A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul, Written and Se

by Leo Tolstoy

Better to know a few things which are good and necessary than many things which are useless and mediocre.

Just imagine that the purpose of your life is your happiness only—then life becomes a cruel and senseless thing. You have to embrace what the wisdom of humanity, your intellect, and your heart tell you: that the meaning of life is to serve the force that sent you into the world. Then life becomes a constant joy.

You can achieve wisdom in three ways. The first way is the way of meditation. This is the most noble way. The second way is the way of imitation. This is the easiest and least satisfying way. Thirdly, there is the way of experience. This is the most difficult way. —CONFUCIUS

The merit of a man is not in the knowledge he possesses, but in the effort he made to achieve it. —GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING

When you have doubts about what to do, just imagine that you might die at the end of that same day, and then all your doubts will disappear, and you will see clearly what your conscience tells you, and what is your true personal wish.

To move, you must know where to go, in terms both of everyday motion and of your whole life. In order to live a good life, you must know where life leads.

Life is not given to us that we might live idly without work. No, our life is a struggle and a journey. Good should struggle with evil; truth should struggle with falsehood; freedom should struggle with slavery; love should struggle with hatred. Life is movement, a walk along the way of life to the fulfillment of those ideas which illuminate us, both in our intellect and in our hearts, with divine light. —After GIUSEPPE MAZZINI

The right path in life is very narrow, but it is important to find it. You can understand it, as well as we can understand it, as a walkway of wood built across a swamp; if you step off it, you will plunge into the swamp of misunderstanding and evil. A wise man returns to the true path at once, but a weak man plunges further and further into the swamp, and it becomes more and more difficult for him to get out.

Real life is found only in the present. If people tell you that you should live your life preparing for the future, do not believe them. We live in this life, and we know this life only, and therefore all our efforts should be directed toward the improvement of this life. Not your life in general but every hour of this life should be lived in the best way you know how. Life is neither suffering nor pleasure, but the business which we have to do, and which we have to finish honestly, up to our life’s end. —ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE This world, only this world, is the place of our work, and all our forces, all our efforts, should be directed toward this life.

You should live your life so that you are not afraid of death, and at the same time do not wish to die.

We cannot stop on the way to self-perfection. As soon as you notice that you have a bigger interest in the outer world than in yourself, then you should know that the world moves behind you.

Remember, you do not live in the world, you only pass through it.

We should be satisfied with the small things in life. The less we need, the less trouble we can have. It is a great happiness to have what you desire; but it is an even greater happiness not to want more than you already have. —MENEDEMUS

You must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy. Take from a person who follows the divine law everything which other people think of as comfort and wealth, and nevertheless such a person will remain happy. A person who has spoiled his stomach will criticize his meals saying that the food is bad; the same thing happens with people who are not satisfied with their lives in this world. We do not have the right to be unhappy with our life. If it seems to us that we are not satisfied with life, we should see this as a reason to be unsatisfied with ourselves.

We often refuse to participate in the innocent joys of life because we are too busy with something we feel we have to do. We should accept these moments, because the sweet and joyful game is sometimes more important and necessary than most other things. Very often the business which busy people claim to be doing is not important at all, and sometimes it would be better left undone.

Understanding or mindfulness of death teaches one to choose the things which are complete or could be completed; and those things are the most important. You could die very quickly; but yet you have time to rid yourself of your passions. Be humble to everyone. —MARCUS AURELIUS

Love provides a person with the purpose of his life. Intellect shows him the means to achieve that purpose. In the scheme of the world, a person is no more than a pine cone, or a weak herb, or a bit of swamp grass, but he is a grass which possesses some intellect. —BLAISE PASCAL

Reading too much is harmful to your independence of thought. The greatest thinkers I’ve met among scholars are people who do not read too much. —GEORGE LICHTENBERG

In the long run, people achieve only that which they have set as goals for themselves; therefore, set the highest possible goals for yourself.

You make your decisions in the present, and the present exists out of time; it is a tiny moment where two periods—the past and the future—meet. In the present you are always free to make your choice. A wise man was asked what was the most important time, person, and thing in life. He answered, “The most important time is the present time, because at this time a person has power over himself. The most important person is the one with whom you deal at present, because there is no guarantee that you will ever be able to deal with any other person in this world. The most important thing is to love this person, because everyone is sent into this world with the sole purpose of loving other people.” Only when we use every minute of our life will we know that we are eternal. —HARRIET MARTINEAU

The following words were carved on the bathroom of the king Jinx-Hang: “Renew yourself completely every day, and starting afresh, from the beginning.” —CHINESE WISDOM

People jump back and forth in pursuit of pleasures only because they see the emptiness of their lives more clearly than they do the emptiness of whichever new entertainment attracts them. —BLAISE PASCAL

The future does not really exist. It is created by us in the present.

There are many people who are more unhappy than you. This message cannot be a roof under which you may live, but it will be enough of a roof under which you may hide from storms. You hide from your misfortunes. But if you knew what other people suffered, then you would not complain about your own. —SOLON

Every time you wake up and ask yourself, “What good things am I going to do today?” remember that, when the sun goes down at sunset, it will take a part of your life with it. —INDIAN PROVERB

The virtue of a person is measured not by his outstanding efforts, but by his everyday behavior. —BLAISE PASCAL

Your life may be cut short at any time; therefore, your life should have a deep purpose, a significance that will not depend on whether it is short or long.

The future is only an illusion inferred from our present state. What is important is not the length of life, but the depth of life. What is most important is not to make life longer, but to take your soul out of time, as every sublime act does. Only then does your life become fulfilled.

Study everything, and put intellect first. —PYTHAGORAS Do not be afraid of the way your intellect calls into question old stories and legends. The pure intellect cannot destroy anything without replacing it with the truth: this is one of its essential qualities.

The past does not exist. The future has not begun. The present is an infinitely small point in time in which the already nonexistent past meets the imminent future. At this point, which is timeless, a person’s real life exists. “Time passes by!” we say. Time does not exist; only we move. —After the TALMUD Time is behind us, time is before us, but in the present there is no time.