A Calendar of Wisdom

"One can deny Christ in various ways: one can blaspheme rudely, or mock his greatness. But such ways are not dangerous. ... But there is another way to deny Christ: this is when you call Him your master and you claim to follow His commandments, but you suppress any free thought by quoting his words, and disguise all stupidities, all mistakes, and all sins of the people in his name. This second way is the truly dangerous one."

"We live in this world like a child who enters a room where a clever person is speaking. The child did not hear the beginning of the speech, and he leaves before the end; and there are certain things which he hears but does not understand."

"What is important is not the quantity of your knowledge, but its quality. You can know many things without knowing that which is most important."

"It is a mistake to think that there are times when you can safely address a person without love."

"In the same way as you cannot work with bees without being cautious, you cannot work with people without being mindful of their humanity."

"The worst mistake which was ever made in this world was the separation of political science from ethics."

"Give thanks to God, who made necessary things simple, and complicated things unnecessary."

"Most of our spending is done to forward our efforts to look like others."

"Every great thing is done in a quiet, humble, simple way— ... you cannot do such things when there are thunder and lightning around you. Great and true things are always simple and humble."

"A bad mood is often the reason for blaming others; but very often blaming others causes bad feelings in us: the more we blame others, the worse we feel."

"It seems that it is impossible to live without discovering the purpose of your life. And the first thing which a person should do is to understand the meaning of life. But the majority of people who consider themselves to be educated are proud that they have reached such great height that they cease to care about the meaning of existence."

"If you do not know your place in the world and the meaning of your life, you should know there is something to blame; and it is not the social system, or your intellect, but the way in which you have directed your intellect."

"He who sees his life as a process of spiritual perfection does not fear external events."

"Clever people study in order to know more. Undeserving people study in order to be more known."

"Every person has only one purpose: to find perfection in goodness. Therefore, only that knowledge is necessary which leads to this."

"A person who tries to find good outside himself, wither in this life or in the one to come, is making a mistake."

"In the long run, there is only one subject worthy of study, and this is the different forms of transformation of the spirit. All other subjects and studies can be brought to these basic things."

"I can send my thoughts to many different people at once; they will cross the seas and they will go to different lands if there is God’s will, and the power of love and wisdom. My thoughts by themselves are a spiritual power; they can exist at the same time in thousands of places. My body, however, can only exist at one place at one time."

"A wise man sets requirements only for himself; an unwise man makes requirements for others."

"Only the truth which was acquired by your own thinking, through the efforts of your intellect, becomes a member of your own body, and only this truth really belongs to us."

"Fear nobody and nothing. That which is the most precious matter in you can be damaged by no one and by nothing."

"The quality of a really virtuous person is to be unknown to people, or misunderstood by people, but not to be disappointed by this."

"It only seems that people are busy with trade, with making agreements, negotiations and wars, science and the arts. There is in fact only one thing which people do; this is to search for the understanding of the moral law by which they live. And this understanding is not only the most important but the only real concern for all humankind."

"Your understanding of your inner self holds the meaning of your life."

"To be a person with high morals is to be a person with a liberated soul."

"The growth of your desires is not the way to perfection, as many people think. To the contrary, the more a person limits himself, the better he can understand his human dignity, and the more free, the more brave he becomes."

"Very often, all the activity of the human mind is directed not in revealing the truth, but in hiding the truth."

"The court jury has, as it’s raison d’être, the task of preserving society as it exists now, and therefore, it persecutes and executes those who stand higher than the general level of society."

"People strive in this world, not for those things which are truly good, but for the possession of many things which they call their property."

"When I translated thoughts by German, French, or Italian thinkers, I did not strictly follow the original, usually making it shorter and easier to understand, and omitting some words. ... In some cases I even express the thought entirely in my own words. I did this because the purpose of my book is not to give exact, word-for-word translations of thoughts created by other authors, but to use the great and fruitful intellectual heritage created by different writers to present for a wide reading audience an easily accessible, everyday circle of reading which will arouse their best thought and feelings."