Wise Thoughts for Every Day: On God, Love, the Human Spirit, and Living a Good Life

by Leo Tolstoy

It is the most critical and difficult age when a person’s physical development stops. The growth of your body ceases, and your inner spiritual growth begins.

There are four stages in life: (1) the “animal-like” life, which is the newborn stage; (2) “I follow others,” the childhood stage; (3) “live for fame and glory,” the youth stage; (4) “live for your spirit and for God,” which is the true life.

All that you really need can be easily achieved. All that you do not need, you can achieve only with great difficulty.

What a strange prejudice, that wealth brings happiness.

People put a thousand times more effort into increasing their wealth than increasing their wisdom.

Nothing is more useless than to acquire, increase, and hoard money.

The water in a deep river is not disturbed if you throw a stone into it.

Those whose spirits are not free look but cannot see, listen but cannot hear, eat without really tasting the food.

people are called unequal because one is well dressed and the other is clothed in rags. When discussing inequality, there are two groups equally to blame: those who think themselves superior, and those who accept that they are inferior.

as family was never preached by Christ.

The major difference between people lies in the fact that some live with their own thoughts while others live with other people’s thoughts.

The more people believe in certain ideas, the more cautiously you should treat their points of view, and study them carefully.

The reasons for most of our misfortunes are not in our deeds, but in our thoughts. Great thoughts do not need people’s praise. They have great force and will move people, whether people want it or not.