with themselves instead of finding fault with others.

There comes a certain point in life when you have to stop blaming other people for how you feel or the misfortunes in your life. You can't go through life obsessing about what might have been.

You have to take responsibility for how you act. You can't fix everyone.

I'm a person that carries everything that happened to me in my past, with me into the future. I refuse to let it make me bitter. I still completely believe in love and I remain open to anything that will happen to me.

The real man is one who always finds excuses for others, but never excuses himself.

I'm a grown man. I don't point fingers.

I have become a person who can focus more on love.

I stopped hating people. I also tried to see the positives in negative situations that I found myself in.

We are here to love, not to judge. I'd been blaming and raging. I certainly wasn't loving my daughter that afternoon as God loves me. God's love doesn't insist on perfection or even good common sense. Why then should I demand more of those I love? With this tiny change in perspective I began to see the need for correction wasn't in my daughter, but in me.

Learning from our mistakes is critical for improving, but even I don't have patience for ranking my regrets. Regret is a negative emotion that inhibits the optimism required to take on new challenges. You risk living in an alternative universe, where if only you had done this or that differently, things would be better. That's a poor substitute for making your actual life better, or improving the lives of others. Regret briefly, analyze and understand, and then move on, improving the only life you have.

Everybody has seen that I make mistakes. Every single album I have ever made is about love. But I am not going to give up. I have to look at what I do wrong. I rush in, I get swept up, I ignore the signs. But so many of us are guilty of these things. Each time it goes wrong, it's hard. I get really hurt but I have to let myself go: 'What did I do? What can I learn?' And as hard and as hurtful as things get, I want to believe I will be able to go one step higher. I've got to hope that if I keep going I will eventually get it right.

According to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving. Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now.

We can be better, we can be wiser, we can be more kind. Yes we have to change. We have to grow up and stop acting like 10 years old. Yes there is much to do, much to see, much to go into.

People often ask me what is the most effective technique for transforming their life. It is a little embarrassing that after years and years of research and experimentation, I have to say that the best answer is - just be a little kinder.

Maybe it's not too late to learn how to love and forget how to hate.

...Stop blaming me, thinking I'm the problem. If you think I'm the problem, then you have to change me. If you realize that you're the problem, then you can change yourself, learn something and grow wiser. Most people want everyone else in the world to change themselves. Let me tell you, it's easier to change yourself than everyone else.

The three most difficult things for a human being are not physical feats or intellectual achievements. They are, first, returning love for hate; second, including the excluded; third, admitting that you are wrong.

Thus you may understand that love alone is the true seed of every merit in you, and of all acts for which you must atone.

My days of whining and complaining about others have come to an end. Nothing is easier than fault finding. All it will do is discolor my personality so that none will want to associate with me. That was my old life. No more.

The first lesson of life is to burn our own smoke; that is, not to inflict on outsiders our personal sorrows and petty morbidness, not to keep thinking of ourselves as exceptional cases.

I love my enemies for two reasons: they inspire me to recognise my weakness. They also inspire me to perfect my imperfect nature.

I was a self-centered bore. I was masochistic, and only thought I was happy. When I woke up and said, "there must be something wrong with me", I grew up. Because I never understood myself, how could I hope to understand anyone else? That's why I can truly say that now I can give a woman love for the first time in my life, because I can understand her.

An ignorant person is inclined to blame others for his own misfortune. To blame oneself is proof of progress. But the wise man never has to blame another or himself.

Such honesty comes with a price, but when you get past the hurt and shock of realizing that you're faulted and frequently wrong, you also realize that you are really loved and respected for who you are, and you become a better person.