The First Step Quotes

“This is dreadful! Not the suffering and death of the animals, but that man suppresses in himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity—that of sympathy and pity toward living creatures like himself—and by violating his own feelings becomes cruel. And how deeply seated in the human heart is the injunction not to take life!”
― Leo Tolstoy, The First Step: An Essay On the Morals of Diet, to Which Are Added Two Stories

“Fasting is an indispensable condition of a good life; but in fasting, as in abstinence in general, the question arises with what shall we begin: how to fast,—how often to eat, what to eat, what to avoid eating? And as we can do no work seriously without regarding the necessary order of sequence, so also we cannot fast without knowing where to begin,—with what to commence abstinence in food.
Fasting! And even an analysis of how to fast, and where to begin! The notion seems ridiculous to the majority of men.
I remember how an evangelical preacher who was attacking monastic asceticism and priding himself on his originality, once said to me, "My Christianity is not concerned with fasting and privations, but with beefsteaks." Christianity, or virtue in general—with beefsteaks!
During the long period of darkness and of the absence of all guidance, Pagan or Christian, so many wild, immoral ideas became infused into our life, especially into that lower region concerning the first steps toward a good life,—our relation to food, to which no one paid any attention,—that it is difficult for us even to understand the audacity and senselessness of upholding Christianity or virtue with beefsteaks.
We are not horrified by this association solely because a strange thing has befallen us. We look and see not: listen and hear not. There is no bad odor, no sound, no monstrosity, to which man cannot become accustomed, so that he ceases to remark that which would strike a man unaccustomed to it. Precisely so it is in the moral region. Christianity and morality with beefsteaks!”
― Leo Tolstoy, The First Step: An Essay On the Morals of Diet, to Which Are Added Two Stories

“A man is more or less of a Christian only in proportion to the speed with which he advances towards infinite perfection, irrespective of the stage he may have reached at a given moment. Hence the stationary righteousness of the Pharisee is worth less than the progress of the repentant thief on the cross.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The First Step: An Essay On the Morals of Diet, to Which Are Added Two Stories

“Thus has righteousness of life been understood by all the sages of the world and all true Christians, and in exactly the same way do all men understand it now. The more a man gives to others and the less he demands for himself, the better he is; the less he gives to others and the more he demands for himself, the worse he is.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The First Step: An Essay On the Morals of Diet, to Which Are Added Two Stories

“It is impossible for a man living in luxury to lead a righteous life.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The First Step: An Essay On the Morals of Diet, to Which Are Added Two Stories

“If a man believe that he can be saved through grace given to him by the Church, or through the redemption, it is natural that he should think that his efforts to live a righteous life are unnecessary—the more so when he is told that even the hope that his efforts will make him better is a sin. Consequently a man who believes that there are means of salvation other than personal effort cannot strive with the same energy and seriousness as the man who knows no other means. And not striving with perfect seriousness and knowing of other means besides personal effort, a man will inevitably neglect that unalterable order of succession for the attainment of the virtues necessary to a righteous life. And this has happened with the majority of those who profess Christianity.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The First Step: An Essay On the Morals of Diet, to Which Are Added Two Stories

“From another visitor to Yasnaya Polyana we learn that Tolstoy and his two daughters are vegetarians. The young countesses do not object to milk and eggs, but Tolstoy himself rejects flesh foods, animal products, tobacco, coffee, tea, sugar, and all alcoholic liquors. He uses oil instead of butter, drinks a beverage made from almonds, and replaces tea by a decoction of raisins.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The First Step: An Essay On the Morals of Diet, to Which Are Added Two Stories