#35: Wisdom Quotes
Below are quotes that resonate, from Leo Tolstoy’s ‘A Calendar Of Wisdom’.
[1]
Through compassion, humility and self-denial, you will disarm any possible enemy. No fire can continue to burn if there is no wood. – Sinhalese Buddhist saying
[2]
If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right… Men will believe what they see. – Thoreau, ‘Journal’
[3]
Do nothing that is against your conscience, either when you are with other people or when you are alone. – Tolstoy
[4]
Take nothing on trust; give full rein to your reason. – Pythagoras
[5]
People are deluded not because they don’t know anything, but because they consider themselves to be knowledgeable. – Rousseau, Emile
[6]
Every delusion is poison, and therefore there cannot be such a thing as a harmless delusion – even less so a beautiful or an unassailable delusion… Only the truth is unassailable. Only the truth is firm, and only the truth can be relied on. It alone is an indestructible pearl, which alone can provide true consolation. To free people from lies means to give them something, rather than take anything away from them. It is the truth to know that a lie is a lie. Delusion is always pernicious; sooner or later it will rebound on the person who holds fast to it. – Schopenhauer, WWR
[7]
One of the worst characteristics of people is to love and respect themselves, and to wish blessings upon themselves. But woe to them if they do this:
they want to be great, but they can see that they are small;
they want to be happy, but they can see they there are unhappy;
they want to be loved and respected by others, but they can see that their imperfections repel others and invite derision.
And when they see that none of their wishes are realised, they fall to thinking the most pernicious thoughts: they begin to hate the truth which is defying them and running counter to their wishes; they want to destroy this truth, but since this is impossible, they try in their own hearts and in the minds of others to distort and pervert the truth whenever they can; and in such a way they hope to be able to hide their imperfections from others as well as from themselves. – Pascal, Thoughts
[8]
One of the most common temptations leading to the greatest disasters is the temptation to say ‘that’s how things are.’ – Tolstoy
[9]
If your hand is quite free of cuts or woulds, you can touch snake poison, which cannot harm such a hand. Only those people who have not committed evil cannot be harmed by it. – Buddhist wisdom
[10]
Kindness conquers everything and can itself never be vanquished. – Tolstoy