People try to do all sorts of clever and difficult things to improve life instead of doing the simplest, easiest thing—refusing to participate in activities that make life bad.
~ Leo Tolstoy
slip:4a1443.
Improvement →
Seek the truth →
Seek the truth: It always shows us what we should do, what we should not do, and what we should stop doing.
~ Leo Tolstoy
slip:4a1182.
Real life →
Real life is found only in the present. If people tell you that you should live your life preparing for the future, do not believe them. We live in this life, and we know this life only, and therefore all our efforts should be directed toward the improvement of this life. Not your life in general but every hour of this life should be lived in the best way you know how.
~ Leo Tolstoy
slip:4a1173.
Yourself →
If you see that some aspect of your society is bad, and you want to improve it, there is only one way to do so: You have to improve people. And in order to improve people, you begin with only one thing: You can become better yourself.
~ Leo Tolstoy
slip:4a1164.
Try to remember →
After a long conversation, stop and try to remember what you have just discussed. Don’t be surprised if many things, sometimes even everything you have discussed, were meaningless, empty, and trivial, and sometimes even bad.
~ Leo Tolstoy
slip:4a1128.
Which are necessary →
Real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know. Among the most necessary knowledge is the knowledge of how to live well, that is, how to produce the least possible evil and the greatest goodness in one’s life. At present, people study useless sciences, but forget to study this, the most important knowledge.
~ Leo Tolstoy
slip:4a1155.
Clever →
If you want to be a clever person, you have to learn how to ask cleverly, how to listen attentively, how to respond quietly, and how to stop talking when there is nothing more to say.
~ Leo Tolstoy
slip:4a1146.
Think more →
Read less, study less, but think more. Learn, both from your teachers and from the books which you read, only those things which you really need and which you really want to know.
~ Leo Tolstoy
slip:4a1105.
Silence kept →
For every time you regret that you did not say something, you will regret a hundred times that you did not keep your silence.
~ Leo Tolstoy
slip:4a1137.
Knowledge →
What is important in knowledge is not quantity, but quality. It is important to know what knowledge is significant, what is less so, and what is trivial.
~ Leo Tolstoy
slip:4a1062.