On the one hand Tolstoy, particularly in his later years, condemned antisemitism as inconsistent with the commandment to love one's neighbor; on the other, he showed in his own few literary references to Jews the disdainful attitude of a haughty seigneur toward pitiful but despicable creatures.

— Maurice Friedberg

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "On the one hand Tolstoy, particularly in his later years, condemned antisemitism as inconsistent with the commandment to love one's neighbor; on the other, he showed in his own few literary references to Jews the disdainful attitude of a haughty seigneur toward pitiful but despicable creatures." in the context of "Maurice Friedberg, "Encyclopedia Judaica: Russian Literature"" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Leo Tolstoy" (Quotes about Tolstoy: Sorted alphabetically by author or source) 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.