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"For
a good life, a certain order of good action is inevitable."
"I
have no recollection of what we call nature. Probably one has to
leave it in order to see it."
"If
you want to be happy you have to live for others."
"It
is better to actually labor for and with the poor, than it is to
give the poor the results of your labor."
"It
is by those who have suffered, not by those who have struck the
world have advanced."
"The
closer we come to death, the more important becomes this single
indispensable thing called life."
"The
proper way to resist evil is to absolutely refuse to do evil either
for one's self or for others."
"The
proper way to resist evil is to absolutely refuse to do evil either
for one's self or for others."
"To
remember death means to remember our true life - that is a life
independent of death."
On Vegetarianism: That movement has during the last ten years
advanced more and more rapidly. More and more books and periodicals
on this subject appear every year; one meets more and more people
who have given up meat; and abroad, especially Germany, England
and America, the number of vegetarian hotels and restaurants increases
year by year."
On biography: I have tried to think about it, and I saw what a dreadful difficulty it is to avoid the Charybdis of self-praise (by keeping silence about all that is bad) and the Scylla of cynical frankness about all the abomination of one's life. Were a man to describe all his odiousness, stupidity, viciousness, vileness - quite truthfully, even more truthfully than Rousseau - it would be a seductive book or article. People would say : 'Here is a man whom many place high, but look what a scoundrel he was; if so, then for us ordinary folk it is all the more admissible'."
ANECDOTES (Tolstoyspeak)
Not long ago I had a talk with a retired soldier, a butcher, and he was surprised at my assertion that it was a pity to kill, and said the usual things about it's being ordained. But afterwards he agreed with me : 'Especially when they are quiet, tame cattle. They come, poor things, trusting you. It is very pitiful'. |
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"This
is dreadful! Not the suffering and death of the animals, but that
a man surpresses in himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual
capacity - that of sympathy and pity towards living creatures like
himself - and by violating his own feelings becomes cruel. And how
deeply seated in the human heart is the injunction not to take life!"
"Once,
when walking from Moscow, I was offered a lift by some carters who
were going from Serpukhov to a neighboring forest to fetch wood.
It was Thursday before Easter. I was seated in the first cart with
a strong, red, coarse cartman, who evidently drank. On entering
a village we saw a well-fed, naked, pink pig being dragged out of
the first yard to be slaughtered. It squealed in a dreadful voice,
resembling the shriek of a man. Just as we were passing they began
to kill it. A man gashed its throat with a knife. The pig squealed
still more loudly and piercingly, broke away from the men, and ran
off covered with blood.
"Being
near-sighted I did not see all the details. I saw only the human-looking
pink body of the pig and heard its desperate squeal, but the carter
saw all the details and watched closely. They caught the pig, knocked
it down, and finished cutting its throat. When its squeals ceased
the carter sighed heavily. 'Do men really not have to answer for
such things ?" he said.
"So
strong is humanity's aversion to all killing. But by example, by
encouraging greediness, by the assertion that God has allowed it,
and above all by habit, people entirely lose this natural feeling."
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