What Then Must We Do? Quotes

“I sit on a man's back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all means possible… except by getting off his back.”
― Leo Tolstoy, What Then Must We Do?

“All the wounds of society, the wounds of poverty, of vice, of ignorance—all will be laid bare.  Is there not something re-assuring in this? ”
― Leo Tolstoy, What to Do?

“Money, in itself, is evil.  And therefore he who gives money gives evil. ”
― Leo Tolstoy, What to Do?

“There can only be two tests of the utility of one man's activity for another: the external, consisting in the recognition of this utility by him who is benefited, and the internal, a desire to benefit another which lies at the root of the activity of him who confers the benefit.”
― Leo Tolstoy, What Then Must We Do?

“Great and real affairs are always simple and modest.

And so it is with the most important affair before us: the solution of the terrible contradictions amid which we live.

And the things that solve those contradictions are these modest, imperceptible, apparently ridiculous acts: serving oneself, doing physical labour for ourselves and if possible for others - which we rich people have to do if we understand the misfortune, wrongfulness, and danger of the position into which we have fallen.”
― Leo Tolstoy, What Then Must We Do?