A Calendar of Wisdom

"If you suffer misfortunes in your life, look for their cause, not in your actions, but in the thoughts which inspired them, and try to improve these thoughts."

"You should not be upset by the sight of wisdom being criticized. Wisdom would not be wisdom if it did not reveal the stupidity of a bad life, and people would not be people if they endured this revelation without criticism."

"One hour of honest, serious thinking is more precious than weeks spent in empty talk."

"Mysterious language is not a sign of wisdom. The wiser a person is, the simpler the language he uses to express his thoughts."

"Justice is achieved not in striving for justice, but with love."

"In order to be just, you should make a self-sacrifice, be unjust to yourself."

"A person who knows all sciences but does not know himself is a poor and ignorant person."

"When you feel the desire for power, you should stay in solitude for some time."

"The way to fame goes thorough the palaces, the way to happiness does through the markets, the way to virtue goes through the deserts."

"As soon as the higher ideal is put before us, all false ideals will fade away as the stars fade away when they meet the sun."

"The creation and sale of most art today is pure prostitution."

"Real art can only rarely be created even by a real artist; like a child in a mother’s womb, it is the ripened fruit of his prior life. False art, though, can be ceaseless produced by craftsmen, according to the dictates of a market."

"True art comes out of an artist’s urgent need to express the feelings that have formed inside him, just as a mother needs to give birth to her baby. False art answers only to profit."

"You [may] not sell your talent, your genius; as soon as you do, you are a prostitute. You [may] sell your work, but not your soul."

"Until they throw the money changers out of the temple of art, it will never be a real temple."

"Soldiers who stand idle in a shelter during a battle as reinforcements will try to involve themselves in almost any activity in order to distract themselves from the impending danger. It seems to me that people who want to save themselves from life behave like these soldiers: some distract themselves with vanity, some with cards, politics, laws, women, gambling, horses, hunting, wine, or state affairs."

"The closer people are to the truth, the more tolerant they are of the mistakes of others."

"Goodness lies in constantly striving for perfection."

"The further you progress, the higher the ideal of perfection toward which you strive rises."

"The strongest proof that in the name of “science” we pursue unworthy and sometimes even harmful things is the existence of a science of punishment."

"I hope the readers of this book may experience the same benevolent and elevating feeling which I have experienced when I was working on its creation, and which I experience again and again, when I reread it every day, working on the enlargement and improvement of the previous edition."

"The difference between real material poison and intellectual poison is that most material poison is disgusting to the taste, but intellectual poison, which takes the form of cheap newspapers or bad books, can unfortunately sometimes be attractive."

"Those who know the rules of true wisdom are baser than those who love them. Those who love them are baser than those who follow them."

"Knowledge is real knowledge only when it is acquired by the efforts of your intellect, not by memory."

"Only when we forget what we are taught do we start to have real knowledge."

"A constant flow of thoughts expressed by other people can stop and deaden your own thought and your own initiative. ... That is why constant learning softens your brain. ... Stopping the creation of your own thoughts to give room for the thoughts from books reminds me of Shakespeare's remark about his contemporaries who sold their land in order to see other countries."

"Read less, study less, but think more."

"Learn from your teachers and from the books you read only those things which you really need and really want to know."

"Perfection is impossible without humility. Why should I strive for perfection, if I am already good enough?"

"The most important feature of Christ's character was ... his confidence in the greatness of the human soul."

"We would think a man insane who, instead of covering his house with a roof and putting windows in his window frames, goes out in stormy weather, and scolds the wind, the rain, and the clouds. But we all do the same when we scold and blame the evil in other people instead of fighting the evil which exists in us. It is possible to get rid of the evil inside of us, as it is possible to make a roof and windows for our house. This is possible. But it is not possible for us to destroy evil in this world, just as we cannot order the weather to change and the clouds to disappear. If, instead of teaching others, we would educate and improve ourselves, then there would be less evil in this world, and all people would live better lives."

"It seems to us that the most important work in the world is the work which we can see: building a house, plowing the land, feeding cattle, gathering fruits; and that the work which is invisible, the work done by our soul, is not important. But our invisible work at the improvement of our soul is the most important work in the world, and all other visible kinds of work are useful only when we do this major work."

"When people wanted to kill a bear in the ancient times, they hung a heavy log over a bowl of honey. The bear would push the log away in order to eat the honey. The log would swing back and hit the bear. The bear would become irritated and push the log even harder, and it would hit him harder in return. The would continue until the log killed the bear. People behave in the same way when they return evil of the evil they receive."

"An unbeliever says: “What is spirit? What I ate and what I enjoyed, this is what I possess, this is material and real!” And such a person, without thinking much, takes care only of the outer things, arranging in order only his own mean, dirty affairs; he becomes a liar, a snob, a slave, and does not feel any higher needs: freedom, truth, and love."

"A man is free only when he lives in truth, and truth can be perceived only by the intellect."

"If you throw some nuts and cookies on a road, you will eventually see children come, pick them up, and start to argue and fight for them. Adults would not fight for such things. And even children would not pick up the nuts’ empty shells. For a wise man, the wealth, the glory and the rewards of this world are like sweets or empty shells on a road. Let the children pick them up and fight for them. Let them kiss the hands of the rich men, the rulers, and their servants. For the wise one, all these are but empty shells."

"Perhaps it is even more important to know what one should not think about than what one should think about."

"In order to change the nature of things, either within yourself or in others, one should change, not the events, but those thoughts which created whose events."

"If a man does not work at necessary and good things, then he will work at unnecessary and stupid things."

"Real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know. Among the most necessary knowledge is the knowledge of how to live well. ... At present, people study useless sciences, but forget to study this, the most important knowledge."

"A person who knows little likes to talk, and one who knows much mostly keeps silent. This is because a person who knows little thinks that everything he knows is important, and wants to tell everyone. A person who knows much also knows that there is much more he doesn’t know. That’s why he speaks only when it is necessary to speak, and when he is not asked questions, he keeps his silence."

"If you want to correct your own failings, you do not have the time to waste in blaming other people."

"When you are in company, do not forget what you have found out when you were thinking in solitude; and when you are meditating in solitude, think about what you found out by communicating with other people."

"Science can be divided into an infinite number of disciplines, and the amount of knowledge that can be pursued in each discipline is limitless. The most critical piece of knowledge, then, is the knowledge of what is essential to learn and what isn’t."

"Spiritual effort and the joy that comes from understanding life go hand in hand like physical exertion and rest. Without physical exertion, there is no joy in rest; without spiritual effort, there can be no joyful understanding of life."

"Life could be limitless joy, if we would only take it for what it is, in the way it is given to us."

"A truly wise man is always joyful."

"When joy disappears, look for your mistake."

"People involve themselves in countless activities which they consider to be important, but they forget about one activity which is more important and necessary than any other, and which includes all other things: the improvement of their soul."

"When we treat our neighbors as they deserve to be treated, we make them even worse; when we treat them as if they were who we wish they were, we improve them."