Leo Tolstoy
Translated by
Dmitry Fadeyev
The problem of defining the meaning of life is either very difficult and unsolvable—which it is when a human being asks God why he was sent into the world—or it is very simple, when a human being asks himself what he should do.
In order for it to not be a most cruel joke, human life, which may be cut short at any second, must have a meaning that does not depend on whether it is long or brief.
Travelers make a mess, wreck an inn, and then lay the blame on the innkeeper who let them have it at their full disposal. In the same way people blame God for the evils of this world.
It is as little the part of a wise man to reflect much on the nature of beings above him, as of beings beneath him. It is immodest to suppose that he can conceive the one, and degrading to suppose that he should be busied with the other. To recognize his everlasting inferiority, and his everlasting greatness; to know himself, and his place; to be content to submit to God without understanding Him; and to rule the lower creation with sympathy and kindness, yet neither sharing the passion of the wild beast, nor imitating the science of the Insect—this you will find is to be modest towards God, gentle to His creatures, and wise for himself.
— John Ruskin
The only one way to live without understanding the meaning of your life is to live in constant bodily intoxication produced by tobacco, alcohol, morphine, or the constant sensual intoxication of entertainment and all kinds of amusements and diversions.
This world is not a joke, not merely a vale of trials and a passage into a better, eternal world, it is one of the eternal worlds, a world that is beautiful, joyful, and which we not only can but must make more beautiful and more joyful for those living with us and for all those who will live in it after us.
It is just that the sole goal of our life is the self-perfection of our soul if only because any other goal would be meaningless in the face of death.
Do not think that bewilderment before the meaning of human life and inability to comprehend it is anything exalted or tragic. A person’s bewilderment before the meaning of life is akin to the bewilderment of a man who finds himself among a group of people engaged in the reading of a good book. The bewilderment of this man, who was not listening or could not understand what was being read, and who is now fidgeting among an engaged audience, is not anything exalted and tragic, but rather something amusing, silly and pitiful.