Below are quotes that resonate, from Leo Tolstoy’s ‘A Calendar Of Wisdom’.
[1]
“People should help other people during life”, as the saying goes. Without such help people will be unable to live. Such help has to be mutual, but our life is so constituted that some people help, whereas others only take advantage of such help. – Tolstoy
[2]
[S]o as to not be a thief, you should try to take from other people as little as possible and to give them as much as possible in return. – Tolstoy
[3]
In acquiring any object and making use of it, bear in mind that it is the product of someone else’s work and that if you waste, damage or destroy it, you are wasting and destroying someone else’s life. – Tolstoy
[4]
We all use someone else as a mirror in which we can clearly discern our own faults, shortcomings, and everything else that may be wrong about us. But when we look into this mirror, we act for the most part like a dog who looks into a mirror supposing that it is reflecting another dog rather than it itself. – Schopenhauer, PaP
[5]
Whenever you see a wise man, consider whether you might become like him. Whenever you see a dissolute man, consider whether you might possess the same vices. – Chinese saying
[6]
A coachman does not throw down the reins because he cannot immediately stop his horses, but he carries on tugging at them until the horses stop. So it is with you: you may not have been able to restrain yourself on one occasion, but just carry on and you will certainly gain the upper hand. – Tolstoy
[7]
The person who has won a victory over himself is a victor of far greater stature than the person who has defeated a thousand people in battle a thousand times. It is better to win a victory over oneself than over everybody else.
The person who has defeated others in battle may be defeated in other battles, but the person who has won a victory over himself and is in control of himself, will always remain a victor. – Buddhist saying
[8]
If you have quarelled with someone and he is angry with you and continues to disagree with you even when you were in the right, you were probably at fault rather than him, because you did not treat him kindly. – Tolstoy
[9]
Nothing so softens one’s heart as the awareness that one is in the wrong, and nothing hardens it as much as the desire to be always right. – After The Talmud
[10]
The good man is someone who remembers his faults and ignores his good deeds; a bad man, on the contrary, is someone who remembers his good deeds and ignores his faults. – The Talmud