Leo Tolstoy Quotes

The virtuous will be sure to speak uprightly; but those whose speech is upright may not be virtuous.

There is hardly that person to be found who is not more concerned for the reputation of wit and sense, than honesty and virtue.

On the whole, I should say that the person who likes to lie should never, in any circumstances, be allowed to. Leave the lying to the people who hate it. You will not find them indulging often.

A man may be very sincere in good principles, without having good practice.

Moralism doesn't produce morality; it produces immorality.

You've only got to begin to do anything to find out how few honest, honourable people there are. Sometimes, when I can't sleep, I think: "Oh Lord, you've given us huge forests, infinite fields, and endless horizons, and we, living here, ought really to be giants.

It's obvious you shouldn't steal, kill or be cruel.

I'm not a practicing Catholic now. I didn't like what the church was doing with what Jesus had said, in a way. But I wouldn't say I'm not religious.

I do not believe in hypocrisy.

[Ross Perot] thinks that proclaiming honesty is the same as being honest.

Living on hypocrisy is not a healthy diet for patriots.

...righteousness [is] always more believable when combined with dreariness.

A lie faces God and shrinks from man.

Our probity is not less at the mercy of fortune than our property.

If the Coastal Republic had believed in the existence of virtue, it could at least have aspired to hypocrisy.

Fewer possess virtue, than those who wish us to believe that they possess it.

Prudence is a quality incompatible with vice, and can never be effectively enlisted in its cause.

I've never lost a friend over work. I come from a small-town environment and I remember my childhood impressions that, if you were a conniver or a fink or whatever, everybody knew about it and you were a louse for the rest of your life. So I never lost those values in some way.

Honest people will respect us for our merit: the public, for our luck.

Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks-no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea, if there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men. So that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.

What, I should only trust good people? Man, good people get bought and sold every day. Might as well trust somebody evil once in a while, it makes no more or less sense.

There can be no question of holding forth on ethics. I have seen people behave badly with great morality and I note every day that integrity has no need of rules

Integrity is important in building relationships. And is the foundation upon which many other qualities for success are built, such as respect, dignity, and trust.

We never deceive people to benefit them, for knavery is a compound of wickedness and falsehood.

Moralizing and morals are two entirely different things and are always found in entirely different people