Leo Tolstoy was a Russian novelist known for epic works such as War and Peace and Anna Karenina. His life experiences, from witnessing war to spiritual quests, profoundly influenced his writings and gave him profound insights into the human soul. His understanding of emotions, motivations and moral dilemmas has made his work stand the test of time, and it still resonates with people today.
Julian de Medeiros, a TikTok creator who shares his thoughts on philosophy, shared how Tolstoy knew if someone was highly intelligent, and his observation says something extraordinary about humanity.
What Tolstoy actually said about intelligence
“The more intelligent a person is, the more he discovers kindness in others,” Tolstoy is widely credited as having written. “For nothing enriches the world more than kindness. It makes mysterious things clear, difficult things easy, and dull things cheerful.”
De Medeiros boiled down Tolstoy’s thoughts into a simple statement: “Intelligent people are unafraid to be kind.” He then took things a step further by noting that Tolstoy believed in the power of emotional intelligence. “To have emotional intelligence is to see the good in other people, that is what Tolstoy meant, that to be intelligent is to be kind,” he added.
It seems that, according to de Medeiros, Tolstoy understood that intelligent people are kind and perceptive of the kindness in others. The intelligent person is conscious of the kindness within themselves and in the world around them.
Science backs up what Tolstoy believed
In a 2024 opinion piece for Inc., author and speaker Jeff Haden cites organizational psychologist Adam Grant, who says, “Generosity isn’t just a sign of virtue. It’s also a mark of intelligence. Data: people with high IQs have more unselfish values, give more to charity, and negotiate better deals for others. They prioritize the long-term collective good over short-term self-interest. It’s smarter to be a giver than a taker.”
Haden adds on to this statement, saying, “…You can also be smart enough to be generous, thoughtful, and kind. You can be smart enough to build people up instead of tearing them down. You can be smart enough to give before you receive (or better yet, with no expectation of reciprocation.) You can be smart enough to shift the credit from yourself to others.”
In other words, these findings certainly line up with Tolstoy’s take on the correlation between kindness and intelligence.
Being kind is a mark of intelligence
Through Tolstoy’s musings, de Medeiros (and Haden and Grant) makes a point that is often overlooked when people talk about intelligence: truly smart people are as in touch with their hearts as they are with their minds.
It’s a reminder worth sitting with, especially in a culture that still tends to measure intelligence in test scores and quick comebacks. Tolstoy wasn’t arguing that kindness makes someone smart. He was pointing out that real intelligence, the kind that notices what others need and responds to it, tends to show up as kindness. The two were never separate to begin with.
This article originally appeared three years ago. It has been updated.
