Society can be improved only by self-sacrifice. Heaven and earth are eternal. They are eternal because they do not exist for themselves. In the same way, a truly holy person does not live for himself, and therefore he can become eternal, and can achieve anything. —LAO-TZU

The Way of Life in 1910, the last year of his life. He wished to make the book easily comprehensible for even the simplest and least educated people—peasants and children. Most probably, Tolstoy compared A Calendar of Wisdom to War and Peace when he wrote that “To create a book for the masses, for millions of people … is incomparably more important

You should love only one thing in yourself, that which is the same in all of us.

The purpose of a human life is to bring the irrational beginning of our life to a rational beginning. In order to succeed in this, two things are important: (1) to see all irrational, unwise things in life and direct your attention to them and study them; (2) to understand the possibility of a rational, wise life. The major purpose of all teachers

A man consists of body and soul. Thus often, especially in his youth, he is interested only in his body, but nevertheless, the most essential part of every man is not his body, but his soul. It is your soul that you must take care of, not your body. You must learn this over time, and remember that your real life is in your spirit, that is, in your

Your actions should be determined not by the desire of the people around you, but by the needs of all mankind.

There are people who take responsibility for making decisions for others and determining their relationship to God and to the world; and there are people, the overwhelming majority of them, who give this authority to the others, and blindly believe in everything they are told. Both groups of people commit an equal crime.

You should love only one thing in yourself, that which is the same in all of us.

It’s important to strive to do good, and even more important to strive to abstain from evil.