A Calendar of Wisdom

If you do not believe that at its beginning, your life came from spirit, why are you looking for it elsewhere, thinking that you can find spirit in other places? He who behaves in this way is like the man who burns a lantern in bright sunlight.

Do not be afraid to get rid of things which distract your attention—everything material, everything which can be seen or can be felt. The more you purify the spiritual core of your faith, the firmer your faith will be.

Knowledge is a tool, not a purpose.

People know little, because they try to understand those things which are not open to them for understanding: God, eternity, spirit; or those which are not worth thinking about: how water becomes frozen, or a new theory of numbers, or how viruses can transmit illnesses. How to live your life is the only real knowledge.

People who think that the most important thing in life is knowledge remind me of a butterfly who flies into the flame of a candle, and in so doing burns, and extinguishes the light.

The title "scholar” suggests that a person has gone to school, and that he studied, but it does not mean that he has acquired any truly important knowledge.

The purpose of life is the fulfillment of the law of God, not the acquisition of ever more knowledge.

Repentance always precedes perfection. It is sad that people think repentance is unnecessary.

It is dangerous to see the cause of evil as lying outside ourselves; for them repentance becomes impossible.

Not to accept your mistakes is to increase them.

I have a burden on my soul. During all my long life, I did not make anyone happy, neither my friends, nor my family, nor even myself. I have done many evil things. ... I was the cause of the beginning of three big wars. About 800,000 people were killed because of me on the battlefields, and their mothers, brothers, and widows cried for them. And now this stands between me and God.

You should live in such a way that you can confide anything on your mind.

The more important something is in your life, the more harmful it can be for you in the future if you abuse it. The misfortunes and woes of people often come from the abuse of the most precious tool of our life: intellect.

God gave his spirit, his intellect to us, so that we can understand his will and fulfill it, but we misuse it and apply this spirit for the fulfillment of our own will.

When the intellect becomes the slave of vices and passions, the supporter of lies, it becomes not only a perversion, but an illness, and we cannot see the difference between truth and falsehood, good and evil, virtue and vice.'

When a person tries to apply his intellect to the question “Why do I exist in this world?” he becomes dizzy. The human intellect cannot find the answers to such questions. What does this mean? This means that our intellect is not given to us to find a solution for this question. Our intellect can only answer the question: “How shall I live?” And the answer is simple: “We should live so as to bring good to all people.”

The purpose of the intellect is to reveal the truth; therefore it is a harmful misconception to pervert the truth with intellectual efforts.

Only those who know their weaknesses can be tolerant of the weaknesses of their neighbors.

My children, if someone abuses you with words, do not pay much attention; be quiet at your prayer, and ask your friends to settle the dispute and find peace between you and those who have abused you.

The man who cannot forgive destroys a bridge which he will have to cross, because every person needs forgiveness.

Almost always, when we look deep into our souls, we can find there the same sins which we blame on others. If we do not find a particular sin in our soul, then we should look more closely, and we will find even worse sins there.

A deep river is not troubled if you throw a stone into it. If a religious person is hurt by criticism, then he is not a river but a shallow pool. Forgive others, and then you will receive forgiveness.

If we can put ourselves into the place of other people, we lessen our pride.

If Christians would follow the law, there would be no rich and no poor.

A rich person can be insensitive and completely indifferent to the woes of others.

Wealth reminds me of manure in the field. When it is in a big pile it makes a bad smell. But when it is distributed everywhere across the field, it makes the soil fertile. A person must completely close his eyes on his morals, that in a Christian society so filled with people in need, there are other people who are so proud to have great wealth.

The intellect can liberate a person; the less of an intellectual life one has, the less liberated one is.

If you wish to do no evil then there is not a single good deed which you cannot do.

A wise person lives in accordance with his desires, because he wants only that which is attainable. Such a person is free.

Diogenes said, “A wise man becomes free when he is ready to die at any moment.” He wrote to the Persian king, “You cannot enslave truly free people, just as you cannot enslave a fish. You may capture them, but you cannot force them to serve; they prefer to die as captives. So, what would it profit you to imprison them?” This is a speech of a really free man, a man who recognizes his own freedom.