Essays on Tolstoy

9 September 1828

7 November 1910

Novelist, short story writer, playwright, essayist

Russian

• War and Peace
• Anna Karenina
• The Death of Ivan Ilyich
• The Kingdom of God Is Within You
• Resurrection

9 September, 1828 - 20 November, 1910

Leo Tolstoy was a Russian author, a master of realistic fiction and one of the world’s greatest novelists.

War and Peace, Anna Karenina, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, The Kingdom of God Is Within You, Resurrection

In his major works Tolstoy touches themes like importance of family life, search for the meaning of life, irrationality of human motivations, social changes in Russia in the nineteenth century.

Tolstoy described conscious mental life with unparalleled mastery. His name has become synonymous with an appreciation of contingency and of the value of everyday activity. Oscillating between skepticism and dogmatism, Tolstoy explored the most-diverse approaches to human experience.

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
“It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.”