This is the list of true Lev Tolstoy quotes we have extracted while reading his numerous books, for our own use on YouTube Chats and Twitter (most of them fit in 200 characters, disregarding the source).

Feel free to use them for your daily inspiration or to spread these beautiful messages of wisdom with other people.

Just remember, the quotes cannot not replace reading and studying of Tolstoy’s work; quotes are just meant to ignite the desire to read. To read Tolstoy, consult with our list of his books here and pick your favorite book.

Beware of the fact that Tolstoy went against all worldly lies he discovered, and as a result his works are under close control by governments and churches, we’ve been persecuted on various Internet sites for spreading Tolstoy’s word. They have created crude distortions of his word. For this reason, we do not recommend you to trust Tolstoy quotes from Internet, most of them are twisted, too many of them are straight lies – they say what he never wrote. Instead, read his works.

The same danger exists, though, with popular translations of Tolstoy’s work. We have found numerous distortions of the meaning in English translations of Tolstoy’s work. To avoid misunderstanding, we recommend you to use only those books in English which we have verified and corrected: see our list of Books by Lev Tolstoy.

Contents

1 About Tolstoy:
2 Quotes lovingly taken from the works by Lev Tolstoy:

About Tolstoy:

Aleksandr Blok advised to hurry up to understand Tolstoy from younger age, until hereditary disease of sham busyness is not weakened your mental and physical strengths.

Adopting Tolstoy’s principles & values in people’s life will lead humanity to salvation – humanity now standing on the verge of self-destruction.

Tolstoy dedicated his last thirty years for clarification of true Christian teaching & necessity of using it as a guidance by the humanity which with times has deviated from its purpose.

Tolstoy has upset governing systems dividing the world – established by government over people lives – and by church over people souls.

Concealment and perversion of the meaning of the work of Tolstoy became the goal as for the representatives of godless powers, so as for the representatives of false faith.

The main work of Leo Tolstoy was directed to guide peoples’ reasoning toward understanding of the Universal Truth, and to change their lives in accordance with this understanding.

The governing establishment has decided long ago to get rid of Tolstoy as morality teacher.

Thanks to silencing and purposeful concealment, Leo Tolstoy – thinker, wise man, teacher of life – stays almost unknown to Russia and to the world.

In “Gospels Unified” Tolstoy uncovered deep meaning, mercilessly discarded superficial, not carrying spiritual light, garbage clouding morality & preventing it from sinking into conscious.

Lev Tolstoy has set 🏛Elites butts on fire🔥-of all countries-so they🔥1) postponed Peace Congress waiting for him to die,🔥2) still celebrate his death date, like they celebrate the death of Christ☦

I wonder if they’re planning to come up with something to assure people that I ‘repented’ just before my death… Therefore I repeat, that to return to Church, to take communion before dying, I can’t, just as I can’t to utter offensive words or look at indecent pictures before dying. And therefore anything that people might say about my repentance and taking communion on my deathbed is lies. For me, any such outward act as communion would be a renunciation of my soul, of the good, of the teaching of Christ, of God.
– Tolstoy, diary of 22 January, 1909

Tolstoy didn’t believe in the superstition of past or present, he observed & thought for himself & clearly saw not only the present but the future, which those who’re called prophets always seen.

Quotes lovingly taken from the works by Lev Tolstoy:

Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood let alone believed by the masses. – Plato
Let human societies become spiritually pure and healthy, and parasites that feed on them, churches and governments, will drop off. – Lev Tolstoy
Astronomers told us: “Yes we don’t feel the Earth moving, but if we admit it’s immovable we come to nonsense… When we assume the Earth is moving, which we don’t feel, we come to laws.” – Lev Tolstoy, “War and peace”
Sometimes life goes much better than we want, but we’re unsatisfied, because it’s not the way we want. – Lev Tolstoy
Stagnant righteousness of a Pharisee is worse than the progress of the thief repented on the cross. – Lev Tolstoy, “The First Step”
Christian can’t be regarded as morally higher or lower than another; merit is only in proportion to speed toward the infinite perfection. – Lev Tolstoy
Everywhere, the greatest part of one’s education is acquired not at school, but through life. – Lev Tolstoy, “On Education”
When child has lost his independence and originality and shows symptoms of disease: hypocrisy, worthless lying, dullness – then he’s fit for school. – Lev Tolstoy, “On Education”
The great majority of people of this world are in the verge of insanity, live contrary to the demands of common sense. – Lev Tolstoy, “On Insanity”
Because we no longer see the difference between insane life and rational life, and regard our insane life as sound and rational. – Lev Tolstoy, “On Insanity”
People are unceasingly stupefied by 1) what is called the Church and 2) what is called Science. – Lev Tolstoy , “On Insanity”
People delighted with themselves can’t see their own insanity, subject themselves to greater intoxication to dull their conscience. – Lev Tolstoy , “On Insanity”
Our only means of salvation is rising to self-consciousness and awakening to good and reasonable life. – Lev Tolstoy , “On Insanity”
What do we live for? To become conscious of Divine principle within ourselves and acknowledge it in everybody else, love everybody. – Lev Tolstoy , “On Insanity”
I’ll please God and receive His blessings only by fulfilling His will, but never through prayers. – Lev Tolstoy
Don’t honor the wealthy, don’t envy them; keep your distance from them and pity them – Lev Tolstoy
The less a person is satisfied with his inner life, the more he takes part in external, societal life. – Lev Tolstoy
Masses are hypnotized to the degree that they don’t see nor understand the meaning of what is being done before them. – Lev Tolstoy, “Don’t Kill”
People suffer not from individuals but from a governance where minority (under delusions of grandeur) rules over majority. – Lev Tolstoy, “Don’t Kill”
It’s egotism of people selling their freedom and morals for small material gains that supports current governance of societies. – Lev Tolstoy, “Don’t Kill”
Those individual(s) on top of the pyramid already have nothing to acquire and motivated only by ambitions and vanity. – Lev Tolstoy, “Don’t Kill”
Not rulers but supporters of the rulers over other people’s lives should be called responsible. – Lev Tolstoy, “Don’t Kill”
The only way to improve a society is to stop supporting the governance which produces evil. – Lev Tolstoy, “Don’t Kill”
Governments, for self-preservation, keep people under the trance of patriotism. – Lev Tolstoy, “Don’t Kill”
Life can be improved only by awakening from the hypnosis, but not by means of weapons as killings only intensify the trance patriotism caused. – Lev Tolstoy, “Don’t Kill”
Consciousness cannot be quieted by inventions/science, but only satisfied by life changes what won’t require apologies. – Lev Tolstoy, “What Must We Do?”
What Must We Do? 1) don’t lie to yourself or others 2) humble yourself 3) follow eternal law: support lives. – Lev Tolstoy, “What Must We Do?”
Only when I repented – stopped seeing myself as a special person but equal to others – my pathway became clear to me. – Lev Tolstoy
The only thing that prevents a person from finding his goal is a falsely high opinion of himself and his own status. – Lev Tolstoy
I’ve got to see lies in our lives – thanks to great sufferings resulted from the wrong way of my life. – Lev Tolstoy, “What Must We Do?”
After I’ve got courage to follow my consciousness, I’ve got rewarded and now the complex life events became clear and problems natural and easy. – Lev Tolstoy, “What Must We Do?”
I had to change attitude toward myself: don’t take my works too seriously, recognize their vanity, then I saw how much I lied to myself. – Lev Tolstoy, “Diaries?”
Don’t lie to yourself – means don’t be afraid of truth and where it is going to take you; don’t make up or accept excuses. – Lev Tolstoy, “What Must We Do?”
We came from eternity into this life with sun, fields, rivers, birds, animals, and not rejoicing but hate, afraid, torment, hurt. – Lev Tolstoy, “Diaries?”
One of the most vulgar of all prejudices is what scholars believe that one can live without faith. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
Error continues to be no less erroneous merely because accepted by the majority. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law of Love & Law of Violence”
As people accepted Christian doctrine in the form corrupted by the Church, they ended up living without any faith and life guidance. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
The tragedy is: the hatred of people against each other is spread and not condemned but exalted and raised to the level of virtues. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
Beware of lies around: religious, lies of Christian Churches, of science, political, international, of tradition, lies of all sort. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
Like a magic grain hardly can be found under a sack of grains, so essential truth is lost in 66 books all equally called “sacred”. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
Christians of 1st to 4th centuries knew that military service, prerequisite of a state, is incompatible with teaching of Christ, and declined it. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
Christians must not carry arms or they deny Christ, – said Tatian, Origen, Cyprian, Marcellus, Cassius, Ferrucius… – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
I believe our world is entering an epoch where the words “Love one another” will be accepted without arguments about whether it was a man or a God who spoke them’ (Dumas, fils) – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
The worst of all is when a man starts to fear the Truth lest it denounce him. (said Pascal) – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
The glory of good people is in their conscience and not in the mouths of men. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
Many are deceived by the Church, with a vague idea of teaching of Christ, believe in Redemption by Grace and infallibility of Church… – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
Churches tried all to hide true meaning of teaching of Christ: forbidden Scriptures to be translated, led false interpretations. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
New Testament clearly denied validity of both Churches and Governments with their executive powers. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
The cause of unhappiness in humanity is lack of common for all people understanding of life purpose, faith and rules of conduct. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
Who think people must only be forced disregarding their logic, do same as blinding horses to make them obediently walk in circles. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
I write what I write only because, knowing what can free people from suffering and corruption of soul, cannot be silent. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
Lies cover the cruelties of life, cruelties cause spreading of the lies, and both grow like a snowball. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
Christ found no churches, no State, no laws, no government; he was to write the law of God in hearts of men so they govern themselves. (said Newton) – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
The way from the mud of egotism, doubt and denial is unity in faith in a single origin, common law and purpose. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
One can neither weigh nor measure the evil that false religion has caused and is still causing. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
Religion is supposed to define the relations between a man and God and universe, leading to understanding of a man’s mission. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
It is not enough to get rid of false religion (false understanding of relationship of man to the world); truth needs to be set. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
The principal cause of our bad social organization is false beliefs. (said Henry George) – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
We ought to be ready to change our opinions, renounce former beliefs, to embrace new ideas. (said Henry George) – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
We should cast off our prejudices and should reason with an entirely free mind. (said Henry George) – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
The highest law that should guide us is love. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
All religions call LOVE a virtue but only teaching of Christ calls it the Supreme law that should guide us daily, with NO EXCEPTION. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
Once you absorb the teaching of Christ, you’ll see the horrible lie in which each and every one of us is living. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
Only Christ recognized in Love the metaphysical principle behind everything, the Supreme Law that should guide us with no exception. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
Christ said, Love is Love only when it, without exception, experienced to foreigners, other religions and to those who hate and harm us. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
What we call our Life is Divine Principle in our bodies, manifested as Love, Christ said. So our true life is manifestation of Love. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
False Christianity hides core meaning of teaching, sees Love not as a Supreme Law but a helpful conduct when nothing prevents it. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
If men were virtuous, they’d never move away from the truth. Truth is only harmful to him who does evil. Whoever does good, loves truth. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
Reason often becomes slave of a sin, – directed to justify the sin. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
When a man defends terribly unreasonable ideas, seek further and you’ll find that he actually defends himself. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
Some torture or kill fellow beings in name of humanity, others claim same right to torture and kill in name of ideal of the future. – Lev Tolstoy, “Law Of Love & Law Of Violence”
Educators want to rid school of historical “restraints” but can’t see what this obsession with progress does. – Lev Tolstoy, “On Education”
People still struggle to find the meaning of life, as if humanity didn’t know Socrates, Christ, Russo, Kant, Schopenhauer… – Lev Tolstoy, “On Insanity”
In our schools nobody knows what the truth is, but our children are nevertheless forced to go to. – Lev Tolstoy, “On Education”
School is an institution cruel for a child, where obedience and tranquility are musts and every misdeed is punished. – Lev Tolstoy, “On Education”
9 of 10 school graduates learn mechanically read and write but develop despise to knowledge that never again take a book into hands. – Lev Tolstoy, “On Education”
Schools repel kids from education, teach them hypocrisy and deceit, results from unnatural conditions and confusion of ideas. – Lev Tolstoy, “On Education”
Germany, founder of school, coined correct term “verdummen”, reflecting duping influence of the school, causing mental contortions. – Lev Tolstoy, “On Education”
School not only does not encourage questions, but does not even answer those that are raised by life. – Lev Tolstoy, “On Education”
Questions school asks are not fit to child’s age, he’s not interested in them, as What is the shape of the earth? – Lev Tolstoy, “On Education”
Child doesn’t get answers to questions life presents & due to police regulation of school he’s not even allowed to open his mouth. – Lev Tolstoy, “On Education”
The goal of government school is not to educate people but to teach them according to their method and to have plenty of schools. – Lev Tolstoy, “On Education”
Public schools, forced from above, are not a shepherd for the flock, but a flock for the shepherd. – Lev Tolstoy, “On Education”
A vivacious, curious child, with a smile in his eyes and lips, seeks instruction in everything as he’d seek pleasure. – Lev Tolstoy, “On Education”
Child after school is worn-out, crushed, fatigued, scared, bored, repeats only strange words – with soul like snail retreated into its house… – Lev Tolstoy, “On Education”
The scholastic condition is crushing all higher faculties: imagination, creativity, to give way fear, straining memory, attention. – Lev Tolstoy, “On Education”
When child has lost his independence and originality and shows symptoms of disease: hypocrisy, worthless lying, dullness, – then he’s fit to school, according to school’s standards. – Lev Tolstoy, “On Education”
Everywhere, the greatest part of one’s education is acquired not at school, but through life. – Lev Tolstoy, “On Education”
Difference in teachings of goodness is: the heathen teaching – is final perfection, Christian – is infinite perfecting. – Lev Tolstoy, “The First Step”
Plato makes justice the model of perfection, Christ – infinite perfecting of love. – Lev Tolstoy, “The First Step”
A Christian cannot be regarded as morally higher or lower than another; a merit is only in proportion to speed toward infinite perfection. – Lev Tolstoy, “The First Step”
Sometimes life goes much better than we want, but we’re unsatisfied, because it’s not the way we want. – Lev Tolstoy
Earth doesn’t have shape of ball, it does not rotate at all. – Lev Tolstoy, “On Language of Public Literature “
Astronomy found most difficult to persuade everyone to refuse from personal feeling of immovability of the Earth. – Lev Tolstoy, “War and peace”
Astronomers told: Yes, we don’t feel the Earth is moving, but if we admit it’s immovable we come to nonsense. But when we assume the Earth is moving, which we don’t feel, we come to laws. – Lev Tolstoy, “War and peace”
Let human societies become spiritually pure & healthy, and parasites that feed on them, churches & governments, will drop off. – Lev Tolstoy
The only way to improve a society is to stop supporting governments, which produce evil. – Lev Tolstoy
Governments, for self-preservation, keep people under the trance of patriotism – Lev Tolstoy, “Don’t Kill”
Schools just teach hypocrisy & deceit, due to confusion of ideas, thus cause mental contortions. – Lev Tolstoy, “On Education”
The terrible is moral fall of people believing their lives will deteriorate if they stop to persecute, torture, kill each other! – Lev Tolstoy
Solitude is good for a man. Part from society, go into yourself & you’ll soon drop off lenses which perverted everything, grasp your own view on things & be amazed you couldn’t see it before. – Tolstoy
Unleash your thinking, and it’ll point out to your purpose and rules with which you can confidently re-enter the society. – Lev Tolstoy, “Diaries”
Reasoning of a man is a part of the Whole existing. A part cannot destroy the whole. But an aggregate (society) can destroy a part (individual). – Lev Tolstoy, “Diaries”
Align your reasoning with the Whole (the Source) but not with part (society) & you’ll merge with that Whole & the “society”, being just a part, won’t have an influence on you. – Tolstoy, “Diaries”
Goal of Christ’s life & death is pushed as Salvation of humanity. Oddly, there’re no proofs of humanity saved: same problems, sins, disasters & why would God bring himself victim to himself? – Tolstoy
Garden of Eden is fiction. Why they push Adam’s sin spread on all incl innocent kids? To assert you’re mere organisms, can’t be perfect, & have to obey to authorities “established by God”. – Tolstoy
That “faith” preached by the Church’s Hierarchy is not only untrue but immoral deception. – Lev Tolstoy, “Four Gospel Unified and Translated”
Once I heard the words of Jesus & understood their meaning, life & death ceased to appear vile & instead of despair I felt joy & happiness of life that death cannot take away. – Lev Tolstoy, “What I believe”
I want to tell how I found key to understanding the teaching of Christ, which opened the Universal Truth to me with such clarity and persuasion that excludes any doubts. – Lev Tolstoy, “What I believe”
From all New Testament, I was touched the most by the Christ’s teaching which preaches love, meekness, humility, selflessness, and repayment of good for evil. – Lev Tolstoy, “What I believe”
Even the strongest current of water cannot add a drop to a cup that is already full. – Lev Tolstoy
The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already. – Lev Tolstoy
The simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him. – Lev Tolstoy
The meaning of the Christianity is hidden from believers by the church, from unbelievers by science. – Lev Tolstoy
Don’t trust those who with condescending smile will tell you that they were already searching for answers you need – but haven’t found because you can’t find any but those accepted by all. – Tolstoy, “Trust Yourself”
When I was 15 I woke up from child obedience to opinions of others & realized that I need to live myself, chose my own path, respond for my own live before that Source that gave it to me. – Tolstoy, “Trust Yourself”
I yielded to that persuading acumen enforced by all circles & my 1st awakening shifted to desire of success before people, fame, intellect, riches, strength – what people consider valuable. – Tolstoy, “Trust Yourself”
Trust yourself when you soul will desire not outshine others, be a savior, mighty, famous, – but when your chief desire is to become better self, what God who gave your life wants from you. – Tolstoy, “Trust Yourself”
Believe in yourself and live to put all your strengths into one: to manifest God in you – and you’ll accomplish everything you can for your own welfare and for welfare of the whole world. – Tolstoy, “Trust Yourself”
If you perceive your life as given to you in your body & the purpose of it is to get as much as possible enjoyments, pleasures, happiness to this “I” – life will be unhappy & hostile. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
If you live just for your body, the life will be unhappy and hostile, because everything you want for yourself another person wants, too. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
When everyone wants the best of everything for yourself as much as possible and that “best” is the same for all these people, then this “best” is never enough for all. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
Therefore, if everyone lives for himself, he cannot avoid taking something away from another, fighting, getting mad at each other, and so their life cannot be happy. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
If people perceive the meaning of their lives in serving each own bodies, then the lives of these people can’t not be unhappy. And that’s what life is for all these people now. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
But life doesn’t have to be this, i.e. unfortunate. Life is given to us as a blessing, and that’s how we all understand it. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
But for life to be the real blessing, people need to understand that our real life is not in our body, but in that spirit which lives in our body. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
People need to understand that our happiness is not to please and do what the body wants, but rather to do what that spirit wants which lives in us as well as in all people. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
No one or nothing can prevent one from loving people; and the more a person loves, the more free and happy his life becomes. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
Nothing can stand on the way of love, and the more a person loves, the happier and more joyful he becomes not only himself, but also he makes other people happier and more joyful. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
All holy and wise people and Christ taught you that our life becomes unhappy because of ourselves. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
That force which sent us into this life and which we call God, sent us is not to suffer but to have the blessing which we all desire. But people didn’t understand it and didn’t use it. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
We don’t get this intended for us blessing only if we perceive our life not as it should’ve been perceived, and if we don’t do what we should’ve done. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
The life is given to people as a blessing. If only people lived not in hate toward each other but in love, the life would be perpetual blessing for all. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
Don’t believe that your life can be better or worse depending on this or that arrangement. For our life to be good, there’s only one remedy: for people themselves to be better. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
The salvation of you and all people is not in sinful violent acts of re-arrangement of life, but in an arrangement of your soul. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
Our salvation is now in one: in recognition that our true life is not in our body, but in the spirit of God who dwells in us. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
We’ve put all our efforts to improve our carnal lives, private and public, but instead we can and must go one – to raise & assert love in ourselves to all people. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
Love for all people, even for hating us, is much more natural to the human soul than fight with closed ones and hatred toward them. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
Why, for what do you torture yourself? Just understand that you are given the greatest blessing, so take it. All is in you. It’s so easy, so simple and so enjoyable. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
Can the purpose of your life be in yourself? I see no point in loving myself, passing through life, dying. My life is in love – for everybody, for Source of the love, for love itself, for God. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
Love for the love itself. It is worth understanding, and immediately all evil gets destroyed from human life and the meaning of it becomes clear and joyful. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
Love gives blessing to a person not in its consequences, but in the love itself, – independently from what other people do, and from what takes place in the outside world. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
Loving person received true blessing – not only in wishing nothing for himself but in willing to give all he has & his life to others – in this giving himself to God he finds his blessing. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
When you live in love for everybody, – what other people do or what is happening in the world can’t have an effect on your actions. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
To love means to surrender to God, to do what God wants. And because God is love, God wants to bless everyone, and therefore can’t wish for a person performing His law to die. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
Loving person, even being alone among the unloving, will never perish. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
When a loving person dies physically, as Christ died on the cross, – his death is happy for him & meaningful for others & not desperate or miserable unlike the deaths of the worldly people. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
Excuse “I don’t let myself love cause not everybody does it“ is wrong. It’s the same as if a person who needs to work to feed himself & his kids would hesitate because others don’t work. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
Let’s focus our lives in strengthening love in ourselves and allow the world go as it will, i.e. as it is defined to it from the above. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
Focus your life on loving others and, believe me, you will get the greatest blessing for yourself and will do the greatest goodness for others – which you are only able to do. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
Everyone – just love, love not only loving but all people, especially those who hate & the life will become an incessant joy & all problems will not only get solved but cease to exist. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
“And we know that we have passed from death to life, if we love the brethren. Not loving brother does not have life eternal. Only loving his brother has eternal life, dwelling in him“. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
You can’t know for certain whether a thing is good or bad if you didn’t experience it in real life. To find out for yourself if the teachings on love are applicable to the real life, give them a try. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
Try for some time to follow needs of love in everything you do: with any man: a thief, drunkard, rude manager, subordinates, don’t abandon love but remember about what that person needs, not about yourself. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
Experience love, try instead of repaying evil with evil to a bully or talking behind somebody’s back – respond with good to evil & say nothing bad about a person, treat animals with kindness. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
Once you live in love for a day or more, compare your mental state with what you had before. You’ll see how instead of gloomy, angry, debilitating feelings you’ll feel bright, cheerful, joyful. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
Live in love 2nd and 3rd week & you’ll see how sincere your joy will grow & this not only won’t hurt your business but it will improve more and more. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
Just try to live with love, dear brothers, and you’ll see that this practice is not just words – but the most natural and logical to everybody and important matter. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
Trust yourself not when you desire to outdo others, distinguish yourself from others, be powerful, famous, be a rescuer, but trust yourself when the main desire of your soul is to be better. – Tolstoy, “Trust Yourself”
Trust yourself when the main desire of your soul is to become that what God who gave us life wants, to open in yourself that beginning, which is engraved in us, – to live godly, as people say. – Tolstoy, “Trust Yourself”
Chaotic life, which a many people consider a natural outcome of youth, is nothing more than a result of early corruption of the soul. – Tolstoy, “Diaries”
Single sidedness is the main cause of human misery. – Tolstoy, “Diaries”
It’s hard for a person to grow into good under the influence of only evil. If only he didn’t have good influence but didn’t have evil, either, then the spirit would take over the matter. – Tolstoy, “Diaries”
A woman is more perceiving than a men, that’s why in virtues centuries women were better than men but in present, lecherous, vicious century they are worse than men. – Tolstoy, “Diaries”
Wicked! Villain! Offender! Scary! People are too weak & pathetic to be evil. They all want to be good, just don’t know how to, so cannot. This inability to be kind is what we call evil. – Tolstoy, “Diaries”
Who says life requires contrast of extremes of good & evil, worries too much. There’s so much evil in background so to have any contrast, we must all strive to be only good. – Tolstoy, “Diaries”
The most horrible consequence of alcohol and drugs is that they cloud the intellect and conscience of people; from the use of liquor men become harsh, senseless, and mean. – Tolstoy, “To God or to Mammon?”
Alcohol and drugs do not bring health or strength or warmth or joyfulness, but only do great harm to people. – Tolstoy, “To God or to Mammon?”
Every decent person not only shouldn’t consume alcohol or drugs himself but also not to offer them others & to put all efforts to stop the common use of this useless and dangerous poison. – Tolstoy, “To God or to Mammon?”
People are so attached to old habits & customs that many good, kind, reasonable men not only don’t stop to drink & offer alcohol to others, but even defend the use of it with all their might. – Tolstoy, “To God or to Mammon?”
Since the detrimental effects of alcohol and drugs are well known, it’s immoral to say “the use of wine or abstinence from it is of a private matter” – in our days, it’s a public matter. – Tolstoy, “To God or to Mammon?”
Just as our fathers and grandfathers abandoned evil and harmful practices ill effects of which became known to them, we also must stop the evil which has manifested in our day. – Tolstoy, “To God or to Mammon?”
Once I know that the use of alcohol is an evil destroying hundreds of thousands of men, – how can I offer this evil to my friends who come to my house for a party, christening, or wedding? – Tolstoy, “To God or to Mammon?”
Now our reason, our conscience, in the most factual manner demands of us that we stop drinking alcohol and offering it to others. – Tolstoy, “To God or to Mammon?”
The drunkards have become drunkards only because those that non-drunkards, without harming themselves, taught others to drink wine, tempted them by their example. – Tolstoy, “To God or to Mammon?”
Drunkards never would have become drunkards if they had not seen “honored” people, respected by everyone, drinking wine and offering it to others. – Tolstoy, “To God or to Mammon?”
He who drinks wine, no matter how moderately, or offers it in whatever special occasions, commits a great sin. – Tolstoy, “To God or to Mammon?”
By refraining from alcohol & by stopping this insane tradition of using it at parties, weddings, christenings, we are performing a work of the utmost importance – our soul’s work, God’s work. – Tolstoy, “To God or to Mammon?”
Whoever you are, you cannot anymore stay between two camps, you unavoidably must choose one of the two: to oppose drunkenness or cooperate with it – serve God or mammon. – Tolstoy, “To God or to Mammon?”
If you are a young man who’ve never taken alcohol, wasn’t poisoned by it, treasure your innocence & freedom from temptation. If you taste, this temptation will become harder for you to overcome. – Tolstoy, “To God or to Mammon?”
Do not believe that wine will increase your joyfulness. Your joyfulness is natural, genuine; wine only changes your true, innocent joyfulness into a drunken, senseless, vicious gaiety. – Tolstoy, “To God or to Mammon?”
Beware of alcohol, because it will make harder to resist other temptations; wine weakens in you the power of reason, which is most essential to help you resist temptations. – Tolstoy, “To God or to Mammon?”
After drinking, you will do what you would not think of doing when sober. Why subject yourself to such a terrible risk? – Tolstoy, “To God or to Mammon?”
Woe to the world because of temptations! Temptations have to come into the world, but woe to him through whom they come. – Tolstoy, “To God or to Mammon?”
Let us understand that in the matter of consuming wine there is no half way, and whether we desire it or not – we must choose between two – serving God or serving mammon. – Tolstoy, “To God or to Mammon?”
As a person grows, so as the humanity. Realization of love in humanity grew, keeps growing & have grown already to the level that we can’t not to see that it should save us. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
For life to be a blessing, people need to understand that our real life is not in our body, but in that spirit which lives in our body. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
Because the spirit is the same in all people, it wants the blessings for all people. To wish the same benefits to all people means to love people. – Tolstoy, “Love Each Other”
The will of God is that you, with your works, pay off the works of others. – Tolstoy, “Greek Teacher Socrates”
If anyone doubts inseparability of wisdom and self-denial, let he look at what’s on the other end – always stupidity converges with selfishness. – Tolstoy, “Diaries”
Any craziness is an egoism reaching the last limit, self-righteousness, megalomania. – Tolstoy, “Diaries”
Any weakening of spiritual power is expressed in increasing selfishness, complacency and vanity, and exclusive care for oneself. – Tolstoy, “Diaries”
They demand from me not to write, referring to the highest command. Can’t be the highest, because I have the top – to protect my brothers and to expose their persecutors. – Tolstoy, “Diaries”
But no matter how bad it is to miss something that’s good, it’s more dangerous to recognize as good that what we are called by our lives to destroy and replace. Like walking on the knife. – Tolstoy, “Diaries”
We must not meddle with our children’s lives, not to prevent them from making mistakes, from suffering and repenting and thus going forward. – Tolstoy, “Diaries”
There are two types of minds: one logical mind, selfish, narrow, long, and other sensitive, compassionate, wide, short. – Tolstoy, “Diaries”
There are 2 ways to learn about outside world: 1st – most rough & inevitable, by five senses. From it we wouldn’t form the world in us we know, it’d be chaos giving various feelings. – Tolstoy, “Diaries”
Another way of cognition is to get to know oneself through love to oneself, then learn other beings via love for them; move with your thoughts into another person, animal, plant, even stone. – Tolstoy, “Diaries”
By this another way of cognition you will learn from inside and form the entire world as we know it. This method is called a poetic gift, the same what love is. – Tolstoy, “Diaries”
This is the restoration of infringed unity between creatures. You step out of yourself and you enter into another. And you can enter in everything. Merge with God, with everything. – Tolstoy, “Diaries”
They say one swallow doesn’t make spring; but should this dictate the swallow, which already feels spring, not to fly but wait? Then every bud & grass needs to wait, & spring will not come. – Tolstoy, “Diaries”
Good is only good when you don’t know you’re doing it. Once looked back, you’ve lost it. Left shouldn’t know what right does – isn’t order but fact: when left knows, it’s no longer the good. – Tolstoy, “Diaries”
A lecherous man comes up with logic of why to love women is good. He begins sophisticated crafty reasoning on merging of souls, beauty of love & wider this spread, more it obscures truth. – Tolstoy, “What is religion “
Christ says fornication happens because men and women look at each other as with lust. To avoid it, need to eliminate all that can excite lust. – Tolstoy, “What I believe”
Christ taught: avoid anything that excites lust and, connecting with your wife, don’t leave her under any pretext because abandoning spouses seduces others and spreads debauchery. – Tolstoy, “What I believe”
Real, serious life is only that which goes according to the highest conscious law; but life led by desires, lusts, speeches, is only a threshold of life, preparation for it, a dream. – Tolstoy, “Diaries”
For God to love you, need to do his will. And his will is so that you, with your works, pay off the works of others. Only this road leads you to the blessing. – Tolstoy, “Greek Teacher Socrates”
As insignificant as our forces may appear in comparison with those of our opponents, our victory is as sure as the victory of the light of the rising sun over the darkness of night. – Tolstoy, “Address to Peace Congress in Stockholm”
Our victory is certain, but on one condition only: that when uttering the truth we utter it all, without compromise, concession, or modification. – Tolstoy, “Address to Peace Congress in Stockholm”
The truth is so simple, so clear, so evident, and so incumbent not only on Christians, but on all reasonable men, that it is only necessary to speak it out in its full significance for it to be irresistible. – Tolstoy, “Address to Peace Congress in Stockholm”
The truth in its full meaning lies in what is accepted the Law of God in 4 words: “You shall not kill,” means man may not & should not in any circumstances or under any pretext kill his fellow man. – Tolstoy, “Address to Peace Congress in Stockholm”
However much they Christian teaching is perverted, its fundamental teaching is 1) Love of God – highest perfection of virtue, and 2) love of one’s neighbor – includes all men without distinction. – Tolstoy, “Address to Peace Congress in Stockholm”
Therefore, it would seem inevitable that we must reject one of the two: either Christianity with the love of God and one’s neighbor, or the State with its armies and wars. – Tolstoy, “Address to Peace Congress in Stockholm”
Perhaps people nowadays think Christianity is obsolete, and when choosing between the two – Christianity with love or the State with murder – the people will choose the State with murder? Then say it. – Tolstoy, “Address to Peace Congress in Stockholm”
People must openly admit they’ve ceased to believe in what’s written on our hearts, and now believe only in what’s ordered by people who by intrigues became rulers even if their orders include murder – Tolstoy, “Address to Peace Congress in Stockholm”
If admit Christianity forbids murder, both armies & governments become impossible. If admit governments acknowledge the lawfulness of murder & deny Christianity, no one will wish to obey a government. – Tolstoy, “Address to Peace Congress in Stockholm”
And therefore the governments, being unable to say either one thing or the other, are anxious to hide the necessity of solving this dilemma from their subjects. – Tolstoy, “Address to Peace Congress in Stockholm”
We must all speak the truth: war isn’t good or laudable affair. Like all murder, war is a vile & criminal business, for those who voluntarily choose military career & for those who submit to it. – Tolstoy, “Address to Peace Congress in Stockholm”
To those choosing military career: regardless of pomp, glitter, approval, it’s a criminal & shameful activity; the higher position in military profession, the more criminal & shameful it is. – Tolstoy, “Address to Peace Congress in Stockholm”
To people drawn into military service by bribes or threats of punishments – they make the gross mistake – contrary to their faith, morality & common sense – when they agree to enter the army. – Tolstoy, “Address to Peace Congress in Stockholm”
Joining army is contrary to morality – as they agree to what they know in their souls to be wrong. It’s contrary to common sense – to join the caste of people which deprives them of freedom. – Tolstoy, “Address to Peace Congress in Stockholm”
For men enlightened, free from superstition of military glory, the military profession, regardless of all efforts to hide its real meaning, is as shameful business as executioner’s & even worse. – Tolstoy, “Address to Peace Congress in Stockholm”
The executioner is only ready to kill those who’ve been judged to be criminal, while a soldier promises to kill all he’s told to kill, even though they may be dearest to him or the best of men. – Tolstoy, “Address to Peace Congress in Stockholm”
Humanity has reached a stage of such acute contradiction between its moral demands and the existing social order that a change has become inevitable. – Tolstoy, “Address to Peace Congress in Stockholm”
Tension’s reached such degree that a slight effort or even single word may be needed to change this cruel & irrational life – with its divisions, armaments and armies – into a reasonable life. – Tolstoy, “Address to Peace Congress in Stockholm”
Every effort, every word may be the shock that’s required & people’ll see that the service for their country, heroism of war, military glory, patriotism, – just the criminal business of murder! – Tolstoy, “Address to Peace Congress in Stockholm”
Those of you who pray more than the others, are those who are the least faithful amongst you. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
Because you yourselves do not understand what it is you believe — as if you were beggars, unable to do anything more than beg that your wishes be granted! – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
Why do you wheedle favors from God? Do you think He made a mistake in giving you the conditions you have? Do you wish to teach
Him how to correct His errors? – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
Then God you believe in is unreasonable. Why do you even call him God at all? Why do you pray to Him? Ye worship ye know not what. And there is little truth in what you believe. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
It’s worse to have little faith than not to believe at all. For as you deny God, you’ll in the end come to Him. But if your faith is weak, you’ll go nowhere but be instead buffeted from side to side. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
Hypocrites neither go in the kingdom of heaven nor let others. Do not call them teachers as they love. They’re blind leaders of the blind & if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
And for ages they have taken the keys of knowledge and hide them, replace them with half-truths, dressed as the Truth, and therefore far more dangerous and frightful even than lies. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
God isn’t far from every one of us but you shouldn’t think that you’ll find Him by descriptions or portrayals or imagine that the Godhead is like gold or silver or stone, graven by art & man’s device. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
For otherwise you’ll serve a creature and not the Creator. For the most High dwells not in temples and He doesn’t require assistance of human hands. Heaven is His throne, and Earth is His footstool. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
Ask and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you. The doors of Heaven will open and our Heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to those that ask for it – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
Do not ask Heavenly Father for false treasures or earthly pleasures, as sinners do, but ask only: that He straighten the paths leading to His Kingdom, so that before death you might see the Most High. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
Ask Father only to straighten the paths leading to His Kingdom, so that before death you might see the Most High. For if you will not see God during your life, you will not see Him after, either. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
I wish to give you faith in existence of Kingdom of God, where all is in eternal happiness, so that this faith might light within you a fire of unquenchable desire to seek out and find that Kingdom. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
To believe is to taste of the unripe carrot. To verify is to drink sweet mead. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
Therefore do not only believe, but examine within yourself, obtain and comprehend – that’s what I summon you, and after you don’t need to believe in what you’ve comprehended. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
I give the crutch (faith) to the cripple, for him not to hobble lame for the rest of his life, but to be cured, i.e. get to know the Holy Spirit and enter the Kingdom of God within his own lifetime. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
The Kingdom of Heaven is always here, but you don’t know how to enter it. The heaven of which I speak is within you and outside you, and the Kingdom of God is within this heaven and none other. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
And you need not go far in seeking it, “neither shall they say: Lo, here! Or lo, there! For behold, the kingdom of God is within you. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
And you yourselves do not realize what treasure you hide within you, and thus you live like paupers. But I am amazed what great wealth is hidden within this poverty. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
There are some among you, who, before tasting their death, will see the Great Kingdom. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
But first you must know yourselves. When you get to know yourselves, then you’ll become known & accepted by the Almighty, then you will realize that it’s you who are the sons of the living father. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
And through you, as through all of his creations, He appears Himself. (Romans 1:20) But a Man is his chief creation. Then why do you hide the God from yourself? – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
Reveal Him to the world, and glorify yourselves and the Creator! When you recognize your true self, all that is hidden from you will – will open to you. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
But if you will not know yourselves, then you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
You won’t learn what’s around you if you don’t see what’s within you; for then there’s no cognizant who’d be given to understand the mysteries of Heavenly Father. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
Don’t separate heaven from earth, for heaven is an extension of earth. Don’t separate yourselves from earth, either, for you too are an extension of earth, and it is, too, an extension of you. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
Therefore I say unto you: you are the beginning of all and the end of all. And when you have grasped this, then you shall see the Kingdom of Heaven. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
All that is alive and dead is invisibly connected, and each thing separately is part of one larger whole. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
Woe unto him who sets borders on earth and divides peoples. For there are no boundaries in heaven, and there should be none on earth. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
And verily I say unto you that all such division is a cause of hatred and strife, whether such division be by borders, or by language, or by faith — it’s all the same. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
And if a man is divided within himself, then he will be filled with the same hatred, and he’ll be in darkness, and he will know no peace. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
Don’t fear to get lost when you’ll seek your way, for only the strongest are capable of it. Those who’s broken free from herd, shepherd loves more than others, for only they’re able to find true path. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
It’s no cattle’s fault for being locked in barns, for men locked them in. But men’ve done to their shame what no other being’s capable of: locked their own into prison & put themselves inside of it. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
Woe to them whose children’re born in such prison.
They grow & know no other life but the life of their fathers, and they can’t see, for their eyes’ve lost sight from darkness of their confinement. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
And as they see no one else who lives in any manner differently, they think that their life’s the only possible way to live. For if eyes haven’t seen the light, you don’t know that you’re in darkness. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
And do not collect for yourself treasures on earth where moths and rust do corrupt and where thieves break through and steal. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
If you have true strength, all worldly passions & desires (in which your soul was boiling like crazy) will leave you & with them – all the false opinions & certainties which’re imprisoned you. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
A man’s life doesn’t depend on abundance of possessions. You care & fuss about many things, but one is needed for your soul: so that seed of Word of God may take root in your heart & bear its fruit. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
Truly I tell you – he who receives all but in need of himself, has nothing. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
And do not excuse yourself by serving the Law: for it was added for those of little faith, in whom the Word of God does not fit, to keep them from transgressions, until they gain true understanding. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
For the following of commandments can’t give life, nor bring blessing nor make a man just. For these things you need true faith, that comes from Love. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
I give you just one commandment: Love! On this commandment all the laws and all the prophets are established. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
All the other commandments are the children of Love. And if mother is in you, all its children are in you. You don’t need to know them by name: when they are within you, they are your essence. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
So I say to you: love your Heavenly Father with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
Be not God-fearing, but God-loving. For God has loved you before, and so you love Him with His True Love, in which there is no fear. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
Perfect Love casts out fear, for fear involves suffering. Who fears, does not love with perfect love. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
And you shall love your neighbor as yourself. For if you don’t love your neighbor, yet claim that you love the Most High, you lie! – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
Even if you’re most righteous on earth & live by godly law & speak tongue of angels & have all wisdom, faith, but don’t have love & bear malice to even a tiny worm, you’re just a sounding brass. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
All good deeds are the light shining without the man, but this light shall not illumine the path to the Kingdom of Heaven. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
But there is light within a man of light, and he lights up all the world. If he does not shine, there is darkness. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
And even if you give away all your goods, or you give up your body to be burned, but if the light of Love does not illumine your actions, it will profit you nothing. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
You are all children of love, born of love, and is it not meet that you become love as well? And to become love means to one with god and to become god! For love is god! And god is love! – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
For truly you are Gods, only your eyes are closed, and you have not yet awakened to ascend into your glory. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
And if you will have Love within you, then God will be within you, and you – in Him. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
Complete Love and the Holy Spirit come together, for they are one and the same. If Love is with you, then the Holy Spirit is with you, and if the Holy Spirit is with you, then your Love is Complete. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
And therefore be you wise like serpents, and pure like doves. Find the light, which will save you, within yourselves. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
And even if the pages of the Gospel shall be lost, you will be able to restore them once more with your heart. – Christ, “The Lost Pages of the Gospel”
From the time a society calling itself the Church was formed, it taught the “truth” chiefly by violence. They laid down the truth, and punished those who did not accept it. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
2nd mean of instilling this dogma is via external influence on people’s feelings by solemnity of setting, with pictures, statues, singing, music, dramatic performances & oratorical art. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
The clergy jealously use 3rd, most powerful, method – instilling Church doctrine into people unable to judge what’s passed onto them: uneducated working people and children. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
Believers in this doctrine are: uneducated working people who have no time for thought, but mainly – children, who take words for granted & on whose minds it remains permanently impressed. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
The whole “Sacred” history taught at schools – from the plagues Moses and the murder of all their firstborn etc. – is a series of terrible crimes committed by the Hebrews & by “god” himself. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
Church interprets New Testament not as a moral teaching (as in the Sermon on the Mount), but as conformity with stories of Old Testament, in fulfillment of “prophecies”, and in “miracles”. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
Church is only obsessed with miracles: talks with the devil, turning of water into wine, walking on water, healings, resurrection of Jesus himself & his flying up into the sky. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
These fairy tales are told as if they were the most trustworthy description of the world & its laws, what should be considered good & evil, about existence of God & duties of people. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
Talking of harmful books! Is there a book that’s done more harm to mankind than this terrible book, “Holy History”? And it’s taught as essential knowledge – as the one, eternal truth of God. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
A man in whose head a wedge has been driven of Trinity or God who became man, redeemed human race by his sufferings & flew up into the sky – can no longer grasp any reasonable understanding of life. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
However much you may put into a storage that has cracks in its floor, all will run out. Whatever you may put into a mind that has accepted nonsense as a matter of faith, nothing will remain in it. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
Such a man, if he values his beliefs, will inevitably, all his life long, 1)either be on his guard (as against something harmful) against all that might enlighten him & destroy his superstitions – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
or, 2)having once and for all assumed (Church always encourages him in this) that REASON is the source of error, he will repudiate the only light given to man to enable him to find his path in life; – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
or, 3)most terrible, he will, by cunning justifications, try to demonstrate the reasonableness of what is unreasonable, – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
and, 4)worst of all, he will discard, together with the superstitions that were instilled into him, all consciousness of the necessity for any faith whatever – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
A man into whom meaningless & contradictory assertions have been instilled from childhood – is a man mentally ill – unless he’s able to free himself from them w much effort & suffering. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
Such a man, seeing life around him moving & changing, can’t watch it without a feeling of desperation, unkind toward others; stays a conscious partisan of obscurity & lies against light & truth. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
Instead of the mysterious Source of which a person thinks with reverence, Churches tell him of an angry, unjust God, who executes and torments people. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
Instead of equality of all men, Churches tell that not only people but nations, are unequal; that some of them are beloved by God; & that some people are called by God to rule, & others – to submit. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
Instead of wish to love & to be loved, which is instilled in the soul of every uncorrupted man, Churches teach him that relations between men can only be based on violence, threats, executions. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
And Churches teach people that judicial & military murders are committed not only with the sanction of God, but at His command. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
Instead of the need of self-improvement, Churches tell him that man’s salvation lies in his belief in Redemption, that man is guilty of sinful pride if he works on self-improvement. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
Church teaches a man must not improve himself (without aid of prayers, sacraments, belief in Redemption), & for his salvation he must trust not his own reason, but orders of Church. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
It is terrible to think of the perversion of thought and feeling produced in the soul of a child or an ignorant adult by such false religious dogmas. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
Everything’s now replaced by memorizing Bible’s verses, triple composition of God, prayers before meals, & so on. On my eyes, people are becoming more & more harsh religiously. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
Not only is the Church teaching harmful by its irrationality & immorality, it’s especially harmful because people professing it feel confident they’re living a Christian life. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
Main evil of this dogma is that it’s so skillfully interwoven with its outward expression, that people think this doctrine is the one true Christianity & that there is no other! – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
Not only Church have misguided men from spring of living water, but it have poisoned it with its teachings. Now people can’t find a teaching but this one, poisoned by Church’s interpretation. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
Modern Christianity is a vaccination of false Christianity, & just like vaccination for smallpox or diphtheria, it has the effect of making those who are vaccinated immune to true Christianity. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
People fully persuaded that they are living Christian lives, having built their lives on foundations irreconcilable with true Christianity, are unable to return to true Christianity. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
So-called unbelievers, as a result of spiritual pollute they were exposed in their childhood, can’t distinguish one from another, & reject false Church teaching together with true teaching of Christ. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
Atheists, despising the fraud that has caused them so much suffering, preach not only the uselessness but also the harmfulness of Christianity, and of any faith. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
Unbelievers arrive at denial of all faith as a result of Church dogmas, wipe out all distinction between good & evil, preach creed of inequality, egotism, strife, oppression of weak by strong. – Tolstoy, “Appeal to the Clergy”
Eliminate your sinful desires, defeat your evil passions, and fill your soul with goodness for all beings. – Tolstoy, “The Karma”
Separation of a personality is a curse, and unity is a blessing. What is hell? Hell is nothing like self-love, and nirvana is life for all. – Tolstoy, “The Karma”
Personality does evil, and the personality suffers from it.
Once a personality refrains from evil, it purifies. – Tolstoy, “The Karma”
The deceitful doctrine of state is regarding yourself as connected with the people of one nationality, or one state, separated from the people of other nations and the other states. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
Only after people recognize in themselves the spiritual beginning, which is the same in all people, they can no longer believe in human institutions-which only separate what is connected by God. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
What to call that when a large number of people obey, cringe before one or few persons, so much that they do not have anything on their own: property nor children, nor life itself? – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
You do not need to take anything away from those few who oppress the rest people, – only to give them nothing, and the people will be free. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
When people submit themselves to the power of their oppressors, they are cutting their own throats. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
Poor, unhappy, mindless people, persistent in your evil, blind to your goodness, why allow to be rid of your income, robbed of your homes, of your conscience; act as if nothing belonged to you? – La Boëtie, “Superstition of the State”
Where this oppressors would get any power over you, if you weren’t abetting the thief who robs you, if you weren’t accomplices to the murderer who kills you, if you did not betray yourselves? – La Boëtie, “Superstition of the State”
I don’t want you to attack this enemy, but stop supporting it, and you’ll see that it, as a humongous statue, from under which the base was taken, will fall by its weight and break into pieces. – La Boëtie, “Superstition of the State”
When you look closely at what people are busy with, you cannot but be amazed at how many lives are wasted for continuation of kingdom of evil on Earth, supported by governments. – , “Superstition of the State”
We use the benefits of culture and civilization, but do not use the benefits of morality. – Kant, “Superstition of the State”
In the present social order, it’s safe to say that the happiness of the states grows proportionally with the misfortunes of the people. – Kant, “Superstition of the State”
So you inadvertently ask yourself, would we not have been happier staying in the primitive state, when we had no culture and civilization, rather than in our present state? – Kant, “Superstition of the State”
You can’t make people happy without making them ethical. – Kant, “Superstition of the State”
Only the ingrained deceitful doctrine gives this mad, not justifiable by anything, power to the hundreds of people over the millions of people, and deprives these millions of genuine freedom. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
A person living in Canada or in Kansas, in Bohemia, in Russia, Normandy, cannot be free while he considers himself (& proud of it) being British, North American, Austrian, Russian, French citizen. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
Chief and practically the only reason for the lack of freedom – is the deceitful doctrine of the necessity of the governmental state. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
People may be deprived of their liberty even in the absence of the state, but people belonging to the state cannot have freedom. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
When a Christian obeys the orders of the sergeant, governor, minister, president, – he commits the acts which are contrary to his conscience & to the law of God: robs, judges, executes, fights people. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
It’s clear why presidents, ministers, the rich persuade us that people cannot live without the state. But why the poor stand behind that which gives them nothing & only hurts? Because of false belief – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
Christian teaching doesn’t propose to destroy or replace the old order. It only explains what the essence of the evil is and what the true blessing for everyone is. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
The whole Christian teachings is only in knowing that the blessing of a human is in the carrying out of the will by which he came into this world, but the evil is in violating of this will. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
Moral virtuous government worker is the same inner contradiction as a chaste hooker, or an abstinent drunkard, or a meek robber. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
Machiavelli teaches rulers: “You do not need to have good qualities… but must make an appearance of possessing such qualities. In fact, for the rulers, these qualities can only be harmful.” – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
The powerful of this world look great only to those who kneel before them. As soon as people stand up from their knees, they’ll see those who seemed to them such great – are the same as they are. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
The main evil of the government is not in the destruction of lives, but in the destruction of love and in inspiring of the separation between people. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
The essential feature of every government is that it requires its citizens to be that force that serves as a foundation to it. Thus, within the state, all citizens are the oppressors of themselves. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
Each government is supported by the armed men, ready to execute – the class of people, raised to kill everybody who their superiors order to kill. They are the police and, primarily, the army. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
The army is nothing more than a collection of disciplined killers. Its training is the training of its murderers; its victories are murders. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
People think the government keeps army only for protection from external attacks, but they forget that government needs troops primarily for defense against their own suppressed & enslaved citizens. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
The inhabitants of Earth are in such state of absurdity, irrationalization, dullness, that every day we read in media rationalizations of rulers of people – with whom to connect to fight the others. – Flammarion, “Superstition of the State”
The inhabitants of Earth are still brought up in the belief that there are peoples, borders, banners, as if all this was more important than the consciousness of humanity. – Flammarion, “Superstition of the State”
The truth is that if thinking people found a way to agree, – the situation would change, because no one personally wants war. – Flammarion, “Superstition of the State”
But the problem is that in every state there are still millions of parasites who need war, who without war would not remain parasites. – Flammarion, “Superstition of the State”
And these same parasites prevent thinking people from coming to an agreement to stop participating in the mutual murder. – Flammarion, “Superstition of the State”
What is more absurd than the right of man to kill me because he lives on the other side of the river, or because his ruler is at loggerheads with mine, even though I didn’t plan to quarrel with him? – Pascal, “Superstition of the State”
Man of our times, if he doesn’t want to act immorally, must very carefully consider those seemingly innocent acts to participation in which he is called upon. – , “Superstition of the State”
When receiving salary from the factory producing weapons or collecting taxes, he must know he gets paid for participation in preparations for murder or for taking away products of labor of the poor. – , “Superstition of the State”
Nowadays the largest and the most harmful crimes are not those which committed at times, but those that occur continually and are not regarded as crimes. – , “Superstition of the State”
That change, which mankind is going through, is the change from an animal to human. This transition is only possible with the disappearance of the state. – Bakunin , “Superstition of the State”
The state is a temporary establishment & must disappear. Sword & rifle, weapons of our time, will eventually be shown in museums like rarity, just as instruments of torture are shown. – Crosby , “Superstition of the State”
People’re beginning to understand that time of governments has passed, & that it holds on only by established false doctrine; but people cannot free themselves from it because they’re entangled in it. – , “Superstition of the State”
Current states, with armies, resemble the guard who continued to be guard an empty on which an empress some time ago sat, even though the empress has died long ago. – , “Superstition of the State”
The state creates criminals faster than punishes them. – Tucker , “Superstition of the State”
State produces as many laws as there are relationships between people to determine. In 3 years, France produced 11,600 laws! Do you really think government can preserve any sanity in this awful mess? – Proudhon , “Superstition of the State”
People diligently tangle themselves so that one person or few ones could manipulate them all; then they give the rope from this entangled crowd to whomever, and wonder why they are in trouble. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
Not only one person has no right to rule over many, but many do not have the right to rule over one. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
Some say the governments always existed & that’s why we can’t live without it. Firstly, the state wasn’t always existed, and even if it was, it doesn’t prove it always should exist. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
As soon as person realizes what the government is – a deception created by evil people, under disguise of managing, using it for personal aims – he can’t feel anything but disgust toward these people. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
When a man has to choose between God commands & what authorities tell him, and if he chooses to obey the authorities, he acts like a man who listens not his master but 1st person he met on street. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
The teachings of Christ has always been contrary to the teaching of the world. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
According to the teachings of the world, rulers govern people, force people to kill, execute, punish, make them swear in obeying the will of their superiors, force them to fight with other nations. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
But according to the teaching of Christ, no man can not only kill, rape another, but even to resist him with power, cannot do evil not only to his neighbors, but also to his enemies. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
Christ predicted: followers of his teaching will be persecuted, tormented, killed & the world will hate them as it hated him, because they won’t be servants of world, but servants of Father. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
“If my soldiers began to think, no one would have stayed with the army,” – said king Frederick II. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
Anarchists are right, denying existing order, exposing the violence of government; but they are crudely mistaken thinking that the anarchy can be installed by a revolution. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
Anarchy can only be installed by having more people who don’t need protection of the government & more people who would be ashamed to use this power. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
Anarchy doesn’t mean lack of institutions, but only absence of those institutions that make people obey them by force. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
A man, a true Christian, cannot be a member of a society which has army and military institutions. – Adin Ballou, “Superstition of the State”
A Christian must not support an official or participate in his election, who, by swearing in the name of God, binds himself to commit the deeds of murder and violence. – Adin Ballou, “Superstition of the State”
The judgement is that the light has come into the world, but people loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. – Christ, “Superstition of the State”
For whoever does evil, hates the light, neither comes to the light, lest his works become known, because they are evil. – Christ, “Superstition of the State”
But he who does truth, comes to the light, so that his deeds may be made manifest, because they are worked in God. – Christ, “Superstition of the State”
All feelings which have love of the whole world as their source are good; all feelings which have self-love as their source are bad. – Tolstoy, “diaries”
What feelings derive from self-love? (1) love of fame, (2) love of gain, and (3) love (between a man and a woman). –
How your view of life changes when you live not for yourself, but for others! Life ceases to be an end and becomes a means. – Tolstoy, “diaries”
A despair is a weakness of faith and of trust in God. – Tolstoy, “diaries”
It seems to me that it’s actually impossible to describe a man; but it’s possible to describe the effect he has on me. – Tolstoy, “diaries”
There is room for so many thoughts simultaneously, especially in an empty head. – Tolstoy, “diaries”
Freedom is relative: in relation to matter a man is free, in relation to God – he is not. – Tolstoy, “diaries”
Before the highest justice, there is no evil that would not have been punished. – Tolstoy, “It Is You”
Pride is a perplexing urge, an evil like epidemics – famine, locusts, war – with which providence punishes human beings. – Tolstoy, “diaries”
The proud man knows neither true joy, nor grief, nor love, nor fear, nor despair, nor hatred – everything about him is unnatural and forced. – Tolstoy, “diaries”
Pride is a sort of immature love of fame, a sort of self-love transferred to the opinions of others – a vain man loves himself not as he is, but as he appears to others to be. – Tolstoy, “diaries”
People kill themselves for 2 reasons: 1) life doesn’t give a person happiness he seeks 2) he thinks his life doesn’t make any sense. Both come from misperception about the purpose of life – Lev Tolstoy , “On Insanity”
The fact that I’ve renounced the Church is true. But I’ve renounced it not because I revolted against God but, on contrary, only because with all my soul powers I wished to serve Him. – Tolstoy, “Four Gospel Unified & Translated”
Christ’s testament of non-resistance to evil by use of violence – didn’t please anybody, at all times. – Tolstoy, “Four Gospel Unified & Translated”
To fulfill his destiny, a human must increase love within himself & manifest it in the world; and this is exactly what’s necessary to fulfill his godly work. But what a man can do to manifest love? – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
Human’s true life is based on the desire of well-being for all. Love is within each person & strives for its manifestation; so person only needs to remove obstacles to it. What are these obstacles? – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
Obstacles making manifestation of love difficult are in human’s separateness from others, person cannot fully get away from striving to benefit himself & commits acts opposite to love. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
Desire of well-being for all (Love) encounters obstacles to this manifestation, because consciousness awakens in human not from birth but later, after he develops habits of animal life. Why is this? – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
Why a spiritual being – love – is enclosed in a separate human being? Some teachings respond by denying the human body, others – of spirit. Neither resolves the contradiction. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
To suggestion of tempter to kill himself if he can’t satisfy bodily demands, Christ replies one mustn’t resist Will of Who has sent us into life as separate beings; but that in it must serve only God. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
Love in every individual and in all mankind, is like steam confined in a boiler: the steam expands, pushes the pistons and produces work. As for the steam to produce its work it needs the resistance of the walls, similarly for love to produce its work, it needs the resistance of the limits of the separate being in which it is enclosed. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
Love in each is like steam in a boiler: for expanding steam to produce its work it needs the resistance of walls, and so love to produce work needs the resistance of separate being it’s confined in. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
What a person must not do, in order to live the True Live? – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
Each person – because in childhood he acquired the habit of living for his separate being, always apt to commit sins (errors), inhibiting the manifestation of love. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
3 origins of sins get in the way of love: 1) inborn sins: from natural desire to serve own body 2) societal: traditions 3) personal/devised: aspirations toward even greater benefiting oneself. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
There are six sins that stand on the way of manifestation of love in people. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
1. The sin of sensual lust, which consists in arranging for oneself sensual pleasures from the satisfaction of one’s needs. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
2. The sin of idleness, which consists in freeing oneself from the labour, necessary to meet one’s needs. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
3. The sin of greed, which consists in acquiring for oneself opportunities for satisfaction one’s own needs in the future. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
4. The sin of thirst for power, which consists in subjugating one’s peers to oneself. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
5. The sin of sexual lust, which consists in arranging for oneself pleasures to satisfy sexual lust. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
6.The sin of intoxication, which consists in stimulating artificial excitement of one’s physical and mental faculties. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
#1-sin of lust- human thinks his well-being is only in satisfaction of his needs so he 1) enjoys them 2) supports pleasures devised by his predecessors 3) devises new means of increasing his pleasures – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
When a person eats before getting hungry, he overdresses, when he builds a house not to shelter from weather but to increase the pleasures of satisfying his needs, he commits the innate sin of lust. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
When person raised in habits of excesses in drink, food, clothing, housing, & continues to enjoy this superfluity, maintaining these habits, such person commits the traditional sin of lust. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
When someone living in luxury, comes up with more means of enjoyment: introduces more refined food & drinks, obtains more fine clothes, home with new decorations…, he commits personal sin of lust. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
The sin(error) of lust – inborn, traditional, personal, – means that individual, hunting after well-being via gratification of his wants, by reinforcing them, impedes his birth to new spiritual life – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
A person acting this way does not reach the goal he strives for, because any increase of needs reduces the probability of being able to satisfy the lust & reduces the pleasure of satisfaction. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
The more frequently a person satisfies his hunger and more refined the food he consumes, the less pleasure he will derive from food. The same is in regards to gratification of all other animal needs. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
“Whoever starts with loving Christianity more than truth, soon will love his church more than Christianity, and will finish loving himself (his peace of mind) more than anything else,” -Coleridge. – Tolstoy, “Response to Synod”
I started with loving my Orthodox faith my than my peace of mind, then loved Christianity over my Church, now I love truth more than anything else. – Tolstoy, “Response to Synod”
So far the truth agrees with Christianity for me. And to the extent of my preaching this Christianity, I peacefully, happily live & joyfully approach my death. – Tolstoy, “Response to Synod”
Incredible is the folly of public that leaves works of greatest thinkers undisturbed – to read writings of commonplace persons which appear daily & breed in countless numbers like flies. – Schopenhauer, “The collected essays “
Because most people will only read what is the newest instead of what is the best of all ages, the greatest writers remain in the narrow circle of prevailing ideas. – Schopenhauer, “The collected essays “
One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind. – Schopenhauer, “The collected essays “
To “science” worshipers:
The person who reads a great deal, gradually loses the ability to think for himself. Thus, many men of learning have read themselves stupid. – Schopenhauer, “The collected essays “
God reveals himself only directly to human heart & every broker – a person, group, book or legend, icon, relics, Church, Christ – does the worst evil – makes people regard as God that what is not God. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
Once a person lets himself believe in mediation between him & God, he deprives himself of the only opportunity of authenticating knowledge & opens possibility of perceiving lies instead of truth. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
The one who wants to find a solution, will find the way to reach it; but the one who doesn’t want the solution – will always find an excuse for not doing that. – our quote
Earth is a hothouse for growing of the Spirits. – Efimov, Putin’s strategist
if god exists why do good things happen to bad people and vice versa? simply put there is no god. –
I and all of us have died for a year, a day, or an hour. We live, which means we die. To live well means to die well. A new year! I wish that I and everybody else may die well. – Tolstoy, “diaries”
To die means to go back to where you came from. What is there? It must be good, judging by the wonderful creatures, the children, who come from there. – Tolstoy, “diaries”
Is a reasonable life possible in a state where the head of it blesses people with icons, kisses them, and makes others kiss them? – Tolstoy, “diaries”
Truth is open to human only in his reason, given by God to understand God’s will, and implanting distrust toward Reason carries in itself the desire to deceive and the greatest blasphemy. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
I could not believe any religion, as each had the same contradictions, absurdities, miracles, denial of all other religions and deceit, demands for blind trust in their teaching. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
The best people of mankind, before & after Gospels, from Moses, Isaiah, Confucius, Buddha, Socrates, to Pascal, Spinoza, Fichte, Fuerbach & not famous people spoke about the meaning of life. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
In my understanding of truth I discovered from the Gospel, I not only was not alone, but I was together with all the best people of the past and of our time. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
I became confirmed in this truth, and at peace, and after that lived happily 20 years of my life, and now with gladness approach death. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
What prompts me to do what I’m doing is not greed, fame, or worldly considerations, but only fear of not fulfilling of what He, who sent me into this world wants from me. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
I know my writing on religion will not contribute to my worldly welfare nor people’s kind attitude toward me, and may upset those who demand fictional work from me. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
A human is an angel being born of the beast — a spiritual being born out of the animal one. Our life in this world is nothing else but this process of birth. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
God, according to the Christian teaching, is that essence of life which a human recognizes both within himself and in the whole world as the desire for well-being. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
This purpose of life is revealed to people by observation, by scripture, and by reasoning. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
1) Observation shows that the progress in human life has consisted in people becoming more and more connected and tie together by consent and cooperation. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
2) The scripture & all wise people tell that humanity must move from division to unity; as Christ said all should be one like ‘I am one with the Father’. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
3) Reasoning shows that that the greatest well-being of people can be obtained only by the most union and concord among people. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
Observation, scripture, & reason show what is the essence of the work of God, in which a human is called to participate – to replace division & discord in the world with union & harmony. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
The increase of love within self drives the ongoing work in the world: replacement of division & discord with union & harmony, — what Christian teaching calls the establishment of the kingdom of God. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
True love – the desire for well-being – starts with one’s own family: wife, children; then expands to friends, fellows, countrymen; then seeks to embrace everything that exists. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
In this incessant expansion of the limits of love, which constitutes the essence of the birth of spiritual being, is the essence of true human life in this world. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
The whole existence of human in this world, from birth till death, is nothing but the birth of spiritual being in him. This incessant birth is what Christian teaching calls the True Life. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
In order to fulfill his destiny, human must increase love within himself and manifest it in the world. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
Love in every one and in all mankind is like steam confined in a boiler: the steam expands, pushes the pistons and produces work. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
Sins constitute the obstacles to the manifestation of love in people. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
Every person is affected by sins inhibiting his manifestation of love – habits of living for oneself 1) acquired from childhood & 2) passed to him by his ancestors. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
There are 3 origins of sins, which obstruct love: 1) innate, natural 2) resulting from human traditions 3) personal, or devised, sins, aimed at further increase of personal welfare. – Tolstoy, “Christian Teaching”
Mockery, particularly clever, makes the one who mocks higher than the one he laughs at; and for the most part (even always) a mockery is a sure sign of misunderstanding by the person of what he laughs about. – Tolstoy, “diaries”
In order to forgive, need to forget, wish to forget that for what you are forgiving, and start the relationship from scratch. – Tolstoy, “diaries”
Thought about the terrible danger of condemning… Yes, it is better to make a 100 mistakes taking the bad for good than once stop loving one. – Tolstoy, “diaries”
The Church religion, preached for centuries to millions of people under the name of Christianity, is nothing but a very vulgar Jewish sect, having nothing in common with true Christianity. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
Light came into world, but people loved darkness more than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates light & doesn’t come to light, so that his deeds don’t get exposed. – John
But he who acts based on truth comes to the light, so that his deeds may be manifested, because they are done in God. – John
While reading the Gospels, ignore all superstitious inserts made by writers – miracles, resurrections, healings, expulsion of demons, resurrection of Christ – but stick to what is simple and clear. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
It’s enough to read the Gospels, ignoring all that is superstitious, and then read Paul’s Epistles – to clearly see the complete disagreement between the teaching of Christ and the doctrine of Pharisee Paul. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
Temporary, local, obscure, convoluted, stilted and adapting to the existing evil teaching of Pharisee Paul is totally incompatible with the worldwide eternal teaching of a simple holy man Jesus. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
The meaning of the teaching of Christ (just like anything truly great) is simple, clear, accessible to all and can be expressed in one word: a human is a son of God. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
The essence of Paul’s teaching is artificial, dark, and totally incomprehensible for any free of hypnosis person. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
The essence of Christ’s teaching is that true well-being of human is in the fulfillment of the will of Father, which is in the unity of people and is only possible by raising the spirit in oneself. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
The essence of the teaching of Paul is that Christ’s death & resurrection saves people from their sins & cruel punishments intended by God to people currently living for sins of their predecessors. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
The foundation of Christ’s teaching in that the main and the only obligation of a human is the fulfillment of God’s will, that is to love people. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
The single basis of Paul’s teaching is: that the only human obligation is to believe that Christ, by his death, has atoned for and redeemed the sins of people. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
According to Christ’s teaching, the reward for shifting one’s own life to the spiritual essence of each person is the joyful freedom of the awareness of the connection with God – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
According to Paul’s teaching, one needs to live the good life chiefly just to get a reward for it “there”, in the post mortem state. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
The foundation of Christ’s teaching – truth, the meaning – the purpose of life. The foundation of Paul’s teaching – cunningness and fantasy. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
Christ told that people should not wait for rewards and punishments in the future and should, as workers of the master, understand their purpose, and fulfill it. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
Whole Paul’s teaching is based on the fear of punishment & promises of rewards, on ascension into heaven & on the most immoral statement: if you believe, you’ll get rid of sins, become sinless. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
In the Gospel, the equality of all people is recognized, and is stated that what is significant before people, is abomination before God – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
Paul teaches obedience to authorities, recognizing the establishment of them from God, so that the one who opposes the authorities, he opposes the godly establishment. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
Where Christ teaches that a person should always forgive, Paul calls for anathema to those who does not do what he commands. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
The Gospel says that all people are equal; Paul recognizes slaves and tells them to obey their masters. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
Christ says: do not swear at all and give to Caesar only what is Caesar’s, and what is God’s – your soul – give to nobody. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
Paul says: “Let every soul be subject unto the higher authorities: for there is no power other than from God; the existing powers are ordained of God”. (Romans 13, 1-2) – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
Christ says: “Who takes the sword will perish from the sword.” Paul says: “The master carries the sword not in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath…” (Romans 13, 4) – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
Christ says: “The sons of God don’t owe taxes to anybody.” (Matthew 17, 25-26) But Paul says “For this you pay your tribute: for they are God’s ministers.”(Romans 13, 6-7) – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
The miserable and deceitful Paul’s teaching took place of the eternal and true teaching of Christ, and even concealed it from the consciousness of the majority of people for many centuries. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
The majority of people believed the Church that Paul’s immoral, convoluted, and therefore pliable to the most arbitrary interpretations doctrine is the true teaching the God-Christ Himself. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
Paul’s Epistles preached under the name of Christ, due to Paul’s hasty activity, became known before the Gospels (50 years after the birth of Christ; while Gospels have appeared later). – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
The true teaching of the great teacher, which has inspired Christ himself and his followers to die for it, has also prompted Paul to choose this teaching for his vain purposes. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
The true teaching of Christ, from its first steps, having been corrupted by Paul & got increasingly covered with a thick layer of superstitions, distortions, false understanding. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
True Christ’s teaching became mostly unknown – replaced w strange Church doctrine – with popes, bishops, miracles, icons, justifications by faith… – having nothing to do with true Christian teaching – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
Having fallen in the hands of rulers, Paul’s doctrine was becoming cruder & approached the worldview of masses. Appeared icons, statues, the creatures of worshiping… & people believe in that. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
The Church (Paul’s) religion is a forgery of the teaching of Christ, having no root by itself. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
Christians, as blind puppies spread away from their mother, divided into countless ideologies: monarchists, Socialists, Republicans, anarchists, spiritists, evangelists… afraid of & hate each other. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
Salvation is not in peace conferences/pension offices/spiritism/evangelism/Protestantism/socialism – but only in the recognition of one that can connect people of our time – teaching of Christ. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
Just remove the veils hiding truth & teaching of Christ will open up & explain the meaning of life & point to the manifestation of this teaching in life & empower people to peaceful & reasonable life. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
Teaching of Christ is simple, clear, easy to implement, one for all, the same law as in all world teachings, derived from the awareness of the human purpose, confirms & clarifies all faiths. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
True Christ’s teaching is unprofitable for the ruling & they have means – false education, bribery, violence, hypnosis of adults – to spread the false & hide the only one giving well-being to people. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
The most gross & harmful superstition now spreading is that a religion in general is something unnecessary, outdated, and that mankind can live a reasonable life without a religion. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
Especially narrow minded people, so-called scientists, imagine that people can live without religion, i.e. without answer to the question: why do people live & what they should be guided by. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
So-called scientists, people especially narrow minded, lost their facility for original reasonable thinking after continual study of thoughts of others & engaging w most idle & irrelevant questions. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
The humanity was only waiting for a push for all Christian aspirations – silenced by false teachings & superstition about possibility of mankind to live w/o religion – to turn into reality. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
The reason why people are in such distress, – is they’ve lost single necessary for peaceful, agreeable, happy cohabitation condition: belief in same principles of life & common to all laws of actions. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
And it’s a tragedy that people have stagnated in gross superstition about possibility for people to live a good life without a faith. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
The salvation is only in recognition that the perversion of Christian faith was the perversion of the Faith & should be rejected. True Faith is single most important Truth of our time of whole mankind – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
The salvation is not in a re-arrangement of lives invented by people, – but in understanding of the meaning of life and its law & in living based on this law, in love with others. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
I think the time has come now for this faith, and that the best thing a person can do nowadays is to follow the teaching of this faith and to promote its spread among people. – Tolstoy, “Why the Christians are now in such distress “
The commonest crimes – murder, robbery, & fraud – are the result of men’s desire to increase their possessions, or even to obtain the necessaries of life they have been unable to procure in other way. – Tolstoy, “Walk In the Light While There Is Light”
Many crimes are prompted by the passions of jealousy, revenge, carnal love, anger and hatred. Such crimes cannot be suppressed by law. – Tolstoy, “Walk In the Light While There Is Light”
The world hates me because its deeds are evil. If you were of the world, the world would love you, but because I have delivered you from the world, therefore the world hates you. – Christ – Tolstoy, “Walk In the Light While There Is Light”
The time comes that whosoever kills you will think that he does God service. But we, like Christ, fear not them that kill the body and then can do nothing more to us. – Tolstoy, “Walk In the Light While There Is Light”
‘Except you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.’ – Christ – Tolstoy, “Walk In the Light While There Is Light”
‘Woe unto the world because of temptations; for temptations must come; but woe to that man through whom the temptation comes!’ – Christ – Tolstoy, “Walk In the Light While There Is Light”
it might be said that a pagan life may be pardonable only for those who have no children. ‘But woe unto him that shall cause one of these little ones to stumble.’ – Tolstoy, “Walk In the Light While There Is Light”
“Know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Christ gives perfect freedom at once: the world’s teaching will never give it. – Tolstoy, “Walk In the Light While There Is Light”
“Come unto me, all you that work and are burdened & I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you & learn from me & you’ll find rest in your souls. For my yoke is easy & my burden is light.” – Tolstoy, “Walk In the Light While There Is Light”
Blunders do not become wisdom because they are old, any more than water becomes wine because it is stale and foul. – Tolstoy, “Walk In the Light While There Is Light”
In God’s sight, there is neither small nor great, there is only what is straight and what is crooked. – Tolstoy, “Walk In the Light While There Is Light”
The worldly work, all that you have neglected to do, has only shown you your sin, and you have repented. And when you repented you found the straight path. – Tolstoy, “Walk In the Light While There Is Light”
Go forward and follow it, and do not think of the past nor of what is great or small. All men are equal in God’s sight! There is one God and one life! – Tolstoy, “Walk In the Light While There Is Light”
Once you found the straight path, follow it with God, and do not think of the past nor of what is great or small. All living are equal in God’s sight! There is one God and one life! – Tolstoy, “Walk In the Light While There Is Light”
“No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”—Luke xvi. 13. – Tolstoy, “To God or to Mammon?”
“He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathers not for me scatters abroad.”—Matthew xii. 30. – Tolstoy, “To God or to Mammon?”
“When you did not know, you didn’t sin,” told Christ. (Jesus said unto them, when you were blind, you did not sin: but now you see; therefore your sin remains. John 9-41) – Tolstoy, “To God or to Mammon?”
The question that lies in the soul of every person, without which life is impossible: Is there any meaning in my life that will not be annihilated by the inevitable death awaiting me? – Tolstoy, “Confession”
‘We grow closer to the truth only to the extent that we grow further away from life,’ says Socrates when preparing himself for death. – Tolstoy, “Confession”
What do we, who love truth, strive for in life? To be free of body & of all evil that arises from the life of the body. If this is so then how can we fail to rejoice when death approaches? – Socrates – Tolstoy, “Confession”
‘The wise man seeks death throughout his life, and therefore death is not frightening to him.’ – Socrates – Tolstoy, “Confession”
That we are afraid of nothingness, or that we wish to live, only indicates that we ourselves are nothing other than this desire to live and we know nothing other than this. – Schopenhauer – Tolstoy, “Confession”
‘Vanity of vanities,’ says Solomon, ‘all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? – Tolstoy, “Confession”
‘The life of the body is evil and a lie. And since the annihilation of the life of the body is a blessing we must long for it,’ says Socrates. – Tolstoy, “Confession”
‘Life is that which it should not be: evil. The transition into nothingness is the only thing sacred in life,’ says Schopenhauer. – Tolstoy, “Confession”
It follows that rational knowledge does not provide the meaning of life, but excludes it. – Tolstoy, “Confession”
So many people have failed to understand the question ‘what is the meaning of life’, or who had understood it but drowned it in the intoxication of life. – Tolstoy, “Confession”
Rational knowledge, as presented by the scientists and wise, denies the meaning of life. – Tolstoy, “Confession”
I could not find the answer to ‘What is the meaning of life?’ in science – it denied the meaning; neither in current religions – they denied the reason, which is even worse. – Tolstoy, “Confession”
According to world religions, it follows that in order to comprehend the meaning of life I must renounce my reason, the very thing for which meaning was necessary. – Tolstoy, “Confession”
Faith remained as irrational to me as before, but it alone provides mankind with the answers to the question of life, and consequently with the possibility of living. – Tolstoy, “Confession”
Faith is a knowledge of the meaning of human life, the consequence of which is that man does not kill himself but lives. – Tolstoy, “Confession”
So-called Christians have no other concept of life than of grabbing hold of everything they can. – Tolstoy, “Confession”
If so-called Christians would had that meaning of life in which the fear of deprivation, suffering, and death is annihilated, then they wouldn’t be frightened of them. – Tolstoy, “Confession”
I realized that all the activities, discussions, science and art of the upper class is sheer indulgence, and there is no meaning to be found here. – Tolstoy, “Confession”
In order to understand the meaning of life it is first of all necessary that life is not evil and meaningless, and then one may use reason to understand it. – Tolstoy, “Confession”
The truth has always been the truth, just as 2 × 2 = 4, but I had not admitted it, because in acknowledging that 2 × 2 = 4 I would have had to admit that I am not a good man. – Tolstoy, “Confession”
And it was more important and necessary for me to feel that I was good than to admit that 2 × 2 = 4. – Tolstoy, “Confession”
I came to love good people and to loathe myself, and I acknowledged the truth. And then it all became clear to me. – Tolstoy, “Confession”
I had lived as a parasite and when I asked myself why I lived, I received the answer: for nothing. – Tolstoy, “Confession”
…I remembered that I only lived during those times when I believed in God. I live truly only when I am conscious of Him and seek Him. – Tolstoy, “Confession”
‘Live in search of God and there will be no life without God!’ – Tolstoy, “Confession”
Assuming that truth lies in union by love, I was struck by the fact that theology was destroying the thing it should be advancing. – Tolstoy, “Confession”
There is no greater unhappiness than when a person starts to fear the truth lest it denounce him. Pascal – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
‘Man possesses a certain tendency to believe that he is not seen when he sees nothing, like children who close their eyes in order not to be seen.’ (Lichtenberg) – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
People believe absurdity & cruelty of our lives, with insane wealth of few & embittered poverty of the majority, arms & wars, is not seen by anyone & nothing prevents them from continuing such life. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
All the hatred, contrary to human nature, is not only not condemned like other malicious sentiments between people, but, on contrary, is praised & elevated as laudable service & virtue. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The hatred of the oppressed workers for the rich and powerful is extolled as love of liberty, brotherhood and equality. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The hatred of the Germans for the French & the English, of the English for the Yankees, of the Russians for the Japanese, etc., and vice versa, is considered the virtue of patriotism. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Who think there is no other way of governing people than by force, disregarding their reason, do to people what’s done to horses by blinding to make them walk around the circle submissively. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Why does man have reason if he can only be influenced by violence? – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The right for violence is not a right, but a simple fact which can only be a right when it does not meet with protest and opposition. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
All human industry is liberation from the power of raw nature; progress in justice is nothing other than a series of limitations to which the tyranny of the mighty must be subjected. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Just as the purpose of a medicine is in victory over a sickness, the essence of goodness is in victory over the blind brutality and the unbridled lust of man-beast. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
I see the same law, i.e. growing liberation of a personality & the ascent of a creature during its life to goodness, justice & wisdom – from greedy avarice to rational magnanimity.’ (Amiel) – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
‘From the fact that it is possible to submit people to justice by force, it certainly does not follow that it would be just to submit people to violence.’ (Pascal) – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Violence produces something only resembling justice, but it distances people from the possibility of living justly, without violence. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
It would therefore seem evident that the struggle between oppressors and oppressed cannot unite people but, on the contrary, the further it progresses the further it divides them. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The age-old lie that violence exerted by some over others can be useful to men and unite them has been so popularized. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The truth is only dangerous to those who commit evil. Those who do good love the truth. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Reason is often the slave of sin; it strives to justify it. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
As a result of the perpetuated deception, people can no longer see the connection between their oppression and their participation in violence. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The reason for all human misery is the lack of faith & without faith people can only be guided by self-interest & person guided only by self-interest can only be a deceiver or deceived. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The savage instinct of military murder has been so carefully cultivated and encouraged over the course of a thousand years that it has dug deep roots in the human brain. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The word hell, rarely used in the Scripture, has done much harm to Christianity due to false interpretations. A man runs away from external hell but he needs redemption from the evil within his soul. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Much worse than external punishment is the soul in a state of rebellion against God, the soul endowed with divine force and abandoning itself to bestial passions. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
It is the soul living in the sight of God and fearing the anger of men, preferring glory in men’s eyes to the peaceful realization of his virtue. There is no greater disaster than that. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
To gain salvation, in the highest meaning of the word, means to raise the fallen spirit, cure the sick soul, give it back its freedom of thought, conscience and love. (Channing) – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
It seems so easy to tell the truth, yet it takes a great deal of inner strength to do so. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The level of a person’s honesty is an indication of the level of his moral perfection. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Church Christianity is the enemy of true Christianity and stands in relation to true Christianity as a criminal caught in the act. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
There must not be any exception to God’s commandment that it is always a sin to kill a person. It is not permitted to bear arms, for our only weapon is the truth. – Lactancius – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Maximillian, having been brought to the office of military conscription, answered the Proconsul’s first question as to what his name was, thus: ‘My name is Christian and therefore I cannot fight.’ – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Simple, indubitable, evident truth, that the Christianity is incompatible with readiness to commit any kind of violence & murder, at the will of others, has been concealed from people. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Among people living evil lives, every step in the direction of goodness invokes persecution rather than love. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
True bravery in battle is natural for him who knows that God is his ally. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
‘In the world you shall have tribulation: but cheer up: I have overcome the world.’ (John, XVI, 33) – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Do not await the fulfilment of the divine cause you serve; but know that none of your efforts are fruitless, for they all advance the cause. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The most important and necessary human deeds, for both doer and recipient, are those of which he does not see the results. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The State law demanding military service, readiness to kill at the command of others, cannot but be contrary to any of the religio-moral laws that are always based on love of one’s neighbour. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Participation in violence is incompatible with Christianity; when people will not go to soldiers, tax collectors, judges, jury, policemen, officials, there won’t be violence from which people suffer. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
What’s needed is only that each individual should say what he really feels or thinks, or at least, that he should not say what he does not think. – Tolstoy, “Patriotism and Christianity”
It is shameful to say how little is needed for all men to be delivered from those calamities which now oppress them: it is only necessary not to lie. – Tolstoy, “Patriotism and Christianity”
Let people only not fall for the lies that are instilled into them; let them not say what they neither feel nor think. – Tolstoy, “Patriotism and Christianity”
If people would only knew that their strength isn’t in force but in truth & wouldn’t deviate from it in word or deed, not say what they don’t think, not do what they regard as foolish or wrong! – Tolstoy, “Patriotism and Christianity”
When you can say in all truth and with your whole heart: “My Lord, my God, do with me as you will”, only then will you free yourself from slavery and become completely free. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
A free man is only master of what he can master without impediment – himself. A person wishing to control others is not free: he’s become a slave of his desire to dominate people. (Epictetus) – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Spiritual force has never engaged man, has never exerted so much influence over him, as today. It has, so to speak, filled the air the world breathes. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The social conditions of life can only be improved by people exercising self-restraint. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
It is said that one swallow does not make a summer, but can it be that because one swallow does not make a summer another swallow, sensing and anticipating summer, must not fly? – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
If every blade of grass waited similarly summer would never occur. And it is the same with establishing the Kingdom of God: we must not think about whether we are the first or the thousandth swallow. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The crushing heaviness of evil is weighing down on men. The people standing beneath this weight are becoming more and more crushed by it, and are searching for a means of freeing themselves from it. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
They know they can lift the weight and throw it off through joint effort; but they cannot agree to do it all together. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Everyone is bending lower and lower, making the weight to lay on other’s shoulders; the weight is pressing on people more and more heavily – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Evil weight would’ve crushed men long ago if it weren’t for people guided not by concerns of consequences of their outer behaviour but by inner accord of their acts with the call of their conscience. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Instead of setting themselves an external goal which requires the cooperation of others, true Christians set themselves an inner goal, requiring cooperation from no one else. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The salvation from the enslavement in which the men of today find themselves is impossible for most of them, and can be, and is, achieved only by substituting the law of violence for the law of love. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The purpose of your personal life is most certainly known to you & is in the realization in yourself of the greatest perfection of love, which is necessary to the realization of the Kingdom of God. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
A Christian is free of civil law as he’s no need of it for himself or for others since he considers human life better provided for by the law of love he professes than by a law maintained by violence – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
For those who’ve recognized the demands of law of love, not only demands of law of violence can’t be obligatory, but they’re seen as human errors & must be exposed and abolished. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The profession of Christianity in its true meaning, including non-resistance to evil, frees men from all external power. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
life is only improved to the extent to which this change is based on changes in consciousness; that is, to the extent that in people’s consciousness the law of violence is exchanged for the law of love. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
It was not government decrees that abolished child-beating, torture and slavery, but a change in people’s consciousness that called for the necessity of these decrees. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The external, vain and useless activity based on establishing and adapting the external forms of life shields people from the essential inner activity, which alone can improve their lives. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Since it is more pleasant, easy and the effect more apparent, to direct energy at external changes, people always prefer to direct their energy not at changing consciousness but at changing forms. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
A better life can only come when the consciousness of men is improved; so whoever wishes to improve life must direct all their efforts towards changing both their own & other people’s consciousness. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Mankind is going through a transitory period right now. Everything is ready to make the transition from one condition to another. Only a slight push is needed in order to complete the change. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
One word can be enough for consciousness to express itself, and that main force in collective human life – public opinion – may suddenly flip the existing order over without struggle or violence. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The salvation of men from oppression & ignorance is only achieved by every person called to participate in violence over fellow men recognizing his true spiritual “I” & asking “Why would I do that?” – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Not revolutions or the cunning socialist structures of unions, arbitrations will save mankind, but only when the spiritual awareness becomes widespread. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
It is only necessary for man to wake himself up from the hypnosis that shields him from the true Christian vocation in order for him to refuse to comply with the demands the government makes of him. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The human soul is Christian by nature. Christianity is always perceived by people as something forgotten and suddenly remembered… – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Christianity raises man to a height revealing a world of happiness, governed by the law of reason. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The realization of submitting to human law is enslaving; the realization of submitting to God’s law is liberating. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The further away the goal of our strivings, and the less we desire to see the fruits of our labor ourselves, the greater and wider the extent of our success will be. (John Ruskin) – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The most important and necessary work both for the man performing it and for others is that of which he will not see the results. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
For people who have lost the inherent religious feeling to experience it anew, they need only to eliminate that lies which have temporarily concealed and obscured that from them. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The man awakened does not believe in the thing called the State and sees no justification for all the acts of violence performed in the name of the State: therefore he cannot participate in them. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
People live outside the political structure who have reached an understanding of life that is higher than civilization. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
As with people, the main changes occur in the spiritual, invisible realms, so too with humanity the main changes occur, first and foremost, in the invisible sphere of religious consciousness. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The only reason we fail to see the full horror of the life we lead, so contrary to human nature, is because all the horrors have crept in so gradually that we have failed to notice them. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
violence men use against each other and which is so contradictory to reasonable, loving human nature – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
society’s present condition is so utterly dreadful that it would be hard to imagine anything worse. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
So the question of whether people can live without governments is not frightening but it is as farcical as it would be to ask a tortured man how he would live if they were to stop torturing him. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
People in exclusively privileged positions impose an opinion that people without government would be in tremendous strife and that everyone would be at war with everyone else. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
As if they’re talking of the co-existence not of animals (animals live peacefully w/o political coercion) but of some dreadful creatures whose behaviour is governed by nothing but hatred & madness. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
They paint people like this because they attribute to them qualities contrary to their nature but which have been nurtured by that very same governmental structure under which they all have grown up. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Therefore, to the question of what life would be like without government and authorities, the answer can only be that there would certainly not be all the evil which government creates. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
There’d be no taxes spent on needless things, no division of nations, no enslavement of some by others, no waste on war prep, no fear of wars, no insane luxury of some & insane poverty of others. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
We live in an age of discipline, culture and civilization, but it is still far from being a moral age. Kant – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Under the present conditions the happiness of the State grows alongside the misery of the people. Could we not be happier living in a primitive condition, without anything of our present culture? Kant – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
For how can one make people happy without making them moral and good?’ (Kant) – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Try to live in such a way that you have no need of violence. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
And you will know the truth and the truth will make you free (John, VIII, 32) – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Man thinks therefore he is. It is clear that he must think rationally. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
A rationally thinking person thinks first of all about the purpose for which he must live; he thinks about his soul and about God. Just look at what worldly people think about; of anything but that. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Worldly people think about dancing, music & singing & similar entertainments; about buildings, wealth, power; they envy kings & the rich. But they never think about what it means to be a human. Pascal – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
All you suffering people of the Christian world, both rulers and rich and poor and oppressed, need only free yourselves from the deception of false Christianity and government. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Understand, all of you, that you were born neither to be slaves, nor to be masters; that you are free people, but that you only become free and rational when you fulfill the supreme law of life. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
This law has been revealed to you, and you need only discard those lies which conceal it from you to be able to see clearly of what this law consists and in what your happiness consists. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
This law consists in love, and well-being is only found in the fulfilment of this law. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matt., 1, 28–31). – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The supreme law of life revealed by Christ is now clear to man and unity will only be achieved through following it – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
We have one, and only one, infallible guide: the eternal spirit that penetrates each and every one of us in unity and fills us with the ambition to attain that which we ought; – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
it is the same spirit that urges the tree to grow towards the sun, the flower to drop its seeds in autumn, and which urges us to strive after God, thereby uniting ourselves. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The true faith attracts people to it, not by the promise of good to the believer, but by the indication of the only means of saving us from all evil, and from death itself. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Salvation does not lie in the rituals and profession of faith, but in a clear understanding of the meaning of our life. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Just realize who you are, how insignificant is that which you mistakenly call yourself, identifying it as your body; and how immensely great is that which is really you: your spiritual being. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Can the performance of such awful acts, at the command of authorities whom men have been inspired to honour and consider sacred, pass without affecting men’s souls? – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
To perceive the true Christian teaching, people must free themselves from beliefs in: 1) perverted Christianity, 2) necessity & inevitability of government founded on this false Church religion. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
People, having rejected belief in dogmas, sacraments, miracles, the sanctity of the Bible & other institutions of church, are still unable to free themselves from those false teachings of the State. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
People BELIEVE, without the least doubt they literally believe, in that system of government founded on violence that stems from the Church doctrine. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Nobody is even capable of imagining, a social structure other than one based on violence. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The unconscious faith, superstition in lawfulness of upholding of world structure by violence & of necessity of violence in itself – main obstacle to people’s acceptance of true Christian teaching. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
People feel that acceptance of the principle of non-resistance to evil tears their established way of life at its roots & requires from them something new & unknown which seems scary to them. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The negation of the teaching of non-resistance and the failure to comprehend it are always in proportion to the degree of power, wealth, and sophistication of people. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
If liberating oneself from the admissibility of violence which destroys love depended on people who enjoy a better material position – the transition to a life based on love would not be so close. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
People corrupted by wealth, power or civilization are having the hardest time of liberating themselves from the admissibility of violence which destroys love & of adopting the true Christian teaching – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
It is among people not perverted by wealth, power, or civilization that the change in the social structure, required by the Christian teaching, must begin. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
The instruction to love not those who love us but those who hate us is not an exaggeration but just an indication of that opportunity of receiving the supreme bliss that love gives. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
It is the essence of the human soul that it works in such a way that responding to evil with evil makes it suffer, whereas responding to evil with love leads to the highest attainable bliss. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Non-violent resistance to evil brings well-being, which, by sublimating the personality, leads to the greatest bliss and also destroys the scarecrow which evokes resistance: the fear of death. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
It is easy to see that people who control the masses are cruel, immoral, and certainly below the average level of morality among all people of their time and society. – Tolstoy, “Superstition of the State”
Seek within yourselves only: an increase of love by eradicating all the mistakes, sins & passions which hinder its manifestation & you’ll further the well-being of people in the most effective way. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Perverting Institutions like schools and universities train people in vanity, self-importance and pride, and thus. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Forcible construction of other people’s lives, according to your own ideas, is not just a primitive superstition, but a vile, criminal affair, destructive to the soul. – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Some see the salvation of mankind in amended, renewed, cleansed semi-Jewish Christianity; others – in an aggregate of the most random, disparate, unnecessary knowledge which they call science. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
Just as priests, having not been attested by anybody but the priests themselves, boldly lied & presented as truth whatever came into their mind, exactly the same so called people of science often do. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
Jews believed not in 6-day-creation but in that there are people who know the highest truth & so people nowadays believe not in Darwin’s theory but in all that priests of science give them as truth. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
The grounds for the work of the priests of science remain just as mysterious for the believers in science as the grounds for knowledge of their preachers remained for the Jews. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
Some see the lulling remedy in mysticism & religion, others – in the stupefying effect of the work for science. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
Believers in religion & science equally want just to avert eyes away from the abyss before which humanity now stands & if humanity will continue to go down this path it must inevitably crash. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
All the workers of science, instead of feeling guilty before society, just as they would feel if they’d gamble, continue with calm conscience to do their good for nobody business. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
Who doesn’t know those hopeless for truth and often cruel people who are so busy that they never have time? – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
only an ant in a fable, as a creature deprived of reason and desire to do good, could think that work is a virtue, and could be proud of it. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
Some says that work makes a person good; but I always noticed the opposite: determined work, ant-like pride of one’s own work makes not only an ant, but a human cruel. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
The greatest villains of mankind, such as Nero and Peter the First, have always been particularly busy and preoccupied, not leaving a moment to stay with themselves without occupation or amusements. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
But even if the love of work is not an obvious vice, it can under no circumstances called a virtue. Work can be just as little virtue as food. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
Work is a need, denial of which causes suffering, but it is not a noble cause. Exalting work to a virtue just as ugly, as exalting of food taking to goodness and virtue. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
The value attributed to work in our society is a reaction against idleness, exalted to a sign of nobility and dignity among the wealthy and little educated classes. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
Work is not a virtue, but in our wrongly organized society is a morally anesthetic means, just like smoking or drinking alcohol, for hiding the wrongness & depravity of your life from yourself. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
If people didn’t have excuses for constant, all-absorbing them work, they might not be able to live the way they do. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
Only because people use empty, for the most part harmful work, to hide from themselves those contradictions with which they live, people are able to live the way they do. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
“Opinions are like nails: the more you bang on them, the deeper they go.” Dumas – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
That force that has created the world, as it seems to me that the world couldn’t still create itself, made us its own tools & reserved the right to know why it made us & where it leads us. – Dumas – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
Let a man work with his muscles or mind, yet his concerns can never be limited to the purchase of food, the acquisition of property, or the attainment of fame. – Dumas – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
All those who limit themselves to these goals, feel, even when they have reached them, that they still lack something. – Dumas – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
A human does not only consist of a body which he must feed and mind which needs to be educated and developed; he undoubtedly has a soul which claims its own demands. – Dumas – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
This soul is in unceasing work, in constant development, and in the pursuit toward light and truth. Until it receives all the light and wins the entire truth, it will torment man. – Dumas – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
The soul has never occupied that much, never imposed with such vigor its power on man as in our time. It is, so to speak, poured into the air that the world breathes. – Dumas – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
Individual souls have already composed shared, collective soul, to help people ahead unite & do the right progress of the nations recently hostile to each other. – Dumas – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
We are brought up and conditioned to hate each other, often by the very people who are supposed to teach us to love. – Dumas – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
The more people believe that they can be brought by something external, i.e. by religion, science, or government, to a change & improvement of their lives, the harder for the improvement to realize. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
when people will become passionate about loving each other, and by giving themselves to this love, they’ll inadvertently change the whole present life – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
people, having tried everything, finally will – and very soon – take the application to life of the law “love each other” seriously – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
The arming of all nations, the threats, the hostility among countrymen are all the phenomena of bad nature but not of bad omens. – Dumas – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
All the dissensions in the world are the last convulsions of what must pass. This disease is just an energetic effort of the body to free itself from the deadly source. – Dumas – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
These armings, these threats, these persecutions – if you look closer, you will see that all this is only superficial. All of this is colossal, but it is hollow. – Dumas – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
The centers of loving attraction will form & grow like a snowball & they must inevitably attract all that lives & by changing of the mood, the evil from which people suffer will disappear. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
Life, having carried on these pagan bases of fight as it does now, will inevitably lead mankind to the greatest disasters, and that time is already near. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
The ridiculous absurdity of mutual arming of nations must inevitably end with either horrible killings or already ongoing worldwide bankruptcy & extinction of all involved in arming. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
All people of our world recognize as mandatory for themselves either Christian law of love or the secular law, also based on Christianity, of respect for other’s life, identity & human rights. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
People know all this, and yet they build their lives contrary to their own benefits, and security, and the law that they profess. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
It’s time to decide that love for each other is advantageous, useful & kind & to arrange our lives based on it, or, having recognized that love is an impossible dream, stop talking about it! – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
But people don’t do either of that: they continue to live contrary to love & continue to praise it. Obviously, they believe love is possible, desirable & natural to them, but cannot fulfill it. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
All the great changes in life of one person or the whole mankind begin and are committed only in a thought. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
Regardless of the external changes in people’s lives, or of how much they preach on the need of change of feelings & actions, their lives won’t change until they change their thoughts. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
Once a change in thoughts happens, sooner or later, it will echo in people’s feelings & actions & lives – just as a ship inevitably turns after the turn of the steering wheel. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
From the first words of his sermon, Christ did not tell people: do this or that, have such and such feelings, but he told them: think again, change your understanding of life. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
Christ did not tell people: love one another (these words he spoke to his disciples); but told all people: “Repent, i.e. think, change your understanding of life, otherwise you’ll all perish.” – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
Your life meaning is only in fulfilling the will of the One Who sent you to this life & requires you to serve not your personal goals but His goal, i.e. to establish unity & love among all. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
But how can a man change his thoughts, understanding of life, when he relentlessly works based on that same false understanding of life that he needs to change? – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
By the nature of their consciousness, most people of our time for long time already must have lived among each other as Christians. Look how they live in reality: they live like beasts. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
People must stop stupefying themselves with false religions, science, and the incessant self-exhaling work on cases that are not approved by their conscience. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
Feast was ready for a long time, and everybody was long time ago called to attend it; but one has bought land, another – married, third – tests his bulls… and so on. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
All are busy, have no time to wake up, come to their senses, look at themselves and the world and ask themselves: what do I do? What for? – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
In order for the Kingdom of God to come true, it’s necessary for all the people to begin to love each other without making distinctions between individuals, families, peoples. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
Once people pause, they’ll see the futility of their activities; just as water freezes in cold as soon they stop stirring it, the Christian understanding of life will inevitably settle in minds. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
If only people reserved one hundredth of the energy which they now expend on the commitment of various unwarranted carnal and therefore dimming their consciousness matters – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
and if people used this energy on the understanding of the consciousness itself and on the execution of what it requires from them – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
Look for the Kingdom of God and its righteousness, and the rest will follow you. – Tolstoy, “Non-Activity”
The spirit is impossible to see or to show. The spirit is a person’s recognition that he is a son of the infinite spirit. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The prophet Isaiah said to you, ‘The house of God is not the temple in Jerusalem, but the whole world of God’s people.’ – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And the prophet Jeremiah said to you, ‘Do not believe false speeches that this is the home of the Eternal. Do not believe that, but instead change your life…’ – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Jesus said, “Tear down this temple and in three days I will raise a new, living temple.” – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The prophets told: ‘God does not rejoice in your offerings, but I rejoices in your love one to another.’ The living temple is the whole world of people when they love one another. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
if people pray to God, then they pray to that which they do not know, but if they pray to the father, then they pray to someone who is impossible not to know. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The time has come that the real venerators of God will not worship God, but will worship the father in spirit and in action. These are the kind of venerators that the father needs. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
God is a spirit, and we must worship him in spirit and in action. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
He who considers himself orthodox will not perform any acts of love. And he who considers himself unfaithful will perform acts of love. And acts of love will deliver you out of all error. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And Jesus said, “The whole matter is who considers oneself to be. Whoever in his faith considers himself to be good will not be good; and whoever in his faith considers himself to be bad is good.” – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
They asked Jesus: Why is it that, along with the orthodox, we fast so much and your students do not fast at all? But according to the orthodox law, God has commanded us to fast. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And Jesus said to them, “As long as the groom is at the wedding, no one can be sad. It is only when there is no groom that they are sad. If there is life, then there is no need to be sad. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Jesus says the kingdom of God is invisible & it is not to be found in anything external, but that it is only within people’s souls. The beginning and the end of everything is within a person’s soul. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Every person, apart from his carnal life, recognizes in himself a spirit that is free, intelligent, and independent from the flesh. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And this spirit, infinite and emanated from the Infinite, is the source of all and is what we call God. We know God only within ourselves. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
This spirit is the source of our lives and it needs to be placed higher than anything else; we must live off of it. When we have made this spirit the basis of life, we receive true, infinite life. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
That father spirit who planted this spirit in people could not have done so with the goal of deceiving people, intending for people to recognize this infinite spirit in themselves but then to lose it. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
A person who bases his life on this spirit will have infinite life. People can choose for themselves life and death. Life is in the spirit, death is in the flesh. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The life of the spirit is goodness and light; the mortal life of flesh is evil and darkness. To believe in the spirit means to perform acts of goodness; to not believe means to perform acts of evil. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
God planted spirit in people – planted, as does a sower, everywhere, not choosing the soil, and the seed that fell on good soil grows, and the one that fell on undesirable soil will die. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Only the spirit gives people life, and it is up to the people to either keep it or lose it. Evil does not exist for the spirit. Evil is the imitation of life. Evil is non-living. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
This breed of people, the orthodox lawmakers, consider to be truth only what they make up themselves and hear from each other, and recognize the only law that they invent themselves. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
John wasn’t a prophet like the others; he was greater than all the prophets. They prophesied what could happen. He proclaimed to people what is: that the kingdom of God was and is on the earth. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Previous prophets preached that God would come with various types of visible appearances but I’m talking about a kingdom of God the coming of which will be impossible to see with the eyes. – Christ – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
“And if they tell you, ‘Look, it came or is coming,’ or, ‘Look, here it is,’ do not believe them. The kingdom of God is not in a time or in any place. – Christ – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
It is like lightning – it is here, there and everywhere. And it has no time, and no place because the kingdom of God that I preach is within you. – Christ – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Whoever trusts his life in spirit will not die, and whoever does not trust their life in it will destroy himself because he did not rely on that which is life. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The essence of separation (death) is that life came into the world, but people themselves go away from it. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
So whoever does wrong does not go toward the light, therefore his acts are invisible, and he deprives himself of life. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And whoever lives in truth moves toward the light, therefore his actions are in the light and he has life and unites himself with God. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The spirit father plants the life of intelligence in the world, just as how a farmer sows seeds in his field. He sows over the whole field, not distinguishing where each one may land. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Those seeds that fall onto good earth, spring up & compensate for the lost seeds and offer up their grain and flourish; some multiplied one hundred times, some sixty and some thirty. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And just so, God planted the spirit within people, in some it disappears, and in some it returns, multiplied one hundred times. These are the people that make up the kingdom of God. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
So the kingdom of God is not like you think it is, that God will come to reign over you. God only planted the spirit, and the kingdom of God will only be within those who preserve that. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
God does not control people and, like a farmer, tosses seeds to the earth and does not think of them himself. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
While people are still living, God does not enter into their lives; he gave the world the spirit and the spirit itself lives within people, forming the kingdom of God. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
This is what the kingdom of God can be compared to: A farmer sowed good seeds in his field. The farmer is the spirit father; the field is the earth; the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom of God. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Now, the farmer lay down to sleep and an enemy came to plant weeds in the field. The enemy is temptation, the weeds are the sons of temptation. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The farmer says: ‘Let them grow together. The harvest will come, then I’ll command the reapers to pull out the weeds and will burn them up and will gather the wheat into my shed.’ – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The harvest is the end of human life, and the reapers are the powers of heaven. They burn the weeds and the wheat will be cleaned and gathered. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Just so, at the end of life, all that was the deception of time will fall away, and only the true life will remain – in the spirit. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The kingdom of God is like a fishing net. They stretch fishing nets along the sea & catch all kinds of fish. When they pull them out, they separate the bad ones & throw them back into the sea. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And so it will be at the end of time: the power of heaven will pick out the good, and the bad will be thrown away. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
To that one who has understood the meaning of the kingdom of God but has not accepted it into his heart, evil comes and snatches up what has been sown. This is the seed that fell on the road. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The one sown in the brush is he who has understood the meaning of the kingdom, but his worldly cares and greed for riches strangle the meaning in him and he bears no fruit. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And the one sown on good land is the one who has understood the meaning of the kingdom and accepted it into his heart. This one bears fruit, some multiplied one 100 times, some 60, and some 30. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And whoever holds on will be given much; but whoever does not hold on will have everything taken away from him. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And therefore, be careful how you understand these parables. Understand them so that you do not become ensnared in error, offenses or concerns, but bear fruit multiple times more. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Blessed are those who have no property, no pride and no troubles about it; but miserable are those who seek riches and glory, – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
because the poor and destitute are in the father’s will, but the rich and famous are seeking only rewards from people in this temporal life. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
In order to fulfill the will of the father, one should not fear being poor and despised, one must rejoice in that state, to demonstrate people what real well-being is. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
In order to fulfill the will of the father, who gives life and well-being to all people, one must keep five commandments. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The first commandment: Do not offend anyone and do not do anything to provoke evil in anyone, because evil gives birth to evil. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The second commandment: Do not flirt with women and do not abandon the woman that you’ve united with, because abandoning women and replacing them gives rise to all the debauchery in the world. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The third commandment: Do not swear oaths over anything because it is impossible to promise anything since man is entirely in the will of the father, and oaths are taken for evil acts. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
4th commandment: Don’t resist evil, take no offense & do more than people demand of you; do not judge & don’t take others to court, because a person himself is full of errors & can’t teach others. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The fifth commandment: Do not make distinctions between your homeland and that of others, because all people are the children of one father. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
These five commandments should be kept not to earn the praise of other people, but for yourself, for your own blessedness. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Neither prayer nor fasting is needed. Don’t need to pray as Father knows all that people need. Don’t need to fast: people fast only to be praised & the praise of others cannot give blessedness. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
So there is nothing to ask him for; one just needs to try to be within the father’s will. The father’s will is that we do not bear any malice toward anyone. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
One needs only to care to be within the father’s will, and the all rest will take care of itself. If one cares about the carnal, he cannot already care about the kingdom of God. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
One can only desire the strength of spirit that the father gives. The five commandments define the path into the kingdom of heaven. Only this singularly narrow path leads into eternal life. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
False teachers, wolves in sheep’s clothing, always try to lead people off of this path. One must beware of them. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
One can always tell a false teacher because they teach evil in the name of good. If they teach violence or punishment, they are false teachers. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
It is not the one who calls the name of God that fulfills the will of God, but the one who performs acts of goodness. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Who keeps these 5 commandments will have a life of certainty which no one will be able to take from him, & who does not keep – will have a life that’ll soon be taken from him & nothing will remain. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
the people of God were always driven out this way. And they will receive their reward from heaven. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
But woe to the rich because they have already received all that they desired and they will not receive anything beyond it. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Don’t think that you’ll find justice in courts. Bringing your love of justice to a human court is the same as throwing your priceless pearl to the pigs: they will trample it & tear you to pieces. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And so, this is the fourth commandment: No matter how they offend you, do not resist evil, do not judge and do not persecute; do not complain, and do not punish. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
You were told: do good to people of your own nation & do harm to others. But I say to you: love not only your countrymen, but also the people of other nations. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Let others hate you, let them attack you and offend you; but you must praise them and do good to them. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Keep these commandments not for the praise of people. If you do it for people, then your reward will also be from people. But if it is not for people, then your reward will be from the heavenly father. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Therefore, if you do good to people, do not trumpet about it in front of people. That is what the deceivers do, so that people praise them. They get what they desire. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
But if you do good to people, then do it so that no one sees you, so that your left hand does not know what your right hand is doing. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Do not store up supplies on earth, but collect your heavenly treasures. Wherever your treasure is, your heart will also be found there. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The eye is light for the body, but the heart is light for the soul. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
if the teachers teach you to do to other people what would be harmful to do to yourself – if, for example, they teach violence, punishment, or war – know that they are false teachers. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Because it is not the one who says ‘Lord, Lord!’ that enters the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of the heavenly father. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The orthodox lawmakers taught a law that had to be obeyed; but Jesus taught that all people are free. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The true life is like this. A master gives his slaves parts of his property to work on. To those who worked he gives even more & from those who didn’t work – he takes away all they had. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The precious share of master’s property is the spirit of life in a person, the son of father the spirit. Who works for the life of spirit receives endless life; who doesn’t – loses what’s been given. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The true life is the life that is common to all, and not the life of a single person. All people should work for the life of others. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Man’s real food is the spirit of the father. People live only by the spirit. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The father, the source of all life, is a spirit. Life is only in the fulfillment of the father’s will, and therefore, in order to fulfill the spirit’s will, one must give one’s flesh up. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Flesh becomes food for the life of the spirit. Only by spending its flesh, the spirit lives. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Jesus told his students: You’re preaching the life of spirit, so renounce all lusts of the flesh – don’t possess anything of your own. Be prepared for persecutions, deprivations & sufferings. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
You’ll be hated by those who love mortal life. They may torment & kill you, but don’t be afraid. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
If you do the father’s will, then you will have the life of the spirit, which no one can take from you. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
people worry about the carnal benefits, they have loaded up a kind of cart that they could never pull away; they have placed a yoke on themselves which was not designed to fit them. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Understand my teaching and follow it, and you will come to know peace and joy in life. I will give you a different yoke and a different cart: spiritual life. – Christ – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Harness yourselves to it, and you will learn serenity and blessedness from me. Be peaceful and meek in heart, and you will find blessedness in your life. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Do not say, ‘There is still time,’ or, ‘I will do the father’s will later.’ As long as there is life, it will always be both possible and necessary to fulfil the father’s will. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Our life is a field that God planted; and our task is to gather his fruit. I am teaching you to gather this life that the father has given to you. – Jesus – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
It’s not my own judgment, but what I’ve understood from father; my judgment is correct because I judge these things not in order to do what I want, but so that all do what the father of all wants. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And my father, the one who taught me, he confirms the truth of my commandments in everybody’s soul. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
But you don’t want to understand & know his voice. And you don’t hold on to the meaning of this voice. You don’t believe that you have a spirit within you, a spirit that has come down from heaven. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
People who do not recognize the life of the spirit within themselves do not exist for the father. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
my teaching is true because it is in you also – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
What is hidden in people’s souls will come out into the open. What you say to two or three will be spread out among thousands. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Most importantly, do not be afraid of those who can kill your body: they cannot do anything to your souls. So do not be afraid of them. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Just be afraid of how your body and soul may be destroyed. If you fall away from fulfilling the will of the father, that is what you should fear. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Not everyone will believe in my teaching. And those who won’t believe will hate it because it deprives them of what they love. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
There will be contention. My teaching, like fire, will ignite the world.
And because of this contention will arise in every home. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
That cannot be forgiven to a person when he calls good evil. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
A tree is valued by the quality of its fruit. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Concerns about family and household cares must not impede the life of the spirit. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Whoever worries about what will be obtained for his mortal life as a result of fulfilling the father’s will, does the same as the plowman who plows and looks backward instead of forward. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Concerns about the joys of mortal life, which seem so important to people, are like a dream. The only real work of life is the proclaiming the father’s will, attending to it and fulfilling it. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
More than anything else, what kills the life of the spirit is: greed, the acquisition of riches. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
People forget that no matter how much wealth and belongings they acquire, they can still die at any moment, and their property is not needed for their life. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Death hangs over each of us. Sickness, murder at the hands of others, and accidents may cut a life short at any second. Death is an unavoidable condition at any second of life. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
If a person is living, then he should look at every hour of his life as a delay, which at somebody’s mercy is given to him. We must remember that and not tell that we do not know that. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
If we won’t be forgetting that, we cannot devote ourselves to mortal life, we cannot rely on it. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Jesus says that his mother and brothers mean nothing to him as mother and brother; only those are close to him who do the will of the common father. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Blessing and life of man depends not on family relationships but on the life of the spirit. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The death of the flesh cannot be frightening for a person who has given himself up to the father’s will because the life of the spirit is not dependent on the death of the flesh. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
To a man who says that before fulfilling Jesus’s teaching he must bury his father, Jesus answers, “Only the dead can worry about burying the dead; the alive always live by fulfilling father’s will.” – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
To follow my teaching, need to calculate the benefits of serving carnal life, your own will, & the benefits of fulfilling father’s will. Only who will clearly appraise that can be my student. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And who will appraise he won’t regret giving up the imaginary benefits and the imaginary life for the sake of receiving the true well-being and the true life. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Life is given to people, and people know it and hear its call, but, by getting constantly carried away by the incessant cares, deprive themselves of it. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
True life is like a feast a rich man’s prepared & invited all. But guests were busy w trade, household, family matters & didn’t come; only the homeless who didn’t have carnal cares came & got happy. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The same way, people, being distracted by the cares of carnal life, deprive themselves of the true life. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Who will not give up completely on all the cares and fears of the carnal life, cannot fulfill the fill of the father, because one cannot serve partly oneself and partly the father. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Otherwise you will get neither this nor the other – you won’t provide your fleshly life and will have lost the life of the spirit. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Carnal life is that entrusted to us foreign, imaginary treasure that we must use up to receive the true treasure. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
You can’t serve false carnal life & the spirit; need to serve one or another. You can’t serve both wealth and God. What is great before people, is disgusting before God. To God, wealth is evil. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And everybody knows that possessions that are not shared with others are the unfulfilled will of the father. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
There is no specific state at which the will of God would be accomplished, but our whole life is the continual fulfillment of the father’s will. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Kindness can’t be measured by anything; you can’t say who’s done more, and who – less. A widow who gives her last mite gives more than a rich man giving away thousands. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Kindness can’t be measured by its usefulness. An exemplar of how one needs to do good is a woman who took pity of Jesus and mindlessly poured three hundred rubles’ worth of oil on his feet. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
What is required is not the usefulness, neither the quantity, but always, every minute, the fulfilling of the father’s will – to love others always, every minute, and give them what you have. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
If we are stingy to give up such trivialities as wealth for the life of the spirit, it will never be given to us. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Do you think if people respect you for your money, you’re actually respectable? No, God doesn’t look at the exterior, he looks at the heart. What people consider great is nothing but vomit before God – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
If any son responds to his father’s commands by saying ‘I will, I will,’ but does nothing that the father has required, then obviously he is not fulfilling the father’s will. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
If you see a person wishing to control not himself but others, you know that he is not free: he has become a slave of his desire to dominate people.’ (Epictetus) – Tolstoy, “The law of love and the law of violence”
Keeping these five commandments will drive out all evil from the world and this will confirm their truthfulness. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The law of Moses teaches the fulfillment of people’s will, therefore it’s full of contradictions; but Christ teaching the fulfillment of father’s will & therefore it entirely leads toward unity. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
There can be no proofs of my teaching. It is light & just as it’s impossible to illuminate light, it’s impossible to prove the truthfulness of truth. Whoever is in the darkness should move toward it. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Christ: I am a man, the son of the father of life. Only he who understands the same about himself and will be fulfilling the will of our common father will stop being a slave but will become free. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Only the error of taking carnal life for true life makes us not free. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
He, who will understand that the truth is in the fact that life is only in the fulfillment of the father’s will, will become free and immortal. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
As a slave doesn’t always stay in his master’s house but a son does, so a person living as a slave of flesh doesn’t always remain in life but a person who fulfills the father’s will in spirit does. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
In order to understand me, you should understand that my father is not like your father, the one that you call God. Your father is a God of the flesh, but my father is the spirit of life. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Your father is a god that is vengeant and a murderer of men, one who executes people; whereas my father gives life. Therefore we are children of different fathers. – Christ – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
That source of life which you call God & which is within people has always been, it is & it will be & death does not exist for it. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
A healed blind man, remaining the same he was before, could only say that he was blind but now he sees. And only this can the person say who did not understand the meaning of life & realized it now. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Who realized this meaning can’t say if it’s correct, or if who revealed is a sinner, or if there is a better goodness to know. He’ll just say, ‘Before I didn’t see the meaning of life & now I see it’ – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And Jesus said: ‘My teaching is the awakening of the life that was sleeping before; who will believe in my teaching, wakes up to the eternal life and lives after the death. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Just as the sheep do not follow after the thief that climbs into the fold but scatter from him, people cannot believe in teachings which inspire violence and punishment. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
My teaching is the door for sheep, and all who will follow me will find the true life. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Just as the only good shepherds are the ones that are their own masters & love the sheep & give their lives for them, the bad ones are hired workers that do not love the sheep, so is with teachers. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The only true teacher is the one who does not care for himself. My teaching is to not care for yourself but to give up your mortal life for the life of the spirit. I teach that, and I do it as well. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Jews asked: ‘Are you the Christ or not?’ And Jesus answered, ‘You should believe not words but actions. And by the actions that I teach, you’ll understand whether or not I teach the truth.’ – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Do as I do, and do not get caught up in figuring out the words. If you fulfill the father’s will, then you’ll all unite with me and the father, because I, the son of man is the same as the father. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
In your own scriptures it is said that God told people, ‘You are gods.’ Every person in spirit is the son of the father. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
If he fulfills the father’s will, then he unites with the father. If I fulfill his will, then the father is within me and I am within the father. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Christ’s teaching is in the fact that each person is a son of the God of life and that God is the life of the spirit residing within a person. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And Jesus said to them, “It is for you there a special time and place to worship God, but for me there is no special time to worship God. I am working for God always and everywhere. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
I show to people that their worship of God is false, and for that, they hate me. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Jesus entered the temple & taught people that their worship of God was false, that God wasn’t to be worshipped in temples and with offerings, but in spirit and in action, by keeping 5 commandments. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
If anyone wants to fulfill the will of that spirit that sent us into life, he will realize that I did not invent this, but that it is teaching from God. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
He who makes things up on his own seeks out that what it seems to him; but he who seeks what is in the mind of the one who sent him is just and there is no falseness in him. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Your law of Moses is not the law of the father, and therefore those who follow it are not keeping the father’s law and are committing evil and lies. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
I teach you only to fulfill the father’s will, and in my teaching there can be no contradictions. But your written law of Moses is completely full of contradictions. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Do not base your judgments on the outer, but base your judgments on the spirit. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Whoever does what I teach will find out whether what I’m telling you is true. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The one for whom mortal life has not become food for the spirit does not seek truth like the thirsty man seeking water, and such a person cannot understand me. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The one who thirsts for truth, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in my teaching will receive true life. He will receive the life of the spirit. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Therefore it is impossible to prove my teaching. It proves everything else. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Whoever follows me will not be in the darkness but will have life. Life and light are one and the same. – Christ – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Even if I am the only one who says this, it’s still the truth because I know where I came from & where I am going. According to my teaching there’s a meaning of life, according to yours there isn’t. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
You do not know where you are from and where you are going. I am guiding you. You will perish if you stay in this delusion and do not follow after me. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
when you glorify the son of man in yourself, then you will understand what I am – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And he who sent me is always with me, and the father will not abandon me because I do his will. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
In order to know truth, one must do good to people. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Whoever does evil to people loves darkness and moves toward it; whoever does good to people moves toward light. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Whoever does good will come to know truth; he will be free from evil and death. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Because everyone who is mistaken in his beliefs becomes a slave to his own delusion. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
A slave doesn’t live in the owner’s house indefinitely, but the owner’s son is always in the household. The truth is in being not a slave, but a son. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
If you err in judgement, you will be slaves and will die. But if you are in the truth, then you will be free sons, and you will live. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And Jesus said to them, “If your father were the same as mine, then you would love me, because I came from the father. After all, I did not give birth to myself.” – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And Jesus revealed to the unseeing man his teaching, that he is a son of God the spirit, and the unseeing man, having understood the teaching, has got to know light. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
No one believes your teaching because it is foreign to people, and people notice your lusts within it. For people, your teaching is the same as the appearance of a stranger who does not enter through the gate but climbs over the fence for the sheep. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
No one believes your teaching cause it’s foreign to people & they notice your lusts in it. Your teaching is as to sheep the look of a stranger who doesn’t enter through gate but climbs over fence. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
My teaching is the only true, like the only gate for the sheep. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
All your teachings of the law of Moses, all is a lie, just like thieves and outlaws for the sheep. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
There are false teachers, those that have no stake in the lives of people, and there are true ones, those that give their souls for the lives of the people. I am such a teacher. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
It’s said in your scripture that God himself told even the evil rulers, ‘You are gods.’ Then why do you consider it sacrilege to call as son of God that what God lovingly sent into the world? – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And Jesus said, “My teaching is an awakening of life. Whoever believes in my teaching, although he may die in the flesh, will remain living and everyone who lives and believes in me will not die.” – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
For the kingdom of heaven there is no such thing as more or less: all are equal. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Those who seek rewards for goodness are like workers who would demand more pay for themselves than for others paid by their master only because they consider themselves to be more worthy than others. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Rewards or punishments, debasements or exaltations, do not exist for someone who understands the teaching. No one can be higher or more important than someone else. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Everyone can fulfill the fathers’ will, but in doing so, not one person will make himself more senior or important or better than another. Only kings and those who serve them can think this way. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
According to Christ teaching, there can be no elders, because he who wants to be better should become the slave of all. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
This is the essence of the teaching: man is given life not to be served, but to give his whole life in service of other people. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And he who will not follow that and will not raise his spirit, he will fall lower than where he was. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
In order to not think of rewards and of exalting yourself, you need to understand what the meaning of life is. The meaning of life is in the fulfillment of the will of the father. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The will of the father is that what he has given away should return to him. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Like a shepherd leaving the flock to search for a missing sheep, or like a woman turning all upside down to find a lost penny, the father does to us by drawing toward himself what was his. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The true life always shows itself in that what was lost returns to its own, that what was sleeping awakens. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Who have true life & returned to their source can’t humanly reckon who is better & who is worse; as participants of the father’s life, they can only rejoice at returning what was lost to the father. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
If a son, having fallen from the path & wandered from the father, would repent & return to the father, then can the other sons be envious of the father’s joy & not to rejoice at the brother’s return? – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
To believe the teaching, to change your life and fulfill the teaching, you do need neither external evidences nor the promises of rewards, but need a clear understanding of what true life is. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
If people think they’re sovereign owners of life, that life’s given to them for fleshly pleasures, then any sacrifice will seem to them worthy of reward & without reward they won’t do anything. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Just like leaseholders who forgot that the garden was given to them so that they give fruits to the landlord, once were reminded to make payment, drove the payment collector away and killed him. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
That is how people who consider themselves the owners of life see things and do not understand that life is a gift of higher intelligence that requires the fulfillment of its will. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
By doing good a person does only that what he is obliged to do, which he may not skip doing. Only by understanding his life that way can a man have enough belief to do true acts of goodness. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
In this understanding of life is the kingdom of heaven that I preach. This kingdom of heaven is invisible, not the one that appears somewhere so you can point to it. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The kingdom of heaven is in the awareness of people. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The whole world lived & lives as before: they eat, drink, trade, marry, die, and right alongside this, within people’s souls, the kingdom of heaven lives. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The kingdom of heaven is the understanding of life, like a tree in the spring, growing up out of itself. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The true life of fulfilling the father’s will is not the life that has passed or the life that will be, but life right now. And therefore, you must never let your life spirit weaken. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
If you miss this life, not having fulfilled father’s will, you won’t return it, like a night guard fails his job if falls asleep even for a minute, as at this minute a thief may come. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And therefore a person must bring all his strength to the present hour, because only in that hour can he fulfill the father’s will. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The will of the father is life and well-being of all people, and therefore the fulfillment of the will is the good for all people. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Only those live who do good. Doing good for people is the life that connects with the mutual father. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Jesus said, “Whoever is not ready for all suffering and deprivation in the flesh has not understood me.” – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
To “We want to be equal with you” Jesus answered, “You don’t know what you’re asking. You can live just as I do, purify yourself from mortal life, but to make you the same as me – is not in my power. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
There are no rewards in the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven itself is a goal and a reward. In the kingdom all are equal: there are no first, there are no last. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
A master hired workers for one grivna a day. At midday he hired more & so in the evening. Then he paid each a grivna. But the first ones complained that others worked less but got the same pay. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And the master said, ‘What are you griping for, have I offended you somehow? I am paying you what I hired you for. Is it that you saw how kind I am, and became jealous?’ – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
In the kingdom of heaven there are no first and there are no last—it is the same for all. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Among you there can be no seniors and no juniors. Among you, in order to be greater than another, you must become a servant to all. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
It is the will of the father concerning the human son, that he lives not to be served, but himself to serve all others and to give away his mortal life like a ransom for the life of the spirit. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
A master planted a garden & sent workers in it to gather fruit. The master is the father, the garden is the world, the workers are people. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The father sent his son, the human son, into the world so that people would give the father back the understanding of life that he placed inside them. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Time has come and the master sent one of his workers to collect the payment. The father had not ceased to tell the people that they were obligated to fulfill his will. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Workers chased off the master’s messenger empty-handed. People chased off the reminder of the father’s will & continue to live each for himself, imagining that they live for the joys of mortal life. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Then the master sent his son to remind workers about their debt. But the workers had lost their mind & killed the master’s son, who came to remind them that the garden was not theirs. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
People don’t like to be reminded that there is a spirit that lives within them & that it is eternal, but they are not eternal; so they killed, as much as they could, the consciousness of that spirit. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
People kill the consciousness of the spirit in them just like they wrapped the grivna they had been given in a handkerchief and buried it in the ground. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
What could the master do? Nothing but drive out those workers and send in others. What can the father do? Keep planting until fruit is produced. And this very thing is what he does. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
People didn’t understand & still don’t understand that this consciousness of the spirit, which is within them & which they suppress because it disturbs them, is actually the essence of their lives. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
And those who do not take the spirit as the basis for their lives, will not enter into the kingdom of heaven and will not receive life. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
In order to have faith and receive life, one must understand one’s position, and not wait for a reward. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Faith does not consist of believing in something amazing, faith is to understand your own position and understand in what the salvation is. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
If you understand your own position, then you won’t wait for any rewards, but will believe in what has been entrusted to you. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
You should fulfill the will of the father & consider that we are unfit workers, that we have only done what we had to, & do not expect a reward but be content that you receive what is appropriate. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
You need to worry not about believing that there’ll be a reward, it can’t be otherwise, but care that you don’t destroy this life & don’t forget that it’s given to us so that we bring its fruits. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Therefore always be prepared, like servants waiting for the master, to immediately, as soon as he arrives, open the gate for him. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Always, in every minute of the present you must live the life of the spirit, not thinking about the past or the future and not saying to yourself, ‘Only then or there will I do this or that.’ – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
If the owner knew that a thief was coming, then he would not sleep. Likewise, you must never sleep. And so, do not despair, but always live by the spirit in the present. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Look after yourself so that you do not become bitter and do not grow dim with drunkenness, gluttony, or worries, so that you do not miss the time of salvation. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The time of salvation, like a net, is cast over all people; it is always present. And therefore, above all else, live the life of the human son. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
In order for lamps to glow at the right time, they needed to be glowing constantly. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Life exists only for the purpose of elevating the human son, and the human son is always present. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
The human son, like the united spirit, will appear for each person according to how he served him. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
According to how people serve the human son, they’ll be divided into two groups, just as the sheep and goats are in the flocks. Some will remain living and others will perish. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
Those who served the human son will receive what has belonged to them from the beginning of the world, the life that they have preserved. They preserved this life by serving the human son. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
They lived by the human son, they sensed that he was one in all people and therefore they loved him. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”
But those who didn’t live by the human son didn’t serve him, didn’t understand that he was one in all people & therefore have not united with him & they have lost the life in him, & perished. – Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief”

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