The Spiritual Works of Leo Tolstoy (selected nonfiction)

faith-and-doubt

• We must learn to read like a child, casting off what others call holy — then God's truth becomes as clear as mathematical truth.

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• The metropolitans grasped at a shadow; the substance was gone — excommunication could mean only hollow sounds to him.

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calling

• Every man, not corrupted by false doctrine, knows he cannot do unto others what he does not wish done unto himself.

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• As a prophet he speaks the language of prophets, demanding others subject their lusts to conscience if God's kingdom is ever to come.

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transformation

• Half a century of labor for the poor, all his renunciations — yet the peasant's lot was as bad as ever, the government as cruel.

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• The keynote of all his writing: hastening the day when men dwell in bonds of love and sin and suffering will be no more.

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