#21: Wisdom Quotes
Below are quotes that resonate, from Leo Tolstoy’s ‘A Calendar Of Wisdom’.
[1]
If someone insults you then don’t attribute any significance to it, but treat it as something that is not worthy of your attention.
But if you have let slip an offensive remark about someone else, don’t start negotiating with your conscience, saying: ‘I haven’t said anything much, just something petty; not worth worrying about.’
No, don’t do that; regard what you’ve said as something of the utmost importance, and don’t rest until you have succeeded in ensuring, through your own entreaties or the mediation of friends, that the person you have offended is totally reconciled. – The Talmud
[2]
He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself, for every man hath need to be forgiven. – Herbert, Autobiography
[3]
A deep river does not get upset if someone throws a stone in it. A religious person who reacts angrily when someone insults him is not a river but a puddle. If you have been hurt by something someone has said, be understanding, so that, in forgiving others, you yourself can earn forgiveness. Let us not forget that we all return to the earth, and let us be humble. – Saadi, Gulistan
[4]
Wealth is like manure: it stinks when it is heaped up, but when it is scattered about the earth, it fertilizes it. – Tolstoy
[5]
Only reason can liberate people. The more irrational someone’s life is, the less free it becomes. – Tolstoy
[6]
You ask how you can achieve freedom. For this to happen you need to learn to be able to distinguish between what is good and what is evil, and you have to do this for yourself and not simply repeat what everybody says. – Seneca, MLL
[7]
You can only say that someone is free when he lives the life that he chooses to live. A rational person always lives the life he chooses to because he only wants that which he knows he is able to obtain. And therefore only the rational person is free…
The sage Diogenes said: ‘Only those who are ready to die are truly free.’
He wrote to the Persian emperor: ‘You cannot turn truly free people into slaves, any than you can enslave a fish. Even if you put them into captivity, they will not become your slaves. And if they die in captivity under you, what would you have gained by putting them there?’
So there you have it: the words of a free man. Such a man knows that it means to be truly free. – Epictetus, Discourses
[8]
Freedom is achieved not by searching for it, but by searching for the truth. Freedom should not be an aim, but a consequence. – Tolstoy
[9]
Once, when Emerson was asserting his immortality, he was asked: ‘Well, what happens when the world comes to an end?’ He replied: ‘I have no need of the world in order not to die.’ – Tolstoy
[10]
It seems that it is the shameless, the boastful, the sly, the abusive, the insolent and the idle who have it easy in this life; and that it is the meek, sensible, and selfless, those who are constantly looking for virtue, who find things difficult. But this only seems to be the case. The first kind of people are always worried, the second always at peace with themselves. – Buddhist wisdom