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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Leo Tolstoy
Read between
March 8 - March 16, 2023
you know the truth, or if you think that you know the truth, try to pass it on to the others, as simply as you can, along with the feeling of love for those persons to whom you pass it.
Every thought which is expressed by words is a force, and this force is limitless.
Good thoughts which originate from the hearts of men are as useful as good examples.
Compassion for animals is so closely connected with kindness that you can truly say that a person cannot be kind if he is cruel to animals. Compassion for animals comes from the same source as compassion toward people.
The happiness or unhappiness of a man does not depend upon the amount of property or gold he owns. Happiness or misery is in one’s soul. A wise man feels at home in every country. The whole universe is the home of a noble soul. —DEMOCRITUS
Try to avoid making judgments about yourself, especially by comparing yourself with others. Compare yourself only with perfection.
Truth is not virtue, but the lack of vices.
One of the most common mistakes is to think that you can live without truth. The inner and outer consequences of even the smallest lies are usually more harmful than those small unpleasant things which result from telling the truth directly.
Examine each virtue, and you will see that they all were achieved with work and exercise.
If you are in a difficult situation, a low mood, if you are afraid of other people and of yourself, if you are tormented, then tell yourself: “I will love everyone whom I meet in this life.” Try to follow this rule; and you will see that everything will find its way, and everything will seem simple, and you will no longer have doubts or fears.
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.
The less you speak, the more you will work.
or when you blocked the joyful understanding of completing an action you should have finished.
For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
person who knows the law but does not fulfill it reminds me of one who plows the land but does not put seed in it.
If a person is not in a hurry to fulfill the things which he understands as the law of God, then he believes ...
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The body is the first student of the soul.
In the long run, people achieve only that which they have set as goals for themselves; therefore, set the highest possible goals for yourself.
Do not be afraid to get rid of things which distract your attention—everything material, everything which can be seen or can be felt. The more you purify the spiritual core of your faith, the firmer your faith will be.
The title “scholar” suggests that a person has gone to school, and that he studied,
The purpose of life is the fulfillment of the law of God, not the acquisition of ever more knowledge.
The heavens do not approve when we sin, and the earth does not approve when we are virtuous.
Anyone who is engaged in really important things is very simple because he does not have time to create unnecessary things. Every desire abates, and every vice grows after it is satisfied.
Every new desire is the beginning of a new wish, the beginning of a new sadness.
People can live without need and without jealousy only when they lead a life of moderation.
There are no people who can more confuse the notions of good and evil than the scholars of our time. Their science makes good progress in the study of the material world, but in the inner, spiritual life of humanity, it becomes
The wiser a person is, the simpler the language he uses to express his thoughts.
The teaching about your inner life is the most useful one.
The real purpose of science is the understanding of the truth of this life. Its false purpose is the justification of evil in this world. These are the judicial sciences, political sciences, and especially theology, the science of religion.
If you are doing nothing, it means you are doing bad things.
Nature does not stop in its development, and it executes all kinds of idleness.
You should never be ashamed of any work, even the lowest and dirtiest, but you should be ashamed only of the dirtiest moral state,
that is the idleness of your body, which is the necessary result of the consumptio...
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person who knows all sciences but does not know himself is a poor and ignorant person. He who
When you feel the desire for power, you should stay in solitude for some time.
The way to fame goes through the palaces, the way to happiness goes through the markets, the way to vi...
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Any work of false art praised by critics is a door through which “hypocrites of art” enter our minds.
The creation and sale of most art today is pure prostitution. The comparison is true in every detail. Real art can only rarely be created even by a real artist; like a child in a mother’s womb, it is the ripened fruit of his prior life. False art, though, can be ceaselessly produced by craftsmen, according to the dictates of a market. Like a faithful wife who loves her husband, real art does not need any excess decoration; like a prostitute, false art demands to be decorated. True art comes out of an artist’s urgent need to express the feelings that have formed inside him, just as a mother
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You cannot sell your talent, your genius; as soon as you do, you are a prostitute. You can sell your work, but not your soul.
Until they throw the money changers out of the temple of art, it will never be a real temple. But the time will come when these salesmen will be sent away from the temple of art.
It seems to me that people who want to save themselves from life behave like these soldiers: some distract themselves with vanity, some with cards, politics, laws, women, gambling, horses, hunting, wine, or state affairs. It is difficult to imagine what wonderful changes would occur to human lives if people would stop poisoning themselves with brandy, wine, tobacco, and drugs.
A real truth, a real faith, needs neither worldly support nor an outer glamour, nor does it need to be forcefully introduced to others. God has time; for Him thousands of years pass as one. Those who feel the need to spread their faith through violence and force either lack faith in God, or in themselves.
The following words were carved on the bathroom of the king Jinx-Hang: “Renew yourself completely every day, and starting afresh, from the beginning.”
In order to achieve some dubious questionable future, we definitely destroy our life in the clearly defined present time. People today foolishly try to believe that all the world’s senselessness and cruelty—the richness of the few, the great poverty of the many, the violence and warfare—happens
The future does not really exist. It is created by us in the present.
There is a condition in which a person feels himself the architect of his life. It occurs when he concentrates all his efforts and all his intellect on the present moment.
Christian who does not know where he goes (John 3:8), or what is given to him by God (John 3:34), does not know his life’s real purpose.
As our self-interest diminishes, our anxieties disappear, and then comes quiet and firm joy, which always diffuses us with a good spiritual disposition and a clear conscience.
The voice of your conscience can always be singled out above the noise of your other wishes, because it always wants something seemingly useless, seemingly senseless, seemingly incomprehensible, but at the same time something actually beautiful and good, which can be achieved only through effort.
wise man looks for everything inside of himself; a madman seeks for everything in others.
