April 15

We can never know the consequences of our actions, because in an infinite world, the consequences of our actions appear infinite to us.

1

Our actions are ours, their consequences belong to the heavens.

— Francis of Assisi

2

You are a day laborer; do your day’s work and receive a day’s pay.

— The Talmud

3

People’s attempts to perceive the mystery of God’s existence are futile; their only task is to obey his law.

— The Talmud

4

Do your duty, and leave the consequences to the One who assigned it to you.

— The Talmud

5

Others will judge the results of your actions; concern yourself only with making sure that your heart is pure and true in the present moment.

— After John Ruskin

6

The holy man cares about the internal, not the external; he neglects the external and chooses the internal.

— Laozi

7

One of the appointed conditions of the labour of men consists in the fact that the farther off we place our aim, and the less we desire to be ourselves the witnesses of what we have labored for, the more wide and rich will be the measure of our success.

— John Ruskin

8

The most important and necessary activities a human being can engage in, both for himself and for others, are the ones the fruits of which he will never see.

9

Every human action gains in honor, in grace, in all true magnificence, by its regard to things that are to come.

— John Ruskin

10

A deed performed without worrying about its outcomes, with the sole view of fulfilling the will of God, is the best deed that a person can do.

11

Like gunpowder in a mine, vast deposits of evil and falsehood lie concealed in the world. It seems to us that we are not violating the general peace and harmony of the human commune when we are forced to add new deposits of the same evil and falsehood into the mine; but, if what we bring in the form a deposit is not evil and falsehood, but goodness and truth, then, like sparks, goodness and truth detonate the gunpowder of evil and falsehood, and evil and falsehood are discovered and made obvious.

For people to refrain from doing good and to continue to take part in and support the reigning falsehood only to avoid detonating the gunpowder in the mine is to misunderstand the meaning of the gunpowder’s detonation, which merely discharges the accumulated evil, and thus does not increase but decrease its amount.

Christ, who had himself admitted that his teaching had not brought peace but the sword and division on earth, was not daunted by the evil that this brought to the surface, but was happy at the clear clash between good and evil and light and darkness, which must inevitably result in a clear triumph of light and goodness.

— Fyodor Strakhov

12

The life of Christ is especially important as an example of the impossibility of a human being’s seeing the fruits of his labor. And the less one can see the fruits, the more important the task. Moses was able to reach the promised land with his people, but Christ could not see the fruits of his teaching, even if he had lived until now. And yet we want to receive human rewards for doing God’s work.

Know that if you can see the full consequences of your activity, this activity is insignificant.