L Tolstoy quotes about happiness. Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy - quotes. Aphorisms, quotes, statements by Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich

The most vivid sayings and quotes of Leo Tolstoy, which will open it to you from a new side

Vladimir Nabokov used an interesting technique in his lectures - he closed all the curtains in the room, creating complete darkness. When the phrase “In the sky of Russian literature, this is Gogol” sounded in the hall, a lamp flashed at the end of the room. “This is Chekhov,” a star lit up on the ceiling. "This is Dostoevsky," Nabokov switched on the switch. "And this is Tolstoy!" - Nabokov opened the curtains, and the room was flooded with bright sunlight.

Leo Tolstoy refused the Nobel Prize, hated money and sided with the peasants. He was an ardent opponent of the authorities and was the first to renounce copyright, and for the rejection of religious authorities was excommunicated.

We have collected 25 of the most striking quotes by Leo Tolstoy:

Everyone wants to change humanity, but no one thinks about how to change themselves.

The strength of the government rests on the ignorance of the people, and it knows this and therefore will always fight against enlightenment. It's time for us to understand this.

Everything comes to the one who knows how to wait.

All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Let everyone sweep before his door. If everyone does this, the whole street will be clean.

We only suffer from the past and spoil our future because we are not so busy with the present. The past was, there is no future, there is only one present.

It always seems that we are loved for being so good. And we don't realize that they love us because those who love us are good.

It's easier to live without love. But there is no point without it.

One of the most common misconceptions is to think of people as good, evil, stupid, smart. A person flows, and he has all the possibilities: he was stupid, became clever, was angry, became kind and vice versa. This is the greatness of man. And from this one cannot judge a person. You have condemned, but he is already different.

I don't have everything that I love. But I love everything I have.

The world is moving forward thanks to those who suffer.

Strong people are always simple.

A wise person demands everything from himself only, while an insignificant person demands everything from others.

The greatest truths are the simplest.

The point is not to know much, but to know the most necessary of all that can be known.

Happiness is not about always doing what you want, but about always wanting what you do.

People often pride themselves on the purity of their consciences just because they have a short memory.

There is no scoundrel who, having searched, would not find scoundrels in some way worse than himself and who therefore could not find a reason to be proud and be pleased with himself.

One of the most surprising misconceptions is that human happiness lies in doing nothing.

Evil is only within us, that is, where it can be taken out.

A person should always be happy, if happiness ends, look where you went wrong.

I am sure that the meaning of life for each of us is simply to grow in love.

Everyone is making plans, and no one knows if he will live until the evening.

There are no such conditions that a person could not get used to, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives the same way.

Happiness is more willing to enter a house where a good mood always reigns.

Look at the life of people living according to the teachings of the world: the more they have achieved success according to the teachings of the world, the more they are deprived of this condition of happiness. The higher the worldly happiness that they have achieved, the less they see the light of the sun, fields and forests, wild and domestic animals. Many of them - almost all women - live to old age, having seen the sunrise and morning once or twice in their lives and have never seen fields and forests except from a carriage or from a carriage, and not only without sowing or planting something, without nursing and raising a cow, horse, chicken, but not even having a clue of how animals will be born, grow and live.


These people see only fabrics, stones, wood, finished by human labor, and then not in the light of the sun, but in an artificial sun; they hear only the sounds of cars, carriages, guns, musical instruments; they smell alcohol spirits and tobacco smoke; under their feet and hands they have only cloth, stone and wood; because of the weakness of their stomachs, they eat mostly stale and smelly. Moving them from place to place does not save them from this deprivation. They ride in closed boxes. Both in the village and abroad, where they leave, they have the same stones and wood under their feet, the same curtains that hide the light of the sun from them; the same lackeys, coachmen, janitors, who do not allow them to communicate with the land, plants and animals. Wherever they are, they are deprived, as prisoners, of this condition of happiness. Just as prisoners are comforted by the grass that has grown in the prison yard, by a spider, by a mouse, so these people are sometimes comforted by stunted houseplants, a parrot, a dog, a monkey, which, after all, are not raised and fed by themselves.

Another undoubted condition for happiness is work, firstly, beloved and free work, and secondly. physical labor, giving appetite and sound, soothing sleep. Again, the more, in their own way, happiness people have achieved according to the teachings of the world, the more they are deprived of this other condition of happiness. All the lucky ones in the world - dignitaries and rich people or, like prisoners, are completely devoid of labor and unsuccessfully fight diseases resulting from lack of physical labor, and even more unsuccessfully with the boredom that overcomes them (I say: unsuccessfully - because work is only joyful when she is undoubtedly needed; but they do not need anything), or they have jobs they hate, like bankers, prosecutors, governors, ministers and their wives arranging living rooms, dishes, outfits for themselves and their children.

(I say: hated - because I have never yet met a person among them who would praise their work and do it with even the same pleasure with which a janitor clears the snow in front of a house.) All these lucky ones are either unemployed or assigned to unloved work, that is, they are in the position in which convicts are.

The third undoubted condition for happiness is family. And again, the further people have gone in worldly success, the less this happiness is available to them. Most are adulterers and deliberately refuse the joys of the family, submitting only to its inconveniences. If they are not adulterers, then children are not a joy for them, but a burden, and they deprive themselves of them, trying by all sorts of, sometimes the most painful, means to make intercourse sterile. If they have children, they are deprived of the joy of communication with them. According to their own laws, they must give them to strangers, mostly completely strangers, first to foreigners, and then to state educators, so that from the family they have only grief - children who from a young age become as unhappy as their parents, and who have one thing in relation to their parents. feeling - the desire for their death in order to inherit them.

Chapter four
Happiness

In Yasnaya Polyana, the young were met by "aunt" Tatyana Aleksandrovna Ergolskaya and Count Sergei Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

The "lovely old woman" was, in fact, a distant relative of the Tolstoys, but she played a significant role in their family. The warmest and most heartfelt pages of Leo Tolstoy's "Memories" are dedicated to her and her fate. She grew up in the family of Lev Nikolaevich's grandfather, warmed up and raised out of mercy. As a young girl, she was charming - with a thick braid of black curly hair, with lively, big eyes, a bold, decisive character and extraordinary kindness. It is not surprising that Lev Nikolaevich's father, having grown up with her in the same house, had a tender affection for her. She answered him in kind. This novel is depicted very close to reality in War and Peace - in the relationship of Count Nikolai Ilyich Rostov to Sonya. As there, the poor girl had to give way to a happier rival - not very beautiful and not very young Princess Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya. The Tolstoy were ruined, and Princess Volkonskaya had a significant fortune. Tatyana Aleksandrovna Ergolskaya remained in the family of her rival, helping her with the housework. After 8 years, Countess Maria Tolstaya died, leaving her husband with five children. Ergolskaya took over their education. And six years later, Count Nikolai Tolstoy proposed to her again. But not wanting to "spoil her pure relationship" to his children and to himself, she refused and remained a girl forever.

Tatiana Aleksandrovna Ergolskaya was very religious, loved music (she played the piano well) and, according to Tolstoy, wrote letters like Madame de Sevigne. She transferred all her love for Count Nikolai Tolstoy to his children. Most of all she became attached to Lev Nikolaevich and in the last years of her long life "already inseparably united him with the one whom she loved all her life."

"She was doing an internal matter of love," wrote Tolstoy in the nine hundred years, "and therefore she did not need to rush anywhere. And these two properties - love and slowness - imperceptibly attracted society to her and gave a special charm in this closeness."

The dream of her life was to see the family happiness of the dear "Lyovochka". They corresponded about this when Tolstoy served in the Caucasus, and Lev Nikolaevich often wept over her letters from love and affection.

It is understandable with what quiet joy the dear old woman greeted the young.

This time, the elder brother of the writer, the proud, withdrawn and selfish Count Sergei Nikolaevich, also "relaxed".

In view of the swiftness with which, at Tolstoy's request, preparations for the wedding were going on, Tolstoy's brother, sent to the village to prepare everything for the arrival of the young, had time to decorate only Sofya Andreevna's room.

The old big house, where the great writer was born, no longer existed. This huge (36 rooms) house-palace with columns and a magnificent stucco pediment was sold for a carriage when Lev Nikolaevich, sometimes playing a big card game, needed money.

From the former splendor, two wings remained, which served as the wings of the disappeared building. One of them housed a school for peasant children. On two floors of the other wing, young people settled down. Not the slightest trace of luxury. Simple furniture, almost all rigid. The table setting is more than modest. Lighting - in the kitchen and human - tallow candles, in the "master's" rooms - palm candles and - in the form of non-daily luxury - olein lamps. The owner immediately changed his magnificent Sharmer dress for a warm blouse, which later became his only traditional costume.

His habits surprised his young wife, who was not brought up in a luxurious environment. So, for example, he always slept on a dark red morocco pillow, which looked like a carriage seat, and did not even cover it with a pillowcase. There were no rugs on the beds, "as there were warm shoes." In the garden there were not a single flower, the paths were not cleared, and around the house there were burdocks, on which the servants, without ceremony, threw out any rubbish.

There were not many people in the house. The maid Dunyasha, the footman Alexei, and the old cook, not always sober.

In this almost harsh environment - flew, in the words of Fet, "a lovely bird, which revived everything with its presence."

Proudly putting on a ladies' lace cap with crimson ribbons, the young countess from the very first days tried to play the solid and sedate mistress of the house and the "big lady". "And nothing! - writes Tolstoy, - similar and excellent."

But sometimes she got tired of being "big." The silence in the house was annoying. An irresistible need for fun and movement attacked: she jumped, ran, remembering how she used to get mad with her younger sister, the imp-Tatyanchik, who shouted at the same time that she was "wearing" her.

From the very first day, Sofya Andreevna tried to "help her husband: she went to school, looked closely at her studies," then she would correct the composition, then the task - division ... "But she liked riding on troika more with the schoolchildren: they stopped, ran, sang songs and had fun with might and main.

She tried to engage in dairy farming, went to milk cows, but the smell of the barn, to the surprise of Lev Nikolaevich, made her nauseous, and the young city dweller could not bring herself to bother with the cows ...

“Auntie is so happy,” she wrote to her sister, “Seryozha is so nice, but I don’t want to talk about Lyovochka, I’m scared and ashamed that he loves me so much,“ Tatyanka, there’s no reason? .. ”

Sometimes they write letters together:

Lev Nikolaevich: "Tatiana, dear friend, have pity on me, my wife is deaf."

Sonya: "He himself is stupid, Tanya."

Lev Nikolaevich: "This news that we are both stupid should upset you very much, but after the grief there is also consolation: we are both very happy that we are stupid and do not want to be different."

Sonya: "I want him to be smart."

Lev Nikolaevich: "That puzzled me! .. Do you feel how we rocking and laughing at the same time?"

Like little children, they play with each other - and love. They are happy.

On January 5, 1863, Tolstoy writes in his diary: "I love her when at night or in the morning I wake up and see: she looks at me and loves. And no one - most importantly I - does not interfere with her love, as she knows, in her own way. me, when she sits close to me, and we know that we love each other as much as we can; and she will say: "Lyovochka!" ... and stop; "why are the chimneys in the fireplace led straight?" or "why do the horses not die for a long time? "... I love it when we are alone for a long time, and" what should we do? "." Sonya, what should we do? "She laughs. I love it when she gets angry with me and suddenly, in the blink of an eye, she has a thought, and the word - sometimes harsh: “leave!” “boring!” In a minute she already shyly smiles at me. I love when she does not see me and does not know, and I love her in my own way. I love when she is a girl in a yellow dress and will put out the lower jaw and tongue; I love it when I see her head thrown back, and a serious and frightened, and childish, and passionate face; I love when ... "

According to Tolstoy himself, it was "incredible, breathtaking happiness."

He chokes, cannot resist and shares his enthusiasm with Countess Alexandra Tolstoy.

"I am writing from the village, writing and hearing the voice of my wife above, who speaks to her brother and whom I love more than anything else. I lived to be 34 years old and did not know that it was possible to love and be so happy. When I am calmer, I will write you a long writing is not something that is calmer - I am now calm and clear as I have never been in my life - but when I get used to it. Now I constantly feel as if I have stolen an undeserved, illegal, not assigned happiness. , I can hear her, and so well. Thank you for the last letter. And for what I am loved by such good people as you, and what is most surprising, how such a creature as my wife ... "

In the middle of December 1862, the Tolstoys visited Moscow for a short time. According to the observations of outsiders, there was a certain change in the relationship between the spouses. There were no old worried, questioning, loving looks. There was a tender solicitude on his part and a kind of loving submissiveness on her part. The energetic, independent nature of Sofya Andreevna was for a time completely overshadowed by the authority of Tolstoy: the young woman spoke in words and thought with the thoughts of her brilliant husband.

The Tolstoy stayed in Moscow for only a few weeks: both of them were drawn back to the village seclusion, where they could again indulge in their exceptional happiness without hindrance.

Three and a half months after the wedding (January 5, 1863), Tolstoy writes in his diary: "Family happiness absorbs everything ... It often occurs to me that happiness and all its special features are leaving, but no one knows it and will not be to know, but this has not been and will not be with anyone, and I realize it ... "

But the "lovely idyll of the Tolstoy" did not hide from others. Everyone admired her. Fet, in his old memories, speaks of her with touching tenderness and tenderness, and one of Sofya Andreevna's brothers says: “When I was in Yasnaya Polyana, I was almost the closest witness of their family life. The closeness, friendship and mutual love of this couple are always served as a model and ideal of marital happiness for me. Suffice it to mention that my parents, like all parents, always dissatisfied with the fate of their children, said: "You cannot wish Sonya better happiness!"

Of course, even for this couple, Hymen had not only prepared roses. There were whims. There were scenes. There was a mutual misunderstanding. And not only the young wife was crying. Thirty-four-year-old Tolstoy cried, sadly thinking that with them - "everything is like the others." He was afraid of these "causeless" scratches, which insulted his feelings for her and seemed to leave rough marks on the delicate fabric of their happiness. Even then, like Levin in Anna Karenina, he learned to yield, to wait, to subdue the desire to prove his innocence ... Why? It was ridiculous to be angry with himself - after all, it seemed to him, now they were forever one creature ...

Whims and scenes became especially frequent during her pregnancy. Despite his exceptional insight, for a long time he could not, when applied to himself, understand the purely physiological foundations of the increasingly frequent family quarrels. Later, in The Kreutzer Sonata, he dwelt on this issue with merciless realism. In the early years of marriage, he was ready to blame his young wife for everything ...

But all this was melting like light cirrus clouds in a hot azure sky.

Frequent fits of jealousy threatened their happiness much more seriously. They were both jealous. They were jealous for no reason, and with such an incomprehensible acuteness that can only be explained in the passion of their temperaments. These outbursts of jealousy blinded them, made them unfair, made them suffer deeply.

Quarrels of this kind began very soon. I should have written to Countess Alexandra Tolstoy and introduced myself to her - in writing for now. Sofya Andreevna did not want to. She was jealous. On October 1, Lev Nikolayevich notes in his diary: "She does not want to write to the court aunts - she senses everything." Only after four days is it possible to convince her. But her cold, student-centered, polite, French letter - causes chagrin and annoyance to Tolstoy.

Visits should be made in Moscow. She protests. She especially does not want to go to Princess A. A. Obolenskaya, whom Tolstoy was once fond of. Nevertheless, they go, and Sofya Andreevna, everywhere warmly and affectionately received, cannot resist writing evil words in her diary: “We also went to Princess A. A. Obolenskaya, M. A. Sukhotina and E. A. The first two sisters adopted a tone of contempt for the young and silly wife of their former admirer and visitor Leo Tolstoy. "

When he left somewhere in the evening without her, she calmly waited until the appointed hour. The slightest delay made her mad. There was no end to jealous speculation. They often featured the same old passion of Tolstoy - Princess A.A. Obolenskaya. Once he was at Aksakov's, where he met the Decembrist Zavalishin (Tolstoy was going to write a novel from the Decembrist era at that time). He started talking and returned home instead of 12 at half past one. Sofya Andreevna languished with jealousy and met him with a stream of unrestrained tears ...

It would seem that in the wilderness of the village she had no one to be jealous of. But as soon as her cousin, Olga Isleneva, who was staying in Yasnaya Polyana, showed her musical talents, playing four hands with Lev Nikolaevich, and Sofya Andreevna was already envious, jealous, hated ... After the death of her husband, she told V.F. Bulgakov, as in the early years Tolstoy was jealous of local peasant women. She even assured that she put on a peasant dress and wandered for hours in the park and the adjacent forest, hoping that Tolstoy would take her for his kind and call her name, which she so sought to recognize ...

The husband was even more jealous. Polivanov's presence in Moscow in January 1863 was "unpleasant" to him, although he was trying to "endure it the best." In his diary, he writes: "She talks about jealousy:" you need to respect, "" confidence, "and so on; both this, and these are phrases, but you are still afraid and afraid ..."

He is jealous of the teacher of the Yasnaya Polyana school or of an almost unfamiliar young guest.

The other day, - Sofya Andreevna told her sister, - we somehow vividly argued in front of everyone at tea with Erlenvain, I don't remember what - so something insignificant, well, he was jealous of me.

How, to the teacher? Lord! That would not have expected! They are all so serious.

I did not immediately understand his jealousy, did not understand and asked myself: why is he stinging at me? Why did he suddenly lose interest in me? and I cried and could not find an answer ...

In Tolstoy's diary, this insignificant episode takes on extraordinary proportions. Lev Nikolaevich suffers, calls his married life to court, tries to be fair. Turning to his wife, he exclaims: "I am looking for something to offend you involuntarily. This is bad and will pass, but do not be angry: I cannot help but love you ..." "Nowadays her apparent pleasure in chatting and attracting Erlenwein's attention suddenly raised me to the old heights of truth and power. ”It is worth reading this and saying: yes, I know - jealousy! and still calm me down and do something else to calm me down, to throw me off again in all my youth the hateful vulgarity of life. She's nine months now. Awful! I'm a gambler and a drunkard. I'm in a binge economy and ruined the irrecoverable nine months, which could have been the best, and which I did almost from the worst in life. What do I need? to live happily, that is. . to be loved by her and myself, and I hate myself during this time ... "" The fact that another person - and the most insignificant one - can be pleasant to her - is understandable to me and should not seem unjust to me, no matter how unbearable - because that during these nine months I am the most insignificant, weak, senseless and vulgar person ... "

How much noise from trifles! How this fiery nature seethes, seethes, agitates! He is ready to curse himself and his own happiness because of a few lively words spoken by his wife to the teacher! ..

The tragicomic scene of jealousy that Tolstoy reproduced in Anna Karenina also becomes clear. Sophia Andreevna's sister describes this case as follows:

“Once a young man, familiar to us all, came to Yasnaya - Pisarev, secular, dear, but the most ordinary. He rarely visited us. Sonia, sitting at the samovar, poured tea. Pisarev was sitting next to her. In my opinion, it was his only fault. Pisarev helped Sonya pass cups of tea, providing other minor household services. He joked merrily, laughed, sometimes bending over in her direction to tell her something.

I watched Lev Nikolaevich. Pale, with a frustrated face, he got up from the table, walked around the room, left, came again and involuntarily conveyed his alarm to me. Sonya also noticed this and did not know what to do.

In the end, the next morning, by order of Lev Nikolaevich, a carriage was brought in, and the footman reported to the young man that the horses were ready for him ... "

"They were both painfully jealous," writes Sophia Andreevna's sister, "and by doing so they poisoned their lives, spoiling their good, cordial relationship."

It is difficult to imagine the fullness of the seclusion in which the first years of the Tolstoy's life passed. There was no railway (Moscow - Kursk - Kiev) at that time, and communications on horseback were hampered by the extremely terrible state of the country roads. Once, the biggest - twice a year - Fet and his wife, or a friend of Tolstoy's youth, Dyakov, stopped by on the way from Moscow to his estate. Sometimes the only surviving brother of Lev Nikolaevich, Count Sergei Tolstoy, visited. Very rarely dropped in from Tula - the Aurbach family, teacher and novelist Yevgeny Markov. And it's all. Tolstoy behaved disdainfully towards the neighboring landowners, and when, according to old memory, one of them came to Yasnaya to visit his aunt, Lev Nikolaevich disappeared from the house through other doors.

By the way, Tolstoy had no real friends. In his younger years, he became close in Kazan with the student Dyakov, a friend of his older brothers. The vicissitudes of this friendship are described in "Adolescence" and "Youth". But Dyakov - a good-natured and witty merry fellow, a practical person who knew how to carelessly take her gifts from life - of course, did not in itself resemble Prince Nekhlyudov in Tolstoy's stories: this character in its foundations is also taken from nature - from Lev Nikolaevich's brother Dmitry, died of consumption in 1856. Tolstoy maintained good relations with Dyakov for the rest of his life, but by the time Lev Nikolayevich married, they had long since degenerated into a purely outward friendship. Fet was the closest to Tolstoy at that time. And this friendship cannot but be surprised. The retired cavalry officer Fet, according to Turgenev, was simply stupid. His stinginess became a proverb: wealth, to which he strove with all his soul, seemed to him the highest blessing of life. He was a "serf", that is, an extreme conservative who resented the government for the liberation of the peasants. These extreme views, so different from the liberal views of Turgenev, were probably responsible for the latter's harsh response. In fact, Fet was undoubtedly an outstanding person and poet - "by God's grace" who gave a lot of original Russian literature. He was very sensitive to real artistic beauty. In the later years of his life, he translated into poetry of many ancient classics, both parts of Goethe's "Faust" and "The World as Will and Representation" by Schopenhauer. For all his talents, however, he had nothing in common with Tolstoy. But he adored Lev Nikolaevich, one might say, he prayed for him, and this unconditional admiration, apparently, aroused Tolstoy's grateful disposition.

It is remarkable that Tolstoy's "friendship" with the philosopher Nikolai Strakhov, the artist Ge, and Chertkov later bore the same character.

In his youth, Tolstoy assured that in the matter of rapprochement with people he could be guided by only one formula "all or nothing." But, apparently, even this "everything" should have had a completely definite character ...

The closed life of the Tolstoys was spent together. The quickly aging "aunt" Tatyana Aleksandrovna and her old lady friend did not break their loneliness. And the only person who brought entertainment into this monotonous life was the "devil-Tatyanchik" - the younger sister of Sofya Andreevna, who, since the spring of 1863, had often and for a long time stayed in Yasnaya Polyana. Everyone here loved her "festive". Lev Nikolayevich understood this special nature well and became attached to her forever, as to a younger sister. Back in 1862, he wrote to her: "I saw in this your wonderful, sweet nature with laughter and a background of poetic seriousness. Such a different Tanya, however, that you will not soon please, and such another connoisseur as Leo Tolstoy." He gazed vigilantly into this full of fire, cheerful, narcissistic girl, who before his eyes was turning into a charming girl.

Do you think you eat my bread for nothing? - he told her jokingly. - I write you all down.

Tolstoy took his models from nature. But it is difficult to agree with those who seek in his types a slavish reproduction of the originals. "Nature" served him only as a starting point. The external character traits of Natasha Rostova (in "War and Peace"), for example, are surprisingly reminiscent of Tanechka Bers with her passion and with all her romantic adventures. But Tolstoy softened and poeticized the sharp contours of this very earthly appearance, not sparing the best colors of his palette. In Natasha Rostova there is a lot of the genius soul of the author himself and, because of this, she is one of the most seductive heroines of Russian literature.

It goes without saying what a commotion in the lonely life of the Yasnaya Polyana recluses Baroness Mengden should have caused when she unexpectedly came from Tula to invite the Tolstoys to the ball: the heir to the throne was expected in Tula, and the local nobility was preparing to welcome him solemnly. Lev Nikolaevich, for the sake of his dear sister-in-law, had to dress up in a tailcoat and take her to Tula; Sofya Andreevna sadly excused herself as ill. She writes in her memoirs: "Lyovochka decided to take my sister Tanya to the ball, and I zealously began to arrange a nice outfit for her ... When Lev Nikolayevich put on a tailcoat and left for Tula for a ball with Tanya, I began to cry bitterly and cried all evening. We lived monotonously, withdrawn, boring, and suddenly such a case, and (I was barely 19 years old) was deprived of it. "

You know, Tanya, - she said to her sister, - I would still not be able to go if I was healthy.

But you know Lyovochkin's views? Could I wear an open collar ball gown? This is downright inconceivable.

How many times did he condemn married women who "strip", as he put it.

It was a momentary weakness, a sad mood. Generally speaking, Sofya Andreevna courageously endured the closed village life - even when her nest was not yet filled with chicks.

But at times she is still bored, cramped. The peaceful harbor, reached at the age of 18, does not satisfy: you want the open sea, storms. And Lev Nikolaevich notes in his diary (March 3, 1863): "I am afraid of this mood more than anything else." And in another place: "Occasionally and now all the fear that she is young and does not understand and does not love in me, and that much in herself she strangles for me and instinctively credits all these sacrifices" (January 23, 1863) ...

He understood that he needed to somehow diversify this life. But he considered it necessary to refrain from traveling to Moscow for a long time.

On this occasion, he wrote to his father-in-law: "I often dream of how to have an apartment in Moscow on Sivtsev Vrazhka. On the winter route, send a baggage train and come to live for 3-4 months in Moscow in his transferred from Yasnaya Mirka, with the same Alexei, that the same nanny, the same samovar, etc. You, your world, theater, music, books, library (this is the main thing for me lately) and sometimes exciting conversation with a new smart person, these are our hardships in Yasnaya. which, perhaps, is much stronger than all these hardships - it is to count every penny, to be afraid that I don’t have enough money for this and that. To want to buy something and not be able, and worst of all, to be ashamed of the fact that my house is disgusting and disorderly. Therefore, until I am able to save so much for a trip to Moscow, at least 6.000 rubles, until then this dream will be a dream. " In order to be able to "postpone", he first of all takes up the economy and does it with his usual enthusiasm.

He starts a big bee-house 2 versts from the house, sits there in the net for hours, observing and studying the life of bees. He raises pedigree sheep and says that he "cannot be happy" if he does not get enough Japanese pigs. Having received them, he writes in delight: "What a face, what an eccentric breed! .." He grows an orchard, plants forests of Christmas trees, even tries to make coffee, chicory, or suddenly starts planting cabbage in huge quantities. He needs intensive pig feed and does not hesitate to build a distillery, although the young wife protests: she finds it immoral. They don't have a manager. Tolstoy is trying to adapt one of the student-teachers to this matter, since interest in schools has disappeared. But the teacher does not understand anything about the economy and gives up this business. Then Tolstoy “makes an important discovery”: “clerks and managers and headmen are only a hindrance to the farm; try to drive out all the bosses and sleep until ten o'clock, and everything will go, probably no worse: I made this experiment and was quite pleased with it. .. "After such a" discovery ", the owner's functions are distributed as follows: Sofya Andreevna is assigned the office, settlements with hired workers, household, barns, cattle breeding; Lev Nikolaevich himself is in charge of the field, vegetable garden, forests, bees. Each of them has several boys, former students of the Yasnaya Polyana school.

Such a formulation of the case could, of course, give only disastrous results. The calculations and assumptions were always excellent; the practice, however, did not correspond to them. So, for example, Japanese piglets died one after another. Much later the following turned out. Lev Nikolaevich took a former foreman, who had lost his job for drunkenness, to care for the pigs. However, such a "boon" was not to the taste of the new pig breeder.

You used to go to the pigs, he said later, and give them a little fodder so that they get weaker. They are getting weaker. When you come back another time - some more squeaks, well again you will ask for a little food, and if it calms down, then there is a cover for her ...

The hams sent for sale to Moscow, poorly dressed and poorly salted, fell into a thaw, deteriorated, and they could hardly be sold for a pittance. The oil was bitter; there was a lot of green mold around the edges of the tubs ...

Field farming was not going well either: a fourteen-year-old village boy who followed the execution of the owner's orders on hundreds of dessiatines, of course, was unable to cope. And only the apple orchard and forest plantations flourished.

From economic failures, Lev Nikolaevich rested on the hunt, which at that time was carried away to self-forgetfulness. He especially liked the draft of woodcocks in the spring. With his beloved dog, the Setter Dorka, he could stand for hours in the forest at dawn, enjoying nature and listening to the hoarse and heavy flight of a bird. He also loved hounding hares and foxes and rushed after dogs through obstacles, forgetting in excitement about everything and everyone. One day, in the fall of 1864, he rode alone with the greyhounds on an English factory mare that had never been out hunting. A hare jumped out, and everything rushed after him. The horse did not jump over the deep rupture that it encountered and fell. Tolstoy smashed and dislocated his right arm. He lay unconscious for a long time. Having regained consciousness, he hardly made it to the high road and lay down. The passing peasants put him on a cart and took him to the nearest hut in the village (he did not want to frighten his family). Sofya Andreevna, expecting the appearance of her second child, rushed to him with horror and almost at a run. The doctor who came from Tula could not do anything. And only the next day we managed to find a surgeon who straightened his shoulder. The operation, however, failed. Experiencing terrible pain, Tolstoy had to go to Moscow, where he had a new fracture and his arm was repositioned under chloroform. After a long treatment, he finally recovered and could return to his wife, who remained in Yasnaya with her two babies. This separation and mutual fears brought them closer together and gave rise to an infinitely tender and touching correspondence.

However, his earlier, few letters to Sophia Andreevna during hunting absences - breathe amazing love. "You say," he writes, for example, "I will forget. Not a minute, especially with people. While hunting, I forget, I pray for one great snipe: but with people - at every collision, word, I remember you, and I want everything to tell you what I cannot tell anyone but you ... "

It seems to him that under the influence of his wife he becomes a completely new person. Schools are abandoned. Students-teachers are leaving. With the pedagogical journal, he seeks to end it as soon as possible.

“How clear to me everything now!” He writes in his diary on February 8, 1863. “It was a hobby of youth - almost farce, which I cannot continue, having grown up big. All of her. She does not know and will not understand how she transforms me without there are more comparisons than I am her. Only not consciously. Consciously both I and she are powerless ... "

In the autumn of the same year, he tells his friend who this new Tolstoy, "grown up big", is.

"I am a husband and father, completely satisfied with my position and accustomed to it so that in order to feel my happiness, I need to think about what would have happened without him. I do not delve into my position (grubeln is left) and in my feelings and only feel, not think in my family relationships. This state gives me an awful lot of mental scope. I have never felt my mental and even all moral forces so free and so capable of work. And I have this work. This work - a novel from the time of the 1810s and 20s, which has been occupying me completely since the fall. Whether this proves a weakness of character or strength - I sometimes think: both, - but I must confess that my view of life, of the people and the society is now completely different, which I had the last time we saw you. You can feel sorry for them, but it's hard for me to love how I could do so much. Still, I'm glad that I went through this school; my last mistress shaped me very much. ”- Children and I love pedagogy, but it's hard for me to understand myself the way I was a year ago. Children come to me in the evenings and bring with them memories of the teacher who was in me and who will no longer be. I am now a writer with all the strength of my soul, and I write and ponder as I have never written or pondered. I am a happy and calm husband and father, having no secret to anyone and no desire, except that everything goes as before ... "

“In order to live honestly,” Tolstoy wrote, as we saw, in 1857, “one must struggle, get confused, fight, make mistakes, start and quit, and start again and again quit, and always fight and be deprived of it. And calmness is spiritual meanness. .. "

No, all this is not so, - says Tolstoy now, having grown up big: “Remember, I once wrote to you that people are mistaken, expecting some kind of happiness in which there is no work, no deception, no grief, but everything goes smoothly and happily. I was wrong then: there is such happiness, and I live in it for the third year, and every day it becomes smoother and deeper. And the materials from which this happiness is built, the most ugly ones are children who are (to blame) they dirty themselves and scream, the wife, who feeds one, drives the other, and every minute reproaches me that I do not see that they are both on the edge of the coffin, and paper and ink, through which I describe the events and feelings of people who have never been ... . "

Tolstoy's ebullient, active, versatile nature could not, of course, be satisfied with one household. Having calmed down and freed from his hobbies for school and pedagogy, he devoted himself entirely to creativity. Now he "felt like an apple tree that grew with knots from the ground and in all directions, which now life had cut, trimmed, tied up and propped up so that it would not interfere with others and would take root and grow into one trunk by itself."

This "trunk" was a poetic creation.

Back in the middle of 1861, Tolstoy's friends (for example, the art critic Botkin) thought that Lev Nikolaevich "could not write" because "his mind is in some kind of chaos of ideas"; they were impatiently awaiting the moment when "his soul will rest on something."

It was a mistake: Tolstoy never stopped writing. But he lost interest in the audience. The key of creativity did not dry up and continued to flow quietly under the surface of his stormy life. Tolstoy just did not publish: the fictional works of these years ("Cossacks", "Polikushka", "Kholstomer") remained in the sketches. As if there was not enough uplift, inner strength, motivation to complete these creations.

This rise was given to him by happy love and marriage. His life focused during this time on his family, wife, children, and therefore on worries about increasing the means of life. So he explains in "Confession" (1879) the intensification of creative activity after marriage. He writes further: “I have already tasted the temptation of writing, the temptation of a huge monetary reward and applause for insignificant work, and I gave myself up to it as a means to improve my financial situation and muffle in my soul all questions about the meaning of my life and general. I wrote, teaching that that for me it was the only truth that one should live in such a way that it would be as good as possible with the family. "

Such harsh judgments are hardly fair in their penitential straightforwardness. In the process of his literary work, Tolstoy attached great importance to it, was tormented by it and almost never lost sight of the great humanitarian issues that confront humanity. But, of course, during this period the family absorbed him, and family happiness, family virtues are highlighted in his great novel ("War and Peace") to the fore. His young wife is full of family virtues. But she also loves wealth, fame, artistic creativity. And there is no doubt - they are completely in agreement in these tastes. The thirty-four-year-old genius Tolstoy had an overwhelming influence on his eighteen-year-old wife at that time. And if the great writer from an apple tree growing wildly in all directions turned into a clipped, trimmed and tied apple tree, then, of course, it was not a young wife who did it. In the direction of the basic tastes of the woman he loves, of course, his sympathies lean. But he himself (trimmed by life) passionately and enthusiastically gave himself up at that time to artistic creation, seeing in it, among other things, the path to fame and prosperity.

Now he is eager to write and write for the public. Until recently, he worked and did not publish; now he is trying to secure the sale in advance for his future creation. Within a month and a half after the wedding, he wants to write a novel. He notifies Katkov, the editor of the Russkiy Vestnik magazine, and is eagerly awaiting an answer: this "answer should solve the matter."

It is not known what Katkov answered. Perhaps he recalled the loan, which was to be repaid by the Cossacks. At least, instead of the planned novel, Tolstoy immediately set about finishing this story, which he had been writing since 1852. Already on December 19, 1862, he handed it over to Katkov. Having finished with the "Cossacks", Lev Nikolayevich quickly trims and sets in motion "Polikushka". He wants to write so much that, at the request of the young people who have come to Yasnaya Polyana, in three days he sketches the play "Nihilist", which is played out at the home play by Sofya Andreevna, her sister Tanechka and other relatives. He writes the comedy "Infected Family" (also on the topic of "nihilists"), takes her to Moscow and is very anxious now, without fail this season, to attach it to the imperial theater. Finally, in the fall of 1863, he was already quite busy with "a novel from the time of the 1810s and 1920s." On this occasion, he informs gr. A. A. Tolstoy: "Now I am a writer with all the forces of my soul and I write and think about, as I have never written or thought about." We are talking about the "Decembrists".

What prompted Tolstoy to the history of the military uprising that broke out on December 14, 1825? Perhaps the writer came across some memoirs; the family could have kept any legends, since the Decembrist Prince S. Gr. Volkonsky was Lev Nikolaevich's second cousin. But once he attacked this topic, he inevitably had to think about the causes of the social movement of the early 19th century. The Decembrists seemed to him too "French". Thus, he approached the era of the Napoleonic wars, and the events of this time are associated with the vivid memories of the two families to which he belonged - the princes Volkonsky and the counts Tolstoy.

Among the people who surrounded Lev Nikolaevich's childhood, there were many witnesses of the invasion of the French: paternal grandmother, father himself, aunts, servants. Later, in the fifties, he met his mother's cousin, Princess Volkonskaya, who in her youth lived for a long time in Yasnaya Polyana, with the stern general-in-chief Prince Volkonsky and his meek daughter, Princess Marya. Rereading the letters and diaries of his relatives, Lev Nikolaevich was enveloped in warm family memories. But next to this, he again faced the issue of war, to which he had previously devoted so much energy and attention. Thus, the great writer gradually moved from the original theme to the history of the collision of Russia with Napoleon. Perhaps also the lack of materials on the history of the December uprising (archives were banned) forced him to temporarily abandon the original projects. This is how the grandiose epic "War and Peace" arose. She took from Tolstoy five years (1864 - 1868) of exceptional, intense, often painful work. Many times he despaired and was ready to quit his job. Happily finished, she gave Tolstoy fame and money. Perhaps not a single Russian literary work touches on so many issues of universal human significance. But one cannot fail to notice that "War and Peace" is the apotheosis of patriotism, family, landlord life and "common sense of mediocrity." These ideas, so alien and hostile to Tolstoy in his subsequent searches, he was full in the first years of his married life. And Sofya Andreevna completely shared his views and tastes of that time. These were undoubtedly their common ideals.

Did Tolstoy always, invariably feel well in the form of "an apple tree cut, tied up and growing into one trunk"?

At the end of 1865, he interrupted his diary for 13 years. This could, of course, have happened under the pressure of poetry. But it could have been otherwise. Happy spouses had no secrets. Each of them read all the scriptures, all the correspondence of the other. Under such conditions, it became difficult to completely sincerely reflect in the diaries all the vicissitudes of family life. Words could be refracted in a peculiar way in the soul of another, could act specifically, could cause unexpected complications. Probably, Tolstoy more than once had to notice how his fleeting moods, reflected in the pages of his diary, thickened into clouds in the clear sky of their family happiness. Perhaps, not wanting to compromise, not wanting to hush up his thoughts and feelings (even fleeting), not tolerating any insincerity, Tolstoy was forced to end his long-term conversation with himself.

All the more important are the few records of those quarrels that are inevitable and occur in every family. He first touches on them in detail. These "cuts of love", hastily "covered with kisses," excite and deeply sadden him. He knows that this "putty" is false. “Every such discord,” he writes, “no matter how insignificant, is a cut of love. A minute feeling of passion, annoyance, pride, pride will pass, but even a small cut will remain forever and in the best in the world, in love." Later (in 1865), along with the confessions that he was "happy as one in a million", there are short notes: "With Sonya in the cold", "Something hostile with Sonya" ...

There are even more serious moments.

“I thought,” he writes on June 2, 1863, “that I was getting old and that I was dying, I thought I was scared that I didn’t love. I was horrified at myself that my interests were money or vulgar well-being. It was periodic falling asleep .. . "

"... It is terrible, scary, senseless to associate your happiness with material conditions - wife, children, health, wealth ..."

Under the influence of a momentary annoyance, he even yearns for his former "wildness": "Where am I, the one I myself, whom I myself loved and knew, who sometimes comes out all over and makes me happy and scared? I am small and insignificant. And I am so with since I married the woman I love. "

Some deep mental processes are taking place in him. Moments they burst out and surprise him.

On January 15, 1863, he writes: "At home he suddenly growled at Sonya because she did not leave me. And I became ashamed and scared ..."

Sophia Andreevna's sister, in her memoirs, draws the following scene relating to 1867:

"Sonya told me that she was sitting upstairs in her room on the floor by the drawer of the chest of drawers and sorting through knots with rags. (She was in an interesting position.) Lev Nikolayevich, entering her, said:

Why are you sitting on the floor? Stand up!

Now, just take everything away.

I'm telling you, get up now, ”he shouted loudly and went into his office.

Sonya did not understand why he was so angry. This offended her, and she went to the office. I heard their irritated voices from my room, listened and did not understand anything. And suddenly I heard something fall, the sound of broken glass and an exclamation:

Go away, go away!

I opened the door. Sonya was gone. Broken dishes and a thermometer, which always hung on the wall, lay on the floor. Lev Nikolaevich stood in the middle of the room, pale, with a trembling lip. His eyes looked at one point. I felt sorry and scared - I had never seen him like this. I didn't say a word to him and ran to Sonya. She was very sorry. Just like a madwoman, she kept repeating: "For what? What's the matter with him?" She told me a little later:

I went into the office and asked him: Lyovochka, what's wrong with you?

Go away, go away! he cried angrily. I approached him in fear and bewilderment, he pulled me away with his hand, grabbed a tray with coffee and a cup and threw everything on the floor. I grabbed his hands. He got angry, tore off the thermometer from the wall and threw it on the floor.

So Sonya and I could never understand what caused such fury in him ... "

The trimmed and tied apple tree suddenly became cramped, and she violently straightened up to her full height ...

Hello dear readers of the Sprint-Answer website. Today we will do a very brief overview of the capital show "Field of Miracles" and answers to game questions for April 21, 2017... I apologize for the review without the names of the players, I just didn't have time for a full review of the game, I'm speeding up the loading of the site. So here we go!

Answers in the game "Field of Miracles" for 04/21/2017

The participants of the first three players enter the hall, Leonid Yakubovich starts the game.

On April 21, 1937, the premiere of the play took place at the Moscow Art Theater "Anna Karenina" ... Moreover, the TASS agency reported this as a matter of state importance. Today the entire program will be dedicated to Leo Tolstoy and his sayings. Here is the assignment for the first round. Such concepts as God, happiness, death, love, eternity, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy considered the main questions of our life, and called them the most diverse ... what? How did Tolstoy call the main questions of our life, the most diverse? 11 letter word.

Winner of the first three players "Field of Miracles" on 04/21/2017

Assignment for the second round. Tolstoy's novel "Anna Karenina", after its publication, aroused a lot of various different responses from readers. Someone felt sorry for Anna, someone censured. The author himself said that his main task was not so much to evoke pity for the heroine, but to show her ... what? In the novel "Anna Karenina" Tolstoy wanted not so much to evoke pity for the heroine, but to show ... what? 12 letter word.

Assignment for the third round. Lev Nikolaevich left us a huge amount of clever thoughts and ideas. In particular, he said: "Happiness is pleasure without .." Without what? Tolstoy said "Happiness is pleasure without ..." What? 9 letter word.

"Field of Miracles" - answers for April 21, 2017, the winner of the third round of the game

And finally, the task for the finale. Lev Nikolaevich paid great attention to education. It is known that on his estate he organized a school for peasant children. The writer said: "Knowledge is only knowledge when it is acquired through the efforts of one's own thought, and not ..." By what? Tolstoy said that knowledge is knowledge when it is acquired by the efforts of one's own thought, and not by what? 6 letter word. The correct answers to the "Field of Miracles" for April 21, 2017 can be seen in the following illustrations.

A person will be the happier the more clearly he understands that his calling is not to receive services from other people, but to serve others and put his life at the disposal of many people. A person who does this will be worthy of his dominion and will never fail.

A person should always be happy, if happiness ends, look where you went wrong.

Man is chained in his loneliness and sentenced to death.

Man has in the depths of his soul an indelible demand that his life be good and have a reasonable meaning.

A person must be happy. If he is unhappy, then he is to blame. And he is obliged to fuss over himself until he eliminates this inconvenience or misunderstanding.

A person is like a fraction, the numerator is what he is, and the denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.

A person cannot have access to the purpose of his life. A person can only know the direction in which his life is moving.

The more a person is pleased with himself, the less in him that can be satisfied.

The better a person is, the less he fears death.

The smarter we are, the less we understand the meaning of life and see some kind of evil ridicule in the fact that we suffer and die.

What is natural for a person to do as a rational being: to recognize the sin that caused suffering, to repent of it and to know the truth.

The meaninglessness of life is the only undoubted knowledge available to man.

Most men demand virtues from their wives that they themselves are not worth.

The one who has nothing to say speaks the most.

You can always recognize yourself in every person and in his actions.

The greatest truths are the simplest.

Believe in yourself and live like this, straining all your strength on one thing: to manifest God in yourself, and you will do everything that you can do for your own good and for the good of the whole world.

The educator needs to know life deeply in order to prepare for it.

There is no time, there is only a moment. And therefore, in this one instant, you must put all your strength into it.

If a person is only a bodily being, then death is the end of something insignificant. If a person is a spiritual being, and the soul only temporarily lived in the body, then death is only a change.

There are two desires; the fulfillment of which can make a person's true happiness - to be useful and have a clear conscience.

Is there a meaning in my life that will not be destroyed by the inevitable death that awaits me?

There is only one way to end evil — to do good to evil people.

There is only one important thing in life for everyone - to improve your soul. Only in this one business a person is not hindered, and only from this business a person is always happy.

A woman who tries to be like a man is as ugly as an effeminate man.

Only those who do good live live.

When living with people, do not forget what you learned in seclusion. In solitude, ponder what you have learned from communication with people.

Life is the establishment of a new attitude to the world through greater and greater subordination of the animal personality to reason, and the manifestation of a greater degree of love.

Life should and can be a never-ending joy.

Human life, full of bodily suffering, which can be cut short at every second so as not to be the crudest ridicule, should have a meaning such that the meaning of life would not be disturbed either by suffering or by its short duration.

Life, which seems to me to be nothing, is nothing.

Evil is only within us, that is, where it can be taken out.

Knowledge is only knowledge when it is acquired by the efforts of one's own thought, and not by memory.

The meaning of life is open in the mind of a person, as a striving for good. The understanding of this good, a more and more precise definition of it, constitutes the main goal and work of the life of all mankind.

Both what we call happiness and what we call unhappiness are equally beneficial to us if we look at both as a test.

The ideal is a guiding star. Without it there is no firm direction, and no direction - no life.

Have a goal for your whole life, a goal for a certain time, a goal for a year, for a month, for a week, for a day and for an hour, and for a minute, sacrificing lower goals to higher ones.

The true strength of a person is not in impulses, but in unbreakable peace.

All thoughts that have huge consequences are always simple.

Everyone is making plans, and no one knows if he will live until the evening.

Every person knows that he needs to do not what separates him from people, but what unites him with them.

The main obstacle to the knowledge of the truth is not a lie, but a semblance of truth.

The business of science is to serve people.

Children cannot be scared away by harshness, they cannot stand only lies.

An immortal soul needs the same immortal work as itself. And this work, the endless improvement of oneself and the world, is given to her.

In order to learn to tell the truth to people, one must learn to tell it to oneself.

In order to live a good life, there is no need to know where you came from and what will happen in the next world.

A good deed is done with effort, but when the effort is repeated several times, the same deed becomes a habit.

The only meaning of human life is to perfect his immortal foundation. All other forms of activity are meaningless in their essence, due to the inevitability of death.

If you once regret that you didn’t say, then you will regret a hundred times that you didn’t keep silent.

If people bother you, then you have no reason to live. Leaving people is suicide.

If you do something, do it well. If you cannot or don’t want to do well, it’s better not to do it at all.

True knowledge is to know that we know what we know and do not know what we don’t know, Confucius said. What is false is to think that we know what we do not know and do not know what we know; and no more precise definition of the false knowledge that reigns among us can be given.

Look for the good side in other people, not the bad side.

Each act is nothing in comparison with the infinity of space and time, and at the same time its action is infinite in space and time.

Everyone wants to change humanity, but no one thinks about how to change themselves.

As unpleasant as anger is to others, it is more difficult for the person who experiences it. What starts in anger ends in shame.

The shortest expression of the meaning of life can be as follows: the world is moving and improving. The main task is to contribute to this movement, obey it and cooperate with it.

Criticism is then only fruitful when, by condemning, it points out what that which is bad should be.

He who has learned to think is difficult for him to believe.

He who has perfected himself cannot believe that this improvement will end.

Love destroys death and turns it into an empty ghost, it turns life from nonsense into something meaningful, makes happiness out of misery.

People must live in a lie or see the terrible truth of the nonsense of being, and every step in knowledge leads people to this truth.

People learn how to speak, and the main science is how and when to be silent.

People who fear death are afraid of it because it appears to them as emptiness and darkness; but they see emptiness and darkness because they do not see life.

The world is moving forward thanks to those who suffer.

Wisdom in all everyday affairs, it seems to me, consists not in knowing what to do, but in knowing what to do first and what after.

Wisdom is not about knowing much. We cannot know everything. Wisdom is not in knowing as much as possible, but in knowing which knowledge is most needed, which is less and which is even less needed.

We are alive not because we take care of ourselves, but because we are doing the work of life.

We cannot imagine life after death and we cannot remember life before birth because we cannot imagine anything outside of time.

One must live so as not to be afraid of death and not to desire it.

Sciences do not give an answer about the meaning of life, but only show that in the vast, with their help, open horizons, there is no answer to this question.

Our life is a constant flight from ourselves, as if a pang of conscience pursues and frightens us. As soon as a person gets to his feet, he starts screaming so as not to hear the speeches that are heard inside. In this fear to investigate so as not to see the nonsense of the investigated person, in this artificial lack of time, in these fake misfortunes, complicating every step with fictitious fetters, we go through life asleep and die in a daze of absurdities and trifles, without regaining consciousness.

Do not believe the words of yours or those of others, believe only your own and those of others.

Dissatisfaction with oneself is a necessary condition for intelligent life. Only this dissatisfaction prompts one to work on oneself.

There is nothing more useful for the soul than remembering that we are insignificant in time and space, and that your strength lies only in understanding your insignificance.

Was it really only then that I appeared in the world for this short period of time to lie, confuse, do stupid things and disappear.

The vagueness of a word is an invariable sign of an unclear thought.

Never bother another with what you can do yourself.

Nothing encourages idleness more than idle talk.

An effort is needed for all abstinence, but of all such efforts, the most difficult is the effort to abstain from the tongue. It is also the most necessary.

When discussing other people's actions, remember yours.

One of the most common temptations leading to the greatest disasters is the temptation by saying, "everyone does this."

The answers given by all sciences about the meaning of life are only identities.

Carnal death destroys the spatial body and temporal consciousness, but it cannot destroy what leaves the basis of life: a special attitude to the world of every creature.

It’s bad if a person doesn’t have something for which he is ready to die.

The vocation can be recognized and proved only by the sacrifice that a scientist or artist makes to his peace and well-being in order to surrender to his vocation.

Reasonable knowledge in the person of the learned and the wise denies the meaning of life, and huge masses of people, all of humanity, recognize this meaning in unreasonable knowledge. And this unreasonable knowledge is faith.

Reasonable and moral always coincide.

Freedom is that everyone can increase their share of love, and therefore good.

The power is in the mind. The head is crazy, that a lantern without a candle.

The word is the deed.

Salvation is not in rituals, sacraments, not in the confession of this or that faith, but in a clear understanding of the meaning of one's life.

Try to do your duty, and you will immediately know what you are worth.

The degree of a person's truthfulness is an indicator of the degree of his moral perfection.

The fear of death is only the consciousness of the unresolved contradiction of life.

The fear of death is inversely proportional to the good life.

The fear of death comes from the fact that people take for life one small, their own false representation of a limited part of it.

Shame in front of people is a good feeling, but shame in front of oneself is best.

The essence of all faith is that it gives life a meaning that is not destroyed by death.

Happy is he who is happy at home.

Happiness is pleasure without remorse.

The happiness of an individual outside of society is impossible, just as the life of a plant pulled out of the ground and thrown on the barren sand is impossible.

Happiness more willingly enters the house where a good mood always reigns.

The fact that we live a crazy, completely crazy, crazy life is not words, not a comparison, not an exaggeration, but the simplest statement of what is.

Only she is death, i.e. the thought of her, brings to such an area of \u200b\u200bthought, where complete freedom and joy.

Only by renouncing what will perish and must perish, from our animal personality, do we receive our true life, which does not perish and cannot perish.

For those who believe that life did not begin at birth and does not end with death, it is easier to live a good life.

One who misunderstands life will always misunderstand death.

A cowardly friend is more terrible than an enemy, for you fear the enemy, but you rely on a friend.

The one who does nothing always has many helpers.

The conviction that life has meaning is given to a person as a reward for a meaningful life.

Effort is a necessary condition for moral improvement.

One can be comforted only when one understands that life is in the content, and not in the vessel.

A scientist does not have an answer to the main question of every reasonable person: why do I live and what should I do?

Philosophy does not answer the question about the meaning of life, but only complicates it.

To be happy, you need to constantly strive for this happiness and understand it. It does not depend on circumstances, but on itself.

I realized that in order to understand the meaning of life, it is necessary, first of all, that life is not meaningless and evil, and then only the mind in order to understand it.

 

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