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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Leo Tolstoy
Read between
January 1 - January 22, 2021
Better to know a few things which are good and necessary than many things which are useless and mediocre.
There are too many mediocre books which exist just to entertain your mind. Therefore, read only those books which are accepted without doubt as good.
At the heart of all religions lies a single unifying truth. Let Persians bear their taovids, Jews wear their caps, Christians bear their cross, Muslims bear their sickle moon, but we have to remember that these are all only outer signs. The general essence of all religions is love to your neighbor, and that this is requested by Manuf, Zoroaster, Buddha, Moses, Socrates, Jesus, Saint Paul, and Mohammed alike.
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.
God tests everyone, one with wealth, another with poverty. A rich man is tested in whether he would extend an arm of support to those who need it; a poor man in whether he would bear all his sufferings without discontent and with obedience.
The improvement of man can be measured by the level of his inner freedom. The more a person becomes free from his personality, the more freedom he has.
Seneca, a wise man from Rome, said that when you want to escape from your rage, when you feel that it grows, the best thing to do is to stop. Do not do anything: do not walk, do not move, do not speak. If your body or your tongue moves at this moment, then your rage will grow. Rage is very harmful for all people, but it is most harmful for the man who experiences it.
Your enemy will pay you back with rage, will make you suffer, but the biggest damage to you will be caused by the rage and hatred existing in your heart. Neither your father, nor your mother, nor all your family can make you more good than your heart can when it forgives and forgets its abuse. —DHAMMAPADA, a book of BUDDHIST WISDOM
Your rage cannot be justified by anything. The reason for your rage is always inside you.
It is better to know several basic rules of life than to study many unnecessary sciences. The major rules of life will stop you from evil and show you the good path in life; but the knowledge of many unnecessary sciences may lead you into the temptation of pride, and stop you from understanding the basic rules of life.
Wisdom is knowing the purpose of life, and knowing how to achieve it.
You should respond with kindness toward evil done to you, and you will destroy in an evil person that pleasure which he derives from evil.
Kindness is for your soul as health is for your body: you do not notice it when you have it.
Remember how passionately you yearned in the past for many of the things which you hate or despise now.
Three temptations torture people: sexual desire, pride, and lust for wealth. All the misfortunes of mankind come from these three cravings. Without them, people would live in happiness. But how can we get rid of these terrible illnesses? … Work on yourself and improve yourself; this is the answer. Start the improvement of this world from within.
Why do people like to blame others so much? He who casts blame on another person is quick to think that he would not do the very same thing. It is the same with people who like to listen to the fault-finding of their neighbors. When two people have a dispute, both are to blame. And therefore, a dispute will stop only when at least one person understands that he or she is guilty.
Stop blaming other people, and you will feel what an alcoholic feels when he stops drinking, or what a smoker feels when he stops smoking. You will feel that you have brought relief to your soul.
To be strong, you have to be like water: if there are no obstacles, it flows; if there is an obstacle it stops; if a dam is broken, then it flows further; if a vessel is square, then it has a square form; if a vessel is round, then it has a round form. Because it is so soft and flexible, it is the most necessary and the strongest thing. —LAO-TZU
The existing design of life corresponds neither to the requirements of conscience nor to the requirements of intellect. Imagine a flock of pigeons in a corn field. Imagine that ninety-nine of them, instead of pecking the corn they need and using it as they need it, start to collect all they can into one big heap. Imagine that they do not leave much corn for themselves, but save this big heap of corn on behalf of the vilest and worst in their flock. Imagine that they all sit in a circle and watch this one pigeon, who squanders and wastes this wealth. And then imagine that they rush at a weak
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For a truth to be heard, it must be spoken with kindness. Truth is kind only when it is spoken through your heart with sincerity. You should know that when a message you convey to another person is not understood by him, at least one of the following things is true: what you have said is not true, or you have conveyed it without kindness.
To tell the truth is the same as to be a good tailor, or to be a good farmer, or to write beautifully. To be good at any activity requires practice: no matter how hard you try, you cannot do naturally what you have not done repeatedly. In order to get accustomed to speaking the truth, you should tell only the truth, even in the smallest of things.
We lie to other people so often that we get used to it, and we start to lie to ourselves. —FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
After a long conversation, stop and try to remember what you have just discussed. Don’t be surprised if many things, sometimes even everything you have discussed, were meaningless, empty, and trivial, and sometimes even bad.
A stupid person should keep silent. But if he knew this, he would not be a stupid person. —MUSLIH-UD-DIN SAADI
Only speak when your words are better than your silenc...
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For every time you regret that you did not say something, you will regret a hundred times that yo...
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If you want to be a clever person, you have to learn how to ask cleverly, how to listen attentively, how to respond quietly, and how to stop talking when there is nothing more to say.
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.
Look at your mouth; through it, when you eat to excess, illnesses enter your body. Behave in such a way that when you finish your dinner, you want to eat a little more.
Eating to excess is not considered to be a sin by many, because it produces no noticeable harm. But there are sins which destroy human dignity, and eating to excess is one such sin.
Never postpone a good deed which you can do now, because death does not choose whether you have or haven’t done the things you should have done. Death waits for nobody and nothing. It has neither enemies, nor friends. —INDIAN WISDOM
When you appeared in this world, you cried, and all the people around you rejoiced. You have to live your life in such a way that when you leave this world, you will rejoice, and all the people around you will cry. —INDIAN WISDOM
A person who knows little likes to talk, and one who knows much mostly keeps silent. This is because a person who knows little thinks that everything he knows is important, and wants to tell everyone. A person who knows much also knows that there is much more he doesn’t know. That’s why he speaks only when it is necessary to speak, and when he is not asked questions, he keeps his silence.
Those who live according to the will of God cannot be sensitive to the judgments of other people.
If you see a holy man, think: how could I become like him? If you see a dissipated man, think: don’t I have the same vices? —CHINESE WISDOM
Real love is not in words but in deeds, and only love can give you real wisdom.
Conquer rage with humility, conquer evil with goodness, conquer greed with generosity, and conquer lies with truth. —DHAMMAPADA, a book of BUDDHIST WISDOM
Murder is always a crime, no matter whom, and how it is justified.
We live in this world like a child who enters a room where a clever person is speaking. The child did not hear the beginning of the speech, and he leaves before the end; and there are certain things which he hears but does not understand. In the same way, the great speech of God started many, many centuries before we started learning, and it will continue for many centuries after we turn to dust. We hear only part of it, and we do not understand the biggest part of what we hear, but nevertheless, a bit vaguely, we understand something great, something important.
Just because a person does not understand God, he has no right to draw the conclusion that God does not exist.
A man is wise who does three things: first, he does by himself those things which he advises others to do; secondly, he does not do anything that contravenes the truth; and thirdly, he is patient with the weaknesses of those who surround him.
The truth should often overcome thousands of obstacles, until it is accepted. —GEORGE LICHTENBERG
A man who does not understand the benefit of suffering does not live a clever and true life. Mankind has never achieved greatness but through suffering. —F. ROBERT DE LAMENNAIS
It is said that God loves those who experience suffering. Religion gives a person the understanding of the meaning of his existence and his destination.
A person who lives a spiritual life cannot help but see that suffering brings him closer to God. Seen in this light, suffering loses its bitter side and becomes bliss.
There is no higher blessing for a person than to do charitable work for the benefit and well-being of others. —LUCY MALORY
A bad mood is often the reason for blaming others; but very often blaming others causes bad feelings in us: the more we blame others, the worse we feel.
One of our most common and widespread prejudices is that every person has a fixed, special characteristic, that there are kind people and evil, clever people and stupid people, and cold or hot people. But people are not like this; we can say about a person only that he is more often kind than evil, more often clever than stupid, more often cold than hot. We always divide people like this, but it is no less wrong.
He who sees his life as a process of spiritual perfection does not fear external events.
People think that it is no crime to lie to children, and that to lie to children is not really very wrong, but even sometimes necessary. But it is clear that with children you should be especially careful and honest about what you say to them.
