The best aphorisms and quotes about faith. The essence of any faith lies in the fact that it gives life - Orthodox social network "Elitsy"
In a moment of indecision, act quickly and try to take the first step, even if it is superfluous.
The need for happiness is embedded in man; so it became legal.
Aphorism is perhaps the best form for presenting philosophical judgments.
One of the most amazing misconceptions is the misconception that a person's happiness lies in doing nothing.
Beware of the thought that you have virtues that others do not.
From a five-year-old child to me, only a step. From a newborn to me, a terrible distance.
Happiness is pleasure without remorse.
Happiness is not in always doing what you want, but in always wanting what you do.
If only people knew that the goal of mankind is not material progress, that this progress is inevitable growth, and that the goal is the same - the good of all people ...
Only with strong, ideal aspirations can people fall morally low.
Vanity ... It must be a characteristic feature and a special disease of our age.
One girl was asked what is the most important person, what is the most important time and what is the most necessary thing? And she answered, thinking that the most important person is the one with whom you are communicating at this moment, the most important time is the one in which you are now living, and the most necessary thing is to do good to the person with whom you are dealing at every given moment.
The one who does nothing always has many helpers.
Church. The whole word is the name of a deceit by means of which some people want to rule over others.
Man must be a slave. The choice for him is only in whose: his passions, and hence people, or his spiritual beginning.
A person can serve to improve social life only to the extent that he fulfills the requirements of his conscience in his life.
Man is inconceivable outside of society.
A man 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 who separates himself from other people deprives himself of happiness, because the more he separates himself, the worse his life is.
A person who has stopped drinking and smoking acquires that mental clarity and calmness of a look that illuminates for him all the phenomena of life from a new, true side.
The more we love, the broader, fuller and more joyful our life becomes.
The better a person is, the less he is afraid of death.
To believe in good, one must begin to do it.
Egoism is crueler than personal egoism. A person who is ashamed to sacrifice the blessings of another for himself alone considers it his duty to use misfortune, the need of people for the good of the family.
Aesthetic and ethical are two arms of the same lever: as one side lengthens and becomes lighter, the other becomes shorter and heavier. As soon as a person loses his moral sense, he becomes especially sensitive to the aesthetic.
Language is an instrument of thought.
The power of one person over another destroys, first of all, the one who rules.
You can hate life only because of apathy and laziness.
All thoughts that have huge consequences are always simple.
All people of the world have the same rights to enjoy the natural benefits of the world and the same rights to respect.
All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
It always seems that we are loved for being good. And we do not guess that they love us because those who love us are good.
Every frankly expressed thought, no matter how false, every clearly conveyed fantasy, no matter how absurd, cannot fail to find sympathy in some soul.
The main obstacle to the knowledge of truth is not a lie, but a semblance of truth.
The main property in any art is a sense of proportion.
The movement towards the good of mankind is made not by tormentors, but by martyrs.
Two things a man should never grieve over: what he can help, and what he cannot help.
In order to perceive other people's thoughts, one must not have one's own.
In order to make it easy to live with each person, think about what connects you, and not about what separates you.
with him.
The good that you do from the heart, you always do to yourself.
If a savage ceased to believe in his wooden god, this does not mean that there is no God, but only that God is not wooden.
If people interfere with you, then you have no reason to live. Leaving people is suicide.
We must always marry in the same way as we die, that is, only when it is impossible otherwise.
Women, especially those who have gone through a male school, know very well that talk about high subjects is talk, and what a man needs is the body and everything that exposes it in the most deceptive, but attractive light; and this is what is being done.
Knowledge without a moral basis means nothing.
Knowledge is knowledge only when it is acquired by the efforts of one's thought, and not by memory.
Of the passions, the strongest and most stubborn is sexual, carnal love, and therefore if the passions are destroyed, and the last, strongest of them is carnal love, then the prophecy will be fulfilled: people will unite together, the goal of mankind will be achieved and there will be no need for him to live.
Have a goal for your whole life, a goal for the known, a goal for the year, for the month, for the week, for the day and for the hour and for the minute, sacrificing lower goals to higher ones.
Oddly enough, the most firm, unshakable convictions are the most superficial. Deep beliefs are always mobile.
No matter how you say it, the native language will always remain native. When you want to speak to your heart's content, not a single French word comes into your head, but if you want to shine, then it's another matter.
The root of evil deeds is in bad thoughts.
Short thoughts are good because they make the serious reader think for himself.
To love is to live the life of the one you love.
People are not punished for their sins, but are punished by the sins themselves. And this is the heaviest and most certain punishment.
People learn how to speak, and the main science is how and when to be silent.
People who live only by their feelings are animals.
Wisdom is to know what the work of life is and how to fulfill it.
Music is shorthand for feelings.
We do not love people not because they are evil, but we consider them evil because we do not love them.
Real life takes place where it is invisible.
Our good qualities harm us more in life than bad ones.
Do not believe the words of your own or those of others, believe only in the deeds of your own and those of others.
It is not so much harm that we do not do what we should, but that we do not refrain from doing what we should not do.
There is no one to blame in the world.
There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.
There are no such positions and there are no such insignificant matters in which wisdom could not be manifested.
No activity can be stable if it is not based on self-interest.
Never bother another with what you can do yourself.
Nothing encourages idleness like empty talk.
On July 15, 1852, Leo Tolstoy from the Caucasus sent his first work, the story Childhood, to the Sovremennik magazine to Nikolai Nekrasov. This was the first step in a lifelong creative journey. "War and Peace", "Anna Karenina", "Resurrection", an autobiographical trilogy, novels "Cossacks", "The Death of Ivan Ilyich", "Kreutzer Sonata", "Hadji Murad", a series of essays "Sevastopol Tales", dramas "Live Corpse" and "The Power of Darkness", religious and philosophical works "Confession" and "What is my faith?" made Tolstoy a classic during his lifetime.
the site remembered the quotes of the writer, which reveal him to the fullest.
"The greatest truths are the simplest."
“War is murder. And no matter how many people come together to commit murder, and no matter how they call themselves, murder is still the worst sin in the world.
"The essence of any faith is that it gives life a meaning that is not destroyed by death."
“How I would like, dear Sonya, that you accept this letter with the same love, disinterested, with complete forgetfulness of yourself and with one desire for good for you, which I feel now.” From a letter to his wife
“We all take courage in front of each other and forget that all of us, unless we love, are pitiful, pitiful. But we are so brave and pretend to be angry and self-confident that we ourselves fall for this and mistake sick chickens for terrible lions ... ". From a letter to Chertkov
“There is nothing that shows the character of people more than in the game.”
“Can there be any doubt about the usefulness of education? If it's good for you, then it's good for everyone." "Anna Karenina"
“There is nothing to deceive yourself. Everything is vanity." "Confession"
“It always seems that we are loved for being good. And we don’t guess that they love us because those who love us are good. « War and Peace"
“The shortest expression of the meaning of life can be this: the world moves and improves. The main task is to contribute to this movement, to submit to it and to cooperate with it.
"Mysticism without poetry is superstition, and poetry without mysticism is prose."
The essence of any faith is that it gives life a meaning that is not destroyed by death (Leo Tolstoy).
The most serious problems of modern man come from the fact that he has lost the sense of meaningful cooperation with God in His intention for humanity (Fyodor Dostoevsky).
An atheist is an unhappy child who tries in vain to convince himself that he has no father (Benjamin Franklin).
Regular church attendance is just as incapable of making a man a Christian as regular garage attendance is incapable of making a man a driver (Albert Schweitzer).
The wonderful structure of the cosmos and the harmony in it can only be explained by the fact that the cosmos was created according to the plan of an omniscient and omnipotent being (Isaac Newton).
Do not say that the Lord is on your side, but rather pray that you yourself will be on the side of the Lord (Abraham Lincoln).
It is necessary to protect God not from the outside, but from within (Yann Martel).
If there is no God and our whole life is a second on the way from dust to dust, then why is everything? (Mikhail Khodorkovsky).
Atheists are believers who do not want to be them (Stanislav Lets).
People are ready to argue over religion, write books about it, fight and die for it, but not live by it (Charles Colton).
Superstition is a religion for weak minds (Edmund Burke).
The moral code of the communist, which I studied, is completely written off from the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus Christ, and the Sermon on the Mount is written better (Gennady Zyuganov).
Before you love your enemies, try to treat your friends a little better (Edgar Howe).
The truth that makes us free is most often the truth that we do not want to hear (Herbert Eigar).
Many people believe in God, but not many people believe in God (Marty Larney).
Christ drove the merchants out of the temple, the merchants grew wiser and put on robes (Horace Safrin).
Everyone adapts God to himself, and not himself to God (Vladislav Skripnichenko).
Jehovah, having created the world, said that it was good. What would he say now? (Bernard Show).
Atheism is a thin layer of ice on which one person can walk, and the whole nation will fall into the abyss (Francis Bacon).
Hoping in God is the only way to believe in him, and therefore whoever does not pray does not believe (Pyotr Chaadaev).
The surest sign of truth is simplicity and clarity. A lie is always complex, pretentious, verbose (Leo Tolstoy).
Our lives should be preaching, not our words (Thomas Jefferson).
Every serious naturalist must be in some way a religious person. Otherwise, he is unable to imagine that those incredibly subtle interdependencies that he observes are not invented by him (Albert Einstein).
God is love; this is the only truth that I fully acknowledge (Mahatma Gandhi).
Christians are not born - Christians die (Vladimir Borisov).
Christian immortality is life without death, and not after death (Pyotr Chaadaev).
The greatest cunning of the Devil is to convince us that he does not exist (Charles Baudelaire).
Many people look at God as a servant who has to do all the dirty work for them (François Mauriac).
The only difference between a religion and a sect is the amount of real estate they own (Frank Zappa).
The more I study nature, the more I stop in reverent amazement before the works of the Creator (Louis Pasteur).
The Bible contains more signs of authenticity than all secular history (Isaac Newton).
Religion, art and science are branches of the same tree (Albert Einstein).
Live in search of God - and God will not leave you (Leo Tolstoy).
The spiritual component is increasingly being withdrawn from the system of human ideas and motivations. This distorted the entire hierarchy of values, distorted the understanding of the essence of man himself and his life goals (Alexander Solzhenitsyn).
The more we learn about our universe, the more convincing the hypothesis of the existence of the Creator (John Lennox) becomes as an explanation for the reasons for our existence.
If God created man in his own image and likeness, then man repaid him in the same way (Voltaire).
I do not have to believe that the same God who gave us feelings, common sense and reason requires us to stop using them (Galileo Galilei).
The ministers of the church often allowed nations to defend the cause of God with arms in their hands, but they never allowed rebellion against real evil and obvious violence (Paul Holbach).
We should be grateful to God that he created the world in such a way that everything simple is true, and everything complex is not true (Grigory Skovoroda).
If people are deprived of something immensely great, they will not live and will die in despair. The immeasurable and infinite is just as necessary for a person as the small planet on which he lives (Fyodor Dostoevsky).
To say that religion is inaccessible to reason is to admit that it is not created for rational beings (Paul Holbach).
Thinking Christianity must be given the right to exist among believing Christianity (Albert Schweitzer).
He is not a heretic who, according to his understanding, follows the Scriptures, but he who follows the instructions of the Church contrary to his conscience and understanding based on Scripture (John Milton).
Is it not surprising that people so often fight for religion and so rarely live according to its precepts? (Georg Lichtenberg).
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind (Albert Einstein).
When the controversy between tradition and thought ceases, Christian truth and Christian truthfulness suffer (Albert Schweitzer).
Whoever wants to see nothing but chance in this harmony, which is revealed with such obviousness in the structure of the starry sky, must attribute Divine wisdom to this occasion (Johann Medler).
Science and religion are two complementary sides of the same cognitive act, the only act that can embrace the knowledge of the Highest (Pierre de Chardin).
The Bible is the greatest gift God has ever given to man. All the best from the Savior of the world is conveyed to us through this book (Abraham Lincoln).
The connection between science and religion has never been as close and close as it is in our time. Scientists studying outer space have discovered so many wonderful and unexpected things that it is now more difficult to tell a scientist that God does not exist (Jules Duchesne).
I have known ninety-five outstanding people in the world, and eighty-seven of them were followers of the Bible (William Gladstone).
I cannot imagine the Universe and human life without some kind of comprehending beginning, without a source of spiritual warmth that lies outside matter and its laws. Probably, such a feeling can be called religious (Andrey Sakharov).
The day will come when they will laugh at the stupidity of our contemporary materialistic philosophy (Louis Pasteur).
It is impossible to properly rule the world without God and the Bible (George Washington).
The order in the universe, which unfolds before our eyes, itself testifies to the truth of the greatest and most sublime statement: “In the beginning is God” (Arthur Compton).
If we adhere to the principles taught by the Bible, our country will be in a state of perpetual prosperity (Daniel Webster).
Both religion and science ultimately seek the truth and come to the confession of God. The first represents Him as the basis, the second - as the end of any phenomenal idea of the world (Max Planck).
If there is any value in all that I have written, it is because in my childhood my mother read passages of the Bible to me daily and demanded that I memorize these passages daily (John Ruskin).
In an infinite universe, the activity of an infinitely perfect Mind is revealed (Albert Einstein).
All hope of human progress is based on the ever-increasing influence of the Bible (William Seward).
I wonder why people choose to wander in obscurity on so many important issues when God gave them such a wonderful book of revelation (Michael Faraday).
I cannot understand a scientist who would not recognize the Higher Reason in the entire system of the universe, just as I could not understand a theologian who would deny the progress of science. Religion and science are sisters (Wernher von Braun).
It is impossible to mentally or socially enslave the people who read the Bible. Biblical principles underlie human freedom (Horace Greeley).
The scientist has much more reason to believe in God today than it was 50 years ago, because now science has seen its limits (Hansjochem Outrum).
The existence of the Bible as a book is the greatest benefit to all people ever experienced by mankind. Any attempt to belittle the Bible is a crime against humanity (Immanuel Kant).
The Bible is an extraordinary book. She is a Living Being, conquering everything that opposes her (Napoleon).
Reading the Bible is an education in itself (Alfred Tennyson).
I needed an abstract, unattainable high ideal of faith. And having taken up the Gospel, which I had never read before, and I was already 38 years old, I found this ideal for myself (Nikolai Pirogov).
There are no contradictions between God the Creator and what we have already discovered in the Universe, it is quite possible to be a religious person and a scientist at the same time (Peter Higgs).
Compared to the Bible, all human books, even the best, are only planets, borrowing all their light and radiance from the Sun (Robert Boyle).
Whoever has made an attempt to depict the history of the universe, this attempt cannot present anything higher and more worthy than the biblical account of creation (John Dawson).
How insignificant are philosophical writings, in spite of all their brilliance, in comparison with Holy Scripture! Can any other composition in such a short time rise so high, being the work of an ordinary man? (Jean-Jacques Rousseau).
The New Testament is the greatest book now and in the future for the whole world (Charles Dickens).
All human discoveries serve to more strongly prove the truths found in the Holy Scriptures (William Herschel).
There is a book in which everything is said, everything is decided, after which there is no doubt about anything, the book is immortal, holy, the book of eternal truth, eternal life - the Gospel. The whole progress of mankind, all the successes in the sciences, in philosophy consist only in a greater penetration into the secret depth of this divine book (Vissarion Belinsky).
God! What a book this Holy Scripture is, what a miracle and what power given to man with it! (Fedor Dostoevsky).
The teaching of the Bible is so intertwined with our civil and social life that it is impossible to imagine human life if this teaching is removed from it. With the removal of the Bible, we will lose all foundation (Theodore Roosevelt).
The Bible speaks to the heart of every generation, and the measure for assessing the vitality and strength of a people will always be its attitude towards the Bible (Johann Goethe).
Holy Scripture, no matter how much you reread it, the more you penetrate it, the more everything is illuminated and expanded. Here is the only Book in the world: it has everything! (Alexander Pushkin).
Only a superficial knowledge of nature can lead us away from God, while a deeper and more thorough knowledge, on the contrary, returns us to Him (Francis Bacon).
The Deity indicated to man a common goal - to ennoble mankind and himself (Karl Marx).
I attribute to the Bible the greatness of England (Queen Victoria of Great Britain).
The Bible is the truest expression ever expressed by the letters of our alphabet, which came out of the human soul, through which, as if through a God-opened window, all people can look at the silence of eternity and recognize in the distance a glimpse of a long-forgotten house (Thomas Carlyle).
So great is my respect for the Bible that the sooner my children begin to read it, the more confident I will be that they will become useful citizens of their country and respected members of society (John Adams).
Let scientific culture develop, let natural science prosper in depth and breadth, let the human mind develop as much as you like, but they will not surpass the cultural and moral level of Christianity, which shines in the Gospels (Johann Goethe).
Born in the East and dressed in oriental form and imagery, the Bible travels all over the world with ordinary steps and enters country after country to find its own everywhere. She learned to speak to a person's heart in hundreds of languages (Henry Van Dyck).
There is only one book - the Bible (Walter Scott).
Reading the Bible always gives the most real consolation. I don't know anything to compare it to. Both the Old and New Testament equally strengthen the soul (Wilhelm von Humboldt).
A mathematician is unreasonable if he wants to measure God's will with a compass. The teacher of theology is the same if he thinks that one can learn astronomy or chemistry from the psalter (Mikhail Lomonosov).
The greatness and wonderful accuracy of the functioning of the Universe is the result of the action of natural laws, which God uses as an instrument (Igor Sikorsky).
People still have not found an excuse for why they crucified Christ, but they will do it again as soon as such an opportunity arises (Boris Krieger).
If they prove to me mathematically that the truth is not in Christ, I will prefer Christ (Fyodor Dostoevsky).
Respectable people believe in God just not to talk about him (Jean Paul Sartre).
The terrible, insoluble question: how can smart, educated people - Catholics, Orthodox - believe in the absurdities of church faith, can only be explained by hypnosis (Leo Tolstoy).
One should believe in what helps to live, and not believe in what hinders (Boris Krieger).
The Bible is the best of all books that the world has ever known or will ever know... It teaches the best of all lessons that can serve as a guide to a person (Charles Dickens).
Two things always fill the soul with new and stronger surprise, reverence, the more often and longer we think about them - this is the starry sky above me and the moral law in me (Immanuel Kant).
If religion is not in the first place, then it is in the last place (Leo Tolstoy).
It is not our business to prescribe to God how to govern this world (Niels Bohr).
In the Jewish-Christian religious tradition we find the highest principles by which we must guide all our aspirations and judgments. Our weak forces are not enough to reach this highest goal, but it forms a reliable foundation for all our aspirations and value judgments (Albert Einstein).
One hundred years have passed since the death of Leo Tolstoy
- We understand that it is very wrong to approach literature from the standpoint of “this writer is not a Christian, and that one is not a Christian either. But this one did not believe well, not as faithfully and qualitatively as I did.” And how is it right to approach the legacy of such complex personalities, and even those who changed during their lives, who influenced society in their time, like Tolstoy, and influenced both positively and negatively?
Holy Georgy Kochetkov: Any human personality is complex and contradictory, not absolute and imperfect within the framework of historical existence. Only in metahistory is the true face of a person revealed, only the Court of God can make final assessments and reveal the fullness of the truth about each person. So our job is to humbly look at the fruits and rejoice at all the good that this or that person has, to find this good, to focus on it, and not on shortcomings. Of course, we must take into account certain sins, vices or deviations from the faith when we read works that are somehow especially related to this topic. But that rarely happens. Undoubtedly, we have a different attitude towards Tolstoy's religious writings and artistic works, especially after his deviation towards a certain moralistic-theosophical side, i.e. actually in "tolstoy". Even the novel "Resurrection" is an outstanding work from an artistic point of view, although it was he who gave rise to judgments about the non-Christian frame of mind of Lev Nikolayevich. Be that as it may, Tolstoy is a brilliant writer, and genius is a gift from God. This is not just human talent, it is something that reveals such aspects of life, gives such assessments that people have not been able to discover before. It is always a turning point in history. There are few geniuses - too few - and we cannot throw them away, we cannot forget that if the Lord gave a person such the gift, therefore, called for something more than most other people. Tolstoy is not an evil genius. Yes, he is not all Christian. Yes, he is not entirely right in his religious views. Much has been judged by history as a mistake or an evasion. But he is not declared a teacher of the church, a teacher of the whole world. Nobody looks at him like that.
He said a lot of important and valuable things, especially when he touched upon the issues of mercy, kindness, openness to various currents of the spiritual heritage of mankind, and you need to discover and assimilate this for yourself. And what our Christian conscience does not accept, we can bracket one way or another.
What about his excommunication? Was it or was it not?
Holy Georgy Kochetkov: Tolstoy was not anathematized. He himself wrote about this in his reply to the Synod. On the part of the church, everything was done in a rather compromise manner, so as to, rather, as if to warn the people about the danger of the delusions of Tolstoy, who at that time had a great influence on the minds of people. But the church procedure of excommunication and anathematization was not carried out.
At that time, it was important to warn about the danger, first of all, the intelligentsia, which came into sharp conflict with the church. And Leo Tolstoy was, as it were, the banner of this conflict. Many people (he himself wrote about this) spoke out much sharper than he did. Yes, he misunderstood Christianity, but at the same time he said: I want to remain a Christian and serve God all my life, and I remain them as I understand it, as I can accept it in my heart and in my conscience.
It is important to remember where he went before his death. He did not go to his comrades, students, followers, but to Optina Hermitage, and even through the Shamorda Monastery, where his sister was. He left Yasnaya Polyana reading The Brothers Karamazov. He called the Optina elder and waited for him, and only his inner circle did not allow this meeting. These details, which are really important for a person's spiritual destiny, are often forgotten by people.
It must be said that even today many characters in the church are identified in relation to such people as Tolstoy. Some are ready only to anathematize and burn heretics, while others begin to understand. And they come to the conclusion that in no case should we interfere in the Court of God. The Lord is the last Judge! We must give freedom to God to act, and Tolstoy gave a reason for this: by 1910, he really had changed a lot. Not only was he completely ready to accept the whole of church life - he knew the shortcomings of the church, and she knew his shortcomings - but he did not insist on the positions that he showed in 1901. It is also important that the project prepared by Pobedonostsev for the Synod , was softened by the Synod itself even then, in 1901.
- For the whole world, Leo Tolstoy personifies the glory of Russian literature and culture in general. Thanks to him, Russian culture is perceived as a predominantly verbal culture. Now, when many political and public disputes associated with his name are gone and the context of the life of the church and society has become completely different, what can we, as believers, as members of the church, say about his significance for Russia?
Holy Georgy Kochetkov: I would not entirely agree with you that it is only thanks to Tolstoy that Russian culture is perceived in the world as a great and, first of all, verbal culture. She, of course, created "holy Russian literature" (T. Mann), but she also gave Andrey Rublev, and many other great painters, as well as great composers - Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, right up to Schnittke - and great figures of world significance, figures of the Russian religious and philosophical revival - Berdyaev, Bulgakov ... This is a culture capable of a great feat, which has become an example. I mean the feat of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. Russian saints, Russian philosophers and thinkers, Russian writers, composers, artists - this is the glory of the Russian people, the people who lived on our land until the communist hard times. Another thing, th about now it will be with us and with our land, after overcoming this communist fever, this disease. This is problem. But we are not talking about this now.
We, as believers, must first of all recognize the great importance of Tolstoy, see the positive side of his work, his talent, and even his religious activity, which is the most controversial and, in fact, occupies a very marginal position in his life. Even in it one must look for a certain meaning, because it was a reaction to the vices of the church and public life of that time. Tolstoy's spiritual influence, not so much religious as moral - both positive and negative - was enormous. I very much agree with Berdyaev, who believed that in the revolution, which became the spiritual suicide of the Russian people, the aspirations expressed and put into practice by Leo Tolstoy were realized to a large extent. It is clear that his name was used. It is rightly said that he would be horrified if he saw how his ideas were being implemented, and would never support this, because he was against violence in principle, and the revolution was built on violence and became the quintessence of this violence.
But we have to think about something else - about what questions Tolstoy put before us. After all, these questions, connected with the place of labor in life, with simplicity in Christ, with universal ethical principles, which can appear in different forms, have not been answered.
We are still often too narrow and in their views both on our own and on the common human heritage. We often find it difficult to resolve for ourselves the questions that Tolstoy posed. So one must read Tolstoy, one must reflect on him, as well as on Dostoevsky, Gogol and many others. By our time, all the criticism connected with Tolstoy's work is well known, and this enriches us. A lot of deep, serious things have been said. And it is very important, when reading his works and applying your heart to the meaning and spirit that they contain, to sympathize with what Tolstoy writes about. It is important to keep moving forward. And we have every opportunity for this, if only we treat this deeply and sensibly enough.
It seems to us that, remembering Leo Tolstoy, it is important to give the floor to him as well. We are printing a small excerpt from one of the novels to remember how the great writer at some point in his life treated faith and the Church.
However, listen, once Stepan Arkadyevitch said to Levin, returning from the village, where he had arranged everything for the arrival of the young people, do you have any evidence that you were in good spirits?
No. And what?
You can't get married without it.
Ah ah ah! cried Levin. "I don't think I've been speaking for nine years." I didn't even think.
Good!” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, laughing, “but you call me a nihilist!” However, this is not possible. You need to speak.
When? Four days left.
Stepan Arkadyevitch arranged that too. And Levin began to talk. For Levin, as for a person who does not believe and at the same time respects the beliefs of other people, the presence and participation in all kinds of church rites was very difficult. Now, in that sensitive to everything, softened state of mind in which he was, this need to pretend was not only difficult for Levin, but seemed completely impossible. Now, in the state of his glory, his flowering, he will either have to lie or blaspheme. He felt unable to do either. But no matter how much he interrogated Stepan Arkadyevitch whether it was possible to obtain a certificate without going to bed, Stepan Arkadyevitch announced that it was impossible.
Yes, and what do you about um - two days? And he's a sweet, smart old man. He'll pull that tooth out for you without you even noticing.
Standing at the first mass, Levin tried to refresh his youthful memories of that strong religious feeling that he experienced from sixteen to seventeen years. But he immediately became convinced that this was absolutely impossible for him. He tried to look at it all as an unimportant empty custom, like the custom of making visits; but he felt that he could not do that either. Levin was in relation to religion, like most of his contemporaries, in the most indefinite position. He could not believe, but at the same time he was not firmly convinced that all this was unfair. And therefore, not being able to believe in the significance of what he did, nor to look at it indifferently, as an empty formality, during all this shit he experienced a feeling of awkwardness and shame, doing what he himself does not understand, and therefore, as his inner voice told him, something false and bad.
During the service, he either listened to prayers, trying to attribute to them a meaning that would not disagree with his views, then, feeling that he could not understand and should condemn them, he tried not to listen to them, but was busy with his thoughts, observations and memories, which, with extraordinary liveliness, wandered through his head during this idle standing in the church.
He stood up for Liturgy, Vigil and the evening rules, and the next day, getting up earlier than usual, without drinking tea, he came to church at eight o'clock in the morning to hear the morning rules and confession.
There was no one in the church, except for a beggar soldier, two old women and clergymen.
A young deacon, with two halves of a long back under a thin cassock, met him and immediately, going up to a table against the wall, began to read the rules. As he read, especially with the frequent and rapid repetition of the same words: "Lord have mercy," which sounded like "mercy, mercy," Levin felt that his thought was locked up and sealed, and that now he should not touch and move it, otherwise there will be confusion, and therefore he, standing behind the deacon, continued, without listening and without understanding, to think about his own. There is an amazing amount of expression in her hand, he thought, remembering how they had been sitting at the corner table yesterday. There was nothing for them to talk about, as almost always at that time, and she laid her hand on the table, opened and closed it, and laughed herself, looking at her movement. He remembered how he'd kissed that hand and then looked at the converging features on the pink palm. "Have mercy again," thought Levin, crossing himself, bowing, and looking at the supple movement of the bowing deacon's back. "She then took my hand and examined the lines: - You have a nice hand," she said. And he looked at his hand and at the short hand of the deacon. “Yes, it will be over soon,” he thought. - No, it seems, again from the beginning, - he thought, listening to the prayers. - No, it ends; now he is bowing to the ground. It's always before the end."
Unobtrusively receiving a three-rouble note in a plush cuff, the deacon said that he would write it down, and, sounding briskly with his new boots on the flagstones of the empty church, he went into the altar. A minute later he looked out and beckoned to Levin. The hitherto locked-up thought stirred in Levin's head, but he hastened to drive it away. "Somehow it will get settled," he thought, and went to the pulpit. He entered the steps and, turning to the right, saw the priest. The old priest, with a sparse half-gray beard, with tired, kind eyes, stood at the lectern and leafed through the breviary. Bowing slightly to Levin, he immediately began to recite prayers in his accustomed voice. Having finished them, he bowed to the ground and turned his face to Levin.
Here Christ stands invisibly, accepting your confession,” he said, pointing to the crucifix. - Do you believe in everything that the Holy Apostolic Church teaches us? continued the priest, turning his eyes away from Levin's face and folding his hands under his stole.
I doubted, I doubt everything,” Levin said in a voice unpleasant to himself, and fell silent.
The priest waited a few seconds to see if he would say anything else, and, closing his eyes, in a quick Vladimirian “o” accent, he said:
Doubt is inherent in human weakness, but we must pray that the merciful Lord will strengthen us. What special sins do you have? he added without the slightest interval, as if trying not to waste time.
My main sin is doubt. I doubt everything, and for the most part I am in doubt.
Doubt is inherent in human weakness,” the priest repeated the same words. - What do you mostly doubt?
I doubt everything. I sometimes doubt even the existence of God,” Levin involuntarily said, and was horrified at the indecency of what he was saying. But Levin's words made no impression on the priest, as it seemed.
How can there be any doubt about the existence of God? - With a slightly perceptible smile, he said hastily.
Levin was silent.
What doubt can you have about the Creator when you look at his creations? continued the priest in his quick, habitual voice. - Who adorned the vault of heaven with luminaries? Who clothed the earth with its beauty? What if there is no Creator? he said, looking inquiringly at Levin.
Levin felt that it would be indecent to enter into a philosophical debate with a priest, and therefore said in reply only what was directly related to the question.
I don't know, he said.
Do not know? How do you doubt that God created everything? - the priest said with cheerful bewilderment.
I don’t understand anything,” said Levin, blushing and feeling that his words were stupid and that they couldn’t help but be stupid in such a situation.
Pray to God and ask him. Even the holy fathers had doubts and asked God to confirm their faith. The devil has great power and we must not give in to him. Pray to God, ask him. Pray to God, he repeated hastily.
The priest was silent for some time, as if thinking.
You, as I heard, are going to marry the daughter of my parishioner and spiritual son, Prince Shcherbatsky? he added with a smile. A beautiful girl.
Yes,” answered Levin, blushing for the priest. “Why does he need to ask about this in confession?” he thought.
And, as if answering his thought, the priest said to him:
You're about to get married, and maybe God will reward you with offspring, isn't it? Well, what kind of education can you give your little ones, if you do not overcome the temptation of the devil in yourself, which leads you to unbelief? he said with mild reproach. - If you love your child, then you, like a good father, will wish your offspring more than one wealth, luxury, honor; you will desire his salvation, his spiritual enlightenment with the light of truth. Is not it? What will you answer him when an innocent baby asks you: “Daddy! who created everything that seduces me in this world - earth, water, sun, flowers, herbs? Will you say to him, "I don't know"? You cannot but know when the Lord God, in His great mercy, revealed this to you. Or your child will ask you: “What awaits me in the afterlife?” What do you say to him when you don't know anything? How will you answer him? Grant him the charms of the world and the devil? This is not good! he said, and stopped, bowing his head to one side and looking at Levin with kind, meek eyes.
Levin did not answer now - not because he did not want to enter into an argument with the priest, but because no one asked him such questions; and when his little ones ask these questions, there will still be time to think what to answer.
You are entering a time of life,” continued the priest, “when you must choose a path and stick to it. Pray to God that He, in His goodness, will help you and have mercy, he concluded. - "The Lord and our God Jesus Christ, by the grace and bounty of His philanthropy, may He forgive your child ..." - And, having finished the permissive prayer, the priest blessed and let him go.
Returning home that day, Levin experienced the joyful feeling that the awkward situation was over, and ended in such a way that he did not have to lie. In addition, he had a vague memory that what this kind and sweet old man said was not at all as stupid as he thought at first, and that there is something here that needs to be understood.
"Of course, not now," thought Levin, "but sometime later." Levin, more than before, now felt that something was unclear and impure in his soul, and that in relation to religion he was in the same position which he saw so clearly and disliked in others, and for which he reproached his friend. his Sviyazhsky.
Anna Karenina, v.5, chapter 1
Lev Tolstoy- a brilliant Russian writer, educator and thinker, who made a huge contribution to Russian literature and history. His works are a painful search for the meaning of life, the moral ideal and the laws of being, and his worldview gave rise to a new religious and moral trend - Tolstoyism.
Even during his lifetime, he was recognized as the head of Russian literature. His work has been filmed and staged all over the world. And his works are full of the deepest life observations about happiness, love, eternity and faith:
- 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.
- Let everyone sweep in front of his door. If everyone does this, the whole street will be clean.
- One of the most common misconceptions is to consider people as good, evil, stupid, smart. A person flows, and there are all possibilities in him: he was stupid, he became smart, he was angry, he became kind, and vice versa. This is the greatness of man. And you can't judge a person from that. What? You condemned, and he is already different.
- It always seems that we are loved for being so good. And we do not guess that they love us because those who love us are good.
- strong people are always simple.
- All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
- Life is easier without love. But without it there is no point.
- I don't have everything I love. But I love everything I have.
- The world moves forward thanks to those who suffer.
- Respect was invented to hide the empty space where love should be.
- The greatest truths are the simplest.
- The point is not to know a lot, but to know from all that you can know, the most necessary.
- People often take pride in the purity of their conscience just because they have a short memory.
- There is no scoundrel who, having searched, would not find scoundrels in some respects worse than himself, and who therefore could not find a reason to be proud and be pleased with himself.
- Evil is only within us, that is, where it can be taken out.
- Everyone is making plans, and no one knows if he will live until the evening.
- The essence of any faith is that it gives life a meaning that is not destroyed by death.
- Happiness is more likely to enter the house where a good mood always reigns..
- A person should always be happy, if happiness ends, look where you made a mistake.
- I am sure that the meaning of life for each of us is simply to grow in love.
- Everything comes to those who know how to wait.
- Real faith is not in knowing which days there is fasting, which days to go to church and which prayers to listen to and read, but to always live a good life in love with everyone, always do with your neighbor the way you want, to do with you.
- There are no conditions to which a person could not get used, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives the same way.
- Everyone dreams of changing the world, but no one aims to change themselves.
- The most evil person's face lights up when he is told that he is loved. So, this is happiness...
- There is no better feeling in the world than the feeling that you have done at least a drop of good for people.
- Happy is he who is happy at home.
- All answers are in you. You know more than what's in the books. But to remember this, you need to read books, look into yourself, listen to yourself and trust yourself.
- When you've been betrayed, it's like having your arms broken. You can forgive, but you can't hug.
- One of the most amazing misconceptions is that a person's happiness lies in doing nothing..
