Leo Tolstoy
Circle of Reading
Translated by Dmitry Fadeyev

August 20

Everyone who is doing something truly important is always simple because they have no time to come up with anything superfluous.

1

Satisfaction reduces every need but grows every vice.

— Amiel

2

Every new desire is a beginning of a new need, a germ of a new sorrow.

— Voltaire

3

The one who is a slave to his passions is the lowest of the slaves.

— The Talmud

4

The more you surround yourself with wants, the more you are subjected to slavery, because the more needs you have, the more you limit your freedom. Complete freedom consists in needing absolutely nothing, and the next best thing is to have few needs.

— John Chrysostom

5

Pleasure and luxury is what you call happiness, but I think that to want nothing is the bliss of gods, and therefore to limit your needs is to move closer to this highest happiness.

— Socrates

6

We should not live for our body, but we have to reckon with it in a way. Epicurus says: “If you start living in accordance with nature, then you will never be poor; if you start living in accordance with generally accepted customs, then you will never be rich. The demands of nature are few, the demands of prevailing customs are excessive.”

— Seneca

7

Limit yourself to plants if you want to eat well and healthy.

— John Chrysostom


The great merit of moderation lies in the fact that only by leading moderate lives could everyone live without need and envy.