A Calendar of Wisdom

Remember that you cannot do anything wonderful driven by competition; you cannot do anything noble from pride.

There are two very clear indications of real science and real art: the first inner sign is that a scholar or an artist works not for profit, but for sacrifice, for his calling; the second, outer sign is that his works are understandable to all people. Real science studies and makes accessible that knowledge which people at that period of history think important, and real art transfers this truth from the domain of knowledge to the domain of feelings.

Creating art is not as elevated a thing as many people guess, but certainly it is a useful and kind thing to do, especially if it brings people together and arouses kind feelings in them.

A person is enslaved to the extent he believes that his life has only a physical beginning.

Nothing can be done without faith. Hesitation can kill a person, or it can destroy whole nations. Why is it so difficult to give liberation to people? Because when people do not have a deep faith they are not completely sure about their rights.

They say that the highest good is freedom. And if freedom is goodness, then how can a free person be unhappy? If you see a person who is not happy you should know that he is not a free man; he is a slave of something. In order to be completely free, you should be ready to give to God all those things which you have received from him. You should be ready to unite your will with that of God.

When you have no freedom, then your life becomes the life of an animal.

Human dignity and freedom are our constant necessities. So, let us keep them with us, or let us die with dignity.

If you feel that you are not free, look for the reason inside you.

Punishment is a notion that humankind gradually outgrows.

A person has done evil, so another person, or a group of people, in order to fight this evil, cannot think of anything better than to create another evil, which they call punishment.

Every punishment is based, not on logic or on the feeling of justice, but on the desire to wish evil on those who have done evil to you or to another person.

Capital punishment is a very clear proof that our society’s organization is far from being a Christian one.

Everything about our present system of punishments and about all criminal law will be thought of by future generations in the same way that we think of cannibalism or human sacrifice to ancient pagan gods. “How did they not see the uselessness and cruelty of those things which they did?” our descendants will say about us.

To punish others is like putting more wood in the fire. Every crime already has punishment in itself and it is more cruel and more just than the punishment created by people.

We should remember that the desire to punish is part of a very low animal feeling which should be suppressed, and which should not be a part of our reality.

Solomon and Job knew and spoke wisely about the uselessness of human life. The first was the happiest, the second the unhappiest of all men. One knew the vanity of pleasure; the other, the reality of misfortune.

Follow the best way of life you possibly can, and habit will make this way suitable and pleasant for you.

This is the divine law of life: that only virtue stands firm. All the rest is nothing.

If you fear woes and misfortunes, then you are already unhappy. Those who fear misfortunes usually deserve them.

Happiness and calmness are neither inside us nor outside us. They are in God, who is both inside and outside us.

Everything is from God; therefore, everything is good. Evil is goodness which we did not understand because of our shortsightedness.

When one understands that kind of evil which is in his deeds, then all other misfortunes to which he can be subjected are nothing as compared with the pleasure and freedom he can then experience.

Neither the descriptions of war nor its terrible cruelties and atrocities can stop people from participating in it. One reason for this is that by viewing the atrocities of war, everyone comes to understand that if such a terrible thing can exist and be accepted by people, then there must be some reason for its existence.

A witness recounted his experience in The Russian- Japanese war, when he was on the upper deck of the Vanag battleship during a Japanese attack. It was a terrible sight. Everywhere there was blood, pieces of flesh, bodies with heads torn away, the smell of blood so strong it made even the toughest and hardest men dizzy. The armored cannon tower suffered most of all. A shell exploded on top of it and killed a young officer who was the chief of the ship’s artillery. Only one thing was left of the poor man; it was his fist, the hand which held the instrument. Two of four sailors who stood next to their commander were torn into pieces, and the other two had terrible injuries; afterwards both had their legs amputated, and then the remains of their legs were cut off again completely. The commander of the battleship had a small injury in his head, in the temples. Filth, terrible illnesses, hunger, fire, destruction, evil—this is military glory, this is war.

War is now more terrible than at any period in human history.

The time has come to talk about the evils of war. It is not true that the existence of wars proves their necessity. The history of mankind says that such things should not happen.

To deny God is to deny yourself as a spiritual and intellectual being.

I know God and soul not by their definition, but in another way entirely. Striving to define God destroys this knowledge in me. I know that God exists, that my soul exists; this knowledge is clear to me because I was given it. I have not the slightest doubt about the existence of God, if I ask: What am I? Who am I? My legs are not me; my arms are not me; my head is not me; my feelings are not me; even my thought is not me. Then what am I? I am myself, I am my soul. No matter which side I approach this question, I inevitably come to God. The beginning of my life is God, the beginning of my existence is God. The same with the soul. If I want to know the truth, I know that at the beginning of all is my soul; if I want to understand my feeling of love and necessity for goodness, then I again find the source of this in my soul.

God exists. We should not prove this; to deny God is madness. God lives in my conscience, in the conscience of all humanity, in all our universe, and we talk to God in the most important moments of sadness or joy.