This quote originates in Thomas J. Yates, "Count Tolstoi and the 'American Religion' ", Improvement Era (February 1939): 94. According to Yates, American diplomat Andrew Dickson White told him (Yates) in an interview that Tolstoy said this to him (White) during a visit to the Tolstoy estate.
• However, according to Leland A. Feltzer, "Tolstoy and Mormonism", Dialogue 6, no. 1 (Spring 1971): 13–29, DOI:10.2307/45227501, Yate likely misremembered the interview. No other contemporaneous evidence corroborates the claim that White visited Tolstoy's estate, and Tolstoy was suspicious of organized religion, making this compliment improbable.

If Mormonism is able to endure, unmodified, until it reaches the third and fourth generation, it is destined to become the greatest power the world has ever known.

— Leo Tolstoy

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "If Mormonism is able to endure, unmodified, until it reaches the third and fourth generation, it is destined to become the greatest power the world has ever known." in the context of "This quote originates in Thomas J. Yates, "Count Tolstoi and the 'American Religion' ", Improvement Era (February 1939): 94. According to Yates, American diplomat Andrew Dickson White told him (Yates) in an interview that Tolstoy said this to him (White) during a visit to the Tolstoy estate.
• However, according to Leland A. Feltzer, "Tolstoy and Mormonism", Dialogue 6, no. 1 (Spring 1971): 13–29, DOI:10.2307/45227501, Yate likely misremembered the interview. No other contemporaneous evidence corroborates the claim that White visited Tolstoy's estate, and Tolstoy was suspicious of organized religion, making this compliment improbable." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Leo Tolstoy" (Disputed) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Leo Tolstoy

About Leo Tolstoy

Lev Nikolayevitch Tolstoy Ле́в Никола́евич Толсто́й, usually rendered Leo Tolstoy, or sometimes Tolstoi (9 September 1828 – 20 November 1910) was a Russian writer, philosopher and social activist (social critic), whose novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina are internationally praised classics of world literature. He was a major influence on the development of Christian anarchism and pacifism, contributing to such nonviolent resistance movements as those of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and James Bevel.