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

by Leo Tolstoy

This was Leo Tolstoy’s last major work. With it, he fulfilled a dream he had nourished for almost fifteen years, that of “collecting the wisdom of the centuries in one book” meant for a general audience.

Why cant i do this?

“I have to create a circle of reading for myself: Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Lao-Tzu, Buddha, Pascal, The New Testament. This is also necessary for all people.”

“It will be a big surprise to the readers,” Tolstoy wrote, “that together with Kant and other famous thinkers, they will find in my book thoughts by Lucy Malory, an unknown journalist from the United States, from Oregon.”

For two months I did not read anything else, neither newspapers nor magazines, and I felt so good…. I became more and more astonished by the ignorance, and especially by the cultural, moral ignorance of our society…. All our education should be directed to the accumulation of the cultural heritage of our ancestors, the best thinkers of the world.”

This is Tolstoy

On May 16, 1908, he wrote to a man named Gusev: “I cannot understand how some people can live without communicating with the wisest people who ever lived on Earth? … I feel very happy every day, because I read this book.”

An edition of A Calendar of Wisdom was published in Russia in 1912, but after the Russian Revolution publication was forbidden under the Soviet regime, because of the book’s spiritual orientation and its numerous religious quotes.

Maybe why i have never heard of if

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

What a great treasure can be hidden in a small, selected library! A company of the wisest and the most deserving people from all the civilized countries of the world, for thousands of years, can make the results of their studies and their wisdom available to us.

Emerson

Read the best books first, otherwise you’ll find you do not have time.

Thoreau

The difference between real material poison and intellectual poison is that most material poison is disgusting to the taste, but intellectual poison, which takes the form of cheap newspapers or bad books, can unfortunately sometimes be attractive.

Tolstoy

The essential meaning of every religion is to answer the question “Why do I live, and what is my attitude to the limitless world which surrounds me?”

Edwald Flugel

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.

The life of a person without faith is the life of an animal.

Tolstoy

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.