Leo Tolstoy
Circle of Reading
Translated by Dmitry Fadeyev

July 8

Everyone knows the feeling that resolves all the contradictions of human life and does the most good to a human being. This feeling is love.

1

How to overcome a bad mood? Firstly, with humility: when you know your weakness, why should you get irritated when others point it out? It is not polite of them, but they are right. Secondly, with reasoning: you will ultimately remain what you were, and if you had too much respect for yourself, then the only thing you have to do is change your opinion of yourself; the impoliteness of our neighbor leaves us as we were. But, most important, with forgiveness: there is only one means of not hating those who harm and insult you, and that is to do them good, to conquer your anger with kindness; your victory over your feelings will not change them, but you will master yourself.

— Amiel

2

What are eyes without goodness worth? Goodness is true wealth. Property can be possessed by both, the good and the evil. Stick to the true path, be wise and be good; even if you study all the rules of every religious teaching, only goodness can give you the good. The one with goodness in his soul will never enter the sphere of darkness and sorrow. No evil will befall the one who is good and who serves all beings.

— The Kural

3

Love destroys death and turns it into an empty phantom; it also transforms a meaningless life into something meaningful and turns misfortune into happiness.

4

Nothing but the balsam of silent and preventive grace allows us to pull out a poisoned sting from a wound. Why do you let yourself get angry at human malice, ingratitude, envy, even guile? There will never be an end to accusations, complaints and punishments. The simplest thing to do is to erase everything. Resentments, rebukes and outbursts disturb the soul. You need a way to cure yourself from these evils. Fire cleanses everything in the material world; love—in the spiritual.

— Amiel

5

Unless you are deliberately kind to every creature, you will often be cruel to many.

— John Ruskin

6

Love takes a human being out of himself, out of his person, and therefore, if a person if suffering, love delivers him of suffering.

7

The less love a person has, the more he is subject to the pain of suffering; the more love he has, the less painful suffering is; a completely rational life, in which all its activities are manifested only in love, eliminates the possibility of any suffering. The pain of suffering is only the pain that people experience in their attempts to break the chains of love, which unites a human being’s life with the life of the world.


When life is hard, when you are afraid of people and of yourself, when you are confused in your reasonings and in your actions, say to yourself: “I will love those whom life brings me,” and try to do this, and you will see how everything will pass, become easier and untangle, and you will neither want nor fear anything.