Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy

“ Every idea of individual life, if it is not based on the renouncing of self for the service of people, of mankind, of the human son, is an illusion that vanishes at the first touch of reason. I cannot doubt that, though my individual life is perishable, the life of the world according to the will of the Father can never be destroyed ”

“ Death, death, death attends us every second. Our lives are passed in the presence of death. While working individually for your future, you well know that the future will give you nothing but death. And death will destroy all you worked for. Thus, it is clear that life for oneself can never have any meaning. If there is a rational life, it must be some other kind of life; it must be one, the purpose of which does not consist in securing one’s own future. To live rationally, we must live so that death cannot destroy our life. ”

“ I shall die, as all do, as those who do not fulfill Christ’s teaching do – yet my life and death will have some meaning for myself and for all. My life and death will minister to the salvation and lives of all men ”

“ So likewise do we fancy that the life of each of us is his own, that we have a right to it, and that we can do as we like with it, without being responsible to any one. We cannot, therefore, avoid the same series of senseless and cruel actions and misfortunes, or escape the same exclusion from the life we misuse. As the vine-dressers fancied that the more cruel they were the better they would assure their own prosperity, by killing the servants and the master’s son, so do we fancy that the more cruel we are the more independent we shall become. ”

“ All the innumerable affairs that we transact for ourselves will be of no use to us in the future; all such things are but the illusion with which we deceive ourselves. ‘But one thing is necessary.’
The state of man from the day of his birth is such that inevitable destruction awaits him, that is, a senseless life and a senseless death, if he does not find what alone is necessary for the true life. Christ reveals to men that which alone gives them the true life. He does not invent it, he does not promise to give it by his divine power ”

“ We may, as Pascal says, live on without thinking of all this, holding a screen before our eyes, which hides from us the abyss of death, toward which we are all hastening; but we need only reflect upon what the individual life of man is to be convinced that the entire life, if it is only the individual life, does not make any sense but also is an evil mockery of heart and reason of man and of everything that there is good in man. ”

“ Man, according to the Jewish belief, is always mortal. God alone lives forever. In the five books of Moses we find the words ‘eternal life’ used twice. Once in Deuteronomy 32:39-40, God says, ‘See now that I am I, and there is no other God but Me. I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal, neither is there any who can be delivered from Me. I lift up my hand to heaven and say, I live for ever.’ In the book of Genesis 3:22, God says, ‘Behold, the man has eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and has become like one of us ”

“ By acting as others do, I act against the good of all men, I act contrary to the will of the Father of life, and I deprive myself of the only possibility of bettering my hopeless state. By doing what Christ teaches me I shall ensure the good of all men – of those who live at present, and of those who are to live after me. ”

“ Life itself, according to Jewish belief, is eternal, and it is such in God; man is always mortal – such is his nature.
The Old Testament does not tell us, as our Bible histories do, that God breathed an immortal soul into man, nor that the first man was immortal until he sinned. ”

“ Suppose I were to exhort a man to work, assuring him that he would thereby earn food and clothing, and that man were suddenly to discover he was already a millionaire, isn’t it obvious that he would not heed my words? It is thus with the teaching of Christ. Why should I work, when I can be rich without doing so? ”

“ Death stands every moment over you. (Luke 12:35-40) ‘Therefore, stay dressed and keep your lights shining. And you yourselves be like men who wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he comes and knocks, they may open to him immediately. ”

“ It would perhaps be more just to infer that man, after a life passed in following his own will in this world, will not enjoy an eternal individual life of bliss in paradise. That would perhaps be more just, but to think thus, to believe in eternal bliss awaiting me as a reward for the good I have done, and eternal torment as the punishment of my evil deeds, does not lead to a clear comprehension of Christ’s teaching. ”

“ If you are not able to do the very thing that is least, why do you take thought for the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow; they do not toil, they do not spin; and yet I say to you that Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these.’
However much a man may care about body and food, he cannot add one hour to his life . Then isn’t it foolish to trouble oneself about things that cannot be done? ”

“ John 8:35: ‘The servant who does his own will, and not that of his master, does not abide for ever in the house of his master; only the son, who fulfills the will of the father, abides forever,’ Christ says, expressing the same idea in another sense. ”

“ I do what he who gave me life desires me to do. I do what can alone save me.
The circus in Berditche is on fire. All crowd toward the door, crushing each other in their efforts to open the door, which opens inward. A savior comes and says to them, ‘Move further from the door, turn back; the closer you all stand to the door, the less hope of safety there is for you. If you turn back you will find an exit, and you will be saved!’ Whether I alone hear the words and believe matters but little ”

“ And Peter, thinking of Christ as he himself did, answers, ‘You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.’ And Christ says, ‘Flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but our Father who is in heaven,’ or, ‘You have understood, not because you have believed the words of men, but because, knowing yourself to be the son of God, you have understood me.’ And having explained to Peter that true faith lies in our knowing ourselves to be the sons of God, Christ says to the other disciples (v. 20) that they should, in future, tell no man that he, Jesus, is the Messiah. ”

“ A man assures me that he sees lights in the distance; that there is a village nearby. He thinks he sees the lights, and so do I; but it only seems to us that we see them because we desire to see them, for we tried to reach these same lights before, and could not find them. One of us walks on through the snow, and in a short time comes out onto the road and cries, ‘Do not go on, the lights you see are only in your imagination; you will lose your way and perish! ”

“ But we cannot deny that Christ likewise saved men by warning them of their inevitable destruction, and still saves them by the same; and that his words – ‘I am the way, the life, and the truth’ – point out to us the true path of life, instead of the wrong path of individual life that we trod before. ”

“ And therefore, in order to understand the teaching of Christ, we must first of all consider ourselves and repent, so that in us may be fulfilled the μετανοια, which the precursor of Christ, John the Baptist, speaks of when preaching to men who, like ourselves, had gone astray. He says first of all, ‘Repent,’ i.e., consider yourselves, ‘otherwise you shall all perish.’ He says, ‘The axe is already laid to the root of the tree to hew it down. Death and destruction are close at hand. ”

“ Or, what king going to make war against another king does not sit down first and consult whether he is able, with ten thousand, to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?’
‘Isn’t it senseless to work at what will never be finished, however hard you may try! ”

“ After expounding the laws, and declaring that these laws were not in heaven, but in their own hearts, Moses says (Deut. 30:15) , ‘See, I now set before you life and good, death and evil, exhorting you to love God and walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, that you may live.’ And verse 19: ‘I call heaven and earth to record against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; choose life, that you and your descendants may live, loving God, obeying Him and cleaving to Him ”