April 8

People think that if they call mass murder "war," then mass murder will stop being a murder, a crime.

One can deny Christ in various ways: one can blaspheme rudely, or mock his greatness. But such ways are not dangerous; religion is too precious for people, and this mockery cannot cleave them from it. But there is another way to deny Christ: this is when you call Him your master, and you claim to follow His commandments, but you suppress any free thought by quoting his words, and disguise all stupidities, all mistakes, and all sins of the people in his name. This second way is the truly dangerous one.

— Theodore Parker

It is not true that a war against a foreign nation can be sacred. It is not true that the earth wants blood. The earth wants pure water from the sky for its rivers, pure dew from its clouds, but not blood. War is cursed by God, as are those who participate ill it.

— Alfred De Vigny

And because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold.

Rather, it is your crimes that separate you from God, and it is your sins that make him hide his face so that he will not hear you. For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt; your lips speak falsehood, and your tongue utters deceit.

— Isaiah 59:2-3

Murder is always a crime, no matter whom, and how it is justified. 

April 6

People involve themselves in countless activities which they consider to be important, but they forget about one activity which is more important and necessary than any other, and which includes all other things: the improvement of their soul. 

The biggest happiness is when at the end of the year you feel better than at the beginning.

— Henry David Thoreau

"Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.” This means that you should try to find the presence of the Holy Spirit in your soul.

To improve ourselves, to move toward that goal, perfection, that puts no less a demand on us for being unattainable, requires solitude, removal from the concerns of everyday life. And yet constant solitude renders self-improvement impossible, if not pointless. A balance must be struck between meditating in solitude and then applying this to your everyday life. 

February 24

For a truth to be heard, it must be spoken with kindness. Truth is kind only when it is spoken through your heart with sincerity. You should know that when a message you convey to another person is not understood by him, at least one of  the following things is true: what you have said is not true, or you have conveyed it without kindness.

The only way to tell the truth is to speak with kindness. Only the words of a loving man can be heard.

— Henry David Thoreau

To tell the truth is the same as to be a good tailor, or to be a good farmer, or to write beautifully. To be good at any activity requires practice: no matter how hard you try, you cannot do naturally what you have not done repeatedly. In order to get accustomed to speaking the truth, you should tell only the truth, even in the smallest of things.

We lie to other people so often that we get used to it, and we start to lie to ourselves.

— Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Truth cannot make a person unkind, or too self-assured; the manifestations of truth telling are humility and simplicity.

January 28

For a person to know the law that makes him free, he must be elevated from a material to a spiritual life.

I have many things to say and to judge on you: but he that sent me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him. They understand not that he spake to them of the Father. Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.

— JOHN 8:26-28

"I and God are the same," said the teacher. If you think that my spiritual being is God, you are mistaken. But my real self is close to God, and to other people. In order to understand this part of  myself, you should elevate the man inside of you. When you elevate the man inside of you, then you will see that there is no difference between him and any other person on earth.

   It only seems as if we differ from each other. A flower on a blossoming tree can think that it is a separate being, but all flowers are parts of the same blossoming of one apple tree, and they all come from one seed.

We live a short period of time in this world, but we live it according to the laws of eternal life.

— After Henry David Thoreau

Submission to the law created by men makes one a slave; obedience to the law created by God makes one free

January 9

Knowledge is real knowledge only when it is acquired by the efforts of your intellect, not by memory. Only when we forget what we were taught do we start to have real knowledge.
— Henry David Thoreau

 

A constant flow of thoughts expressed by other people can stop and deaden your own thought and your own initiative . . . That is why constant learning softens your brain . . . Stopping the creation of your own thoughts to give room for the thoughts from other books reminds me of Shakespeare's remark about his contemporaries who sold their land in order to see other countries.

— Arthur Schopenhauer

 

A thought can advance your life in the right direction only when it answers questions which were asked by your soul. A thought which was first borrowed from someone else and then accepted by your mind and memory does not really much influence your life, and sometimes leads you in the wrong direction.

 

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.

January 1

Better to know a few things which are good and necessary than many things which are useless and mediocre.

What a great treasure can be hidden in a small, selected library! A company of the wisest and the most deserving people from all the civilized countries of the world, for thousands of years, can make the results of their studies and their wisdom available to us. The thought which they might not even reveal to their best friends is written here in clear words for us, people from another century. Yes, we should be grateful for the best books, for the best spiritual achievements in our lives.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are too many mediocre books which exist just to entertain your mind. Therefore, read only those books which are accepted without doubt as good.

— Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Read the best books first, otherwise you’ll find you do not have time.

— Henry David Thoreau

The difference between real material poison and intellectual poison is that most material poison is disgusting to the taste, but intellectual poison, which takes the form of cheap newspapers or bad books, can unfortunately sometimes be attractive.

December 12

Kindness defeats everything and can never be defeated.

You can stand firm in a fight against everything except kindness.

— Jean Jacques Rousseau

It is not the blaming of evil but the glorifying of goodness that creates harmony in our life.

— Lucy Malory

If a good action has an ulterior cause, then it is not truly good. If it expects reward, it is not truly good. Good things are beyond reason and consequence.

In the same way that fireworks and torches cannot be seen in the light of the sun, the best intellect and the greatest beauty cannot be seen in the light of the kindness of a single heart.

— Arthur Schopenhauer

The most tender plants can push their way through the hardest rocks, and it is the same with kindness. Nothing can stop a truly kind and sincere person.

— Henry David Thoreau

The person does not exist to whom you cannot do good.

— Lucius Annaeus Seneca

We do good to people not in hope of reward, but because we see the divine spirit within everyone.

The best and easiest way to thwart evil in this world is to respond to it with kind words, return an evil action with good. 

November 22

The more busy you are with the improvement of your inner life, the more active you become in social life, helping other people.

It is as wrong for one person to rule many as it is for many to rule one.

— Vladimir Chertkov

What is truth? For the majority of people, truth is the majority of counted votes.

— Thomas Carlyle

When I sit on the seashore and listen to the waves beating on the sand, I feel free from any obligation, and I think that all the people of the world can change their constitutions without me.

— Henry David Thoreau

Never build, but always plant: in the case of the first, nature will interfere and destroy the creation of your work, but in the case of the second, nature will help you, causing growth in everything you planted. The same thing happens in your spiritual life: those things which are in harmony with the eternal laws of human nature will grow, but those things which correspond to the temporal wishes of people will not. 

September 25

Work is not a virtue, but it is the necessary condition of a virtuous life.

 

Hurried work done in irritation attracts the unfavorable attention of the others. Real work is always quiet, constant, and inconspicuous.

 

It is not enough to be a hardworking person. Think: what do you work at?

— Henry David Thoreau

 

For every idle person, there is another person who works too much. For every person who eats to excess, there is another person somewhere who is hungry.

 

Much of the activity of idle people who pretend that they are busy with work is merely entertaining; it just adds a burden to other people. This can be said of all luxuriant entertainments.

September 16

Doubts do not destroy truth; they strengthen it.

 

Disbelief is not when a person believes or does not believe in something. It is when he prophesies those things in which he does not believe.

— Harriet Martineau

 

You will have moments in which you no longer believe in the existence of the spiritual dimension of life. Look at these moments as events in the development of your faith. A person who understands the spiritual nature of life may still at some point become afraid of death, usually for a short period of time, in the same way that you can see as we watch a scene at the theater and forget that you are watching a play, and become scared by what you are seeing as if it were real.

So it is in real life: in moments of self-delusion, a religious person forgets that what happens in his physical life cannot interfere with what happens in his spiritual life.

In these periods, when your spirits have fallen, you have to treat yourself as an ill man.

 

A wise man has doubts even in his best moments. Real truth is always accompanied by hesitations. If I could not hesitate, I could not believe.

— Henry David Thoreau

 

He who hesitates is not distanced from God; it is he who believes unhesitatingly in someone else's word that God exists or does not exist who is far from God.

September 14

Violence is harmful because it is usually dressed in wealth, and it therefore arouses some respect for those things which should arouse disgust.

People who have power are sure that it is only violence that guides people, and so they use violence to support the existing order. But the existing order is not based on violence, but on public opinion.

A person is not created either to subdue others, or to follow the orders of others. People are corrupted by both ways of behavior. In the first they assume too much importance, in the second, too little respect. In both ways there is very little dignity.

— Victor Considérant

Our life would become wonderful if we could see all the disgusting things which exist in it.

— Henry David Thoreau

Subduing people through violence is never justice.

— Blaise Pascal

He who depends on violence behaves wrongly. The maker of beautiful speeches is not wise, only he who is free from hatred and fear is truly wise.

— Buddhist Wisdom

All violence is contrary to love: do not participate in violence.

August 27

The best and the most important object for every person is his inner self, his spiritual being.

A person who knows all sciences but does not know himself is a poor and ignorant person. He who does not know anything except for his inner spiritual self is an enlightened person.

When you feel the desire for power, you should stay in solitude for some time.

— Henry David Thoreau

The way to fame goes through the palaces, the way to happiness goes through the markets, the way to virtue goes through the deserts.

— Chinese Proverb

A person always has a place to be safe from all of his misfortunes, and this place is his soul.

If you could only know who you are, all your troubles would seem utterly unnecessary and trivial.

August 8

The opinion of a revered writer or thinker can have a deep influence on society; it can also be a big obstacle to understanding real truth.

Divine truth may be revealed in the speech of children, or in the ravings and nightmares of madmen; or in the ordinary conversions of simple people. And weak and false thoughts may be found in books which have come to be considered great, or even sacred.

Many statements which are accepted as truth because they have been passed down to us by tradition look like truth only because we have never tested them, never thought about in a more precise way.

For the majority of mankind, religion is a habit, or, more precisely, tradition is their religion. Though it seems strange, I think that the first step to moral perfection is your liberation from the religion in which you were raised. Not a single person has come to perfection except by following this way.

—Henry David Thoreau

A thought which is expressed in the Old Testament, or in the New Testament, or in the Koran or in the Indian divine book the Upanishads, does not become a truth because it is expressed in a book which is considered to be holy. If we think that every word in every holy book is true, then we have created an idol.

Any important thought, no matter where it comes from, should be discussed; and every thought, no matter who said it, should be given attention.

April 6

People involve themselves in countless activities which they consider to be important, but they forget about one activity which is more important and necessary than any other, and which includes all other things: the improvement of their soul.

The biggest happiness is when at the end of year you feel better than at the beginning.

— HENRY DAVID THOREAU

“Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect." This means that you should try to find the presence of the Holy Spirit in your soul.

To improve ourselves, to move toward that goal, perfection, that puts no less a demand on us for being unattainable, requires solitude, removal from the concerns of everyday life. And yet constant solitude renders self-improvement impossible, if not pointless. A balance must be struck between meditating in solitude and then applying this to your everyday life.

July 23

Effort is the necessary condition of moral perfection. 

Those who think that they can live a high spiritual life whose bodies are filled with idleness and luxuries are mistaken.

The body is the first student of the soul.

— Henry David Thoreau

Nothing more can be considered as real merit for a person than his effort. Only in his effort is a person shown in his real light.

— The Koran

If you were abused, make an effort to love those who have abused you. If you have abused someone, make an effort to correct the evil which you created.

May 27

Very often, all of the activity of the human mind is directed not in revealing the truth, but in hiding the truth. The potential of the human mind to act this way is our major source of temptation.

The court jury has, as its raison d’étre, the task of preserving society as it exists now, and therefore, it persecutes and executes those who stands higher than the general level of society, and it serves those who are lower than the general level.

A man cannot do everything; but this cannot be an excuse for doing bad things.

— Henry David Thoreau

I love peasants and farmers; they are not scholarly enough not educated enough to tell sophisticated lies.

— Charles De Montesquieu

If you see that an action is explained by a very sophisticated reasoning, then you can be sure that this action is bad. The decisions of the conscience are always strict and simple.