Below are quotes that resonate, from Leo Tolstoy’s ‘A Calendar Of Wisdom’.
[1]
How strange! People will fight against an evil which comes from outside them, from other people – something which is not in their power to eliminate – but they do not fight against the evil that is inside them, although that is always in their power to do. – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
[2]
There is nothing more harmful for oneself and for other people than to indulge in activity which is exclusively aimed at the improvement of one’s animal existence, whereas there is nothing more beneficial for oneself and for others than activity that is aimed at the improvement of one’s spiritual life. – Tolstoy
[3]
Whenever two people quarrel, it is always the case that both of them are in the wrong. And that is why a quarrel can only end when one of them acknowledges that they are in the wrong. – Tolstoy
[4]
The substantial evil that is war, however large, is insignificant when compared with the evil perversion of the understanding of good and evil which war brings into the hearts of simple, unsophisticated working people. – Tolstoy
[5]
War is what happens when the basest and most corrupt people attain power. – Tolstoy
[6]
The higher someone climbs in his opinion of himself, the more hopeless is his position; the further he climbs down, the more solid his position. – Tolstoy
[7]
In order to be strong you need to be like water. If there is no barrier water flows; if there is a dam it stops; if it bursts through the dam it starts flowing again; in a square vessel it takes on the shape of a square; in a round vessel it becomes round. It is precisely because it is so adpatable that water is more essential and stronger than anything else. – Lao-tzu
[8]
Just as water never remains in high place but always flows downhill, so virtue is never retained in those people who puff themselves up, but is retained only in the meek and humble. – After the Talmud
[9]
The wise man regrets his inability to do the good things he would like to do, but does not regret the fact that people don’t know him, or that they criticise him falsely. – Chinese wisdom
[10]
Try to discern what your strengths are. Once you have succeeded in doing this, be wary of exaggerating them, not of making light of them. – Tolstoy