A Calendar of Wisdom

No illness can prevent a person from what he has to do. If you cannot work, then give your love to people. Illnesses of the mind are much more dangerous than illnesses of the body.

Do not be afraid of illness, and do not think that being ill frees you from your moral requirements.

You can call God by various names, you can avoid his name altogether, but you cannot avoid accepting his existence. Nothing exists here if God does not exist.

All I know I know because there is God, and I know Him because He gives me the knowledge of everything.

Let us think about God, remember Him, and talk to Him as often as we can.

God is not an idol; he is an ideal which we should strive for in our everyday life.

It is very important to remember God, not necessarily with words, but in the sense of being aware of Him following your actions, supporting them or criticizing them. Russian peasants have a saying: “Do you remember God?”

Only people who have never thought about life’s most important issues can believe that everything is possible for the human intellect.

There are three types of people. First, there are people who do not believe in anything; then, there are people who believe only in those teachings they were brought up to believe. Finally, there are people who believe in those things which they understand with their hearts, and this last group of people is the wisest and most resolute.

All beginnings are mysteries, the mystery of creation.

Contemporary science cannot teach you about God and His virtues. The sciences cannot make you virtuous, but they help you on your way.

Do not pretend to understand something that you do not. It is one of the worst possible things to do.

A person who comes into an understanding of the life of his spiritual self cannot fear evil, either in life or in death.

The souls of wise people look to the future state of their existence; all of their thoughts are concentrated toward eternity.

There is not a single soul that can be good without God.

Salvation in all things lies in their spirituality. Evil cannot touch a person who knows his spirituality.

A man is both an animal and a spiritual being at the same time. As an animal, a man is afraid of death; as a spiritual being he does not experience death.

In the last moments before death, the soul leaves the body. It unites with the limitless, timeless, and eternal soul and transforms into another form, we know not which. After death, our body is left behind, and it becomes only an object for observation.

Death marks a change, it marks the disappearance of the dwelling place of your conscience. The conscience itself cannot be destroyed by death, in the same way as the change of a theater set cannot destroy a spectator.

Perhaps you fear the changes that death will bring? But a similar great change already happened at the time of your birth, and nothing bad came out of it.

Most people are proud, not of those things which arouse respect, but of those which are unnecessary, or even harmful: fame, power, and wealth.

There is no worse scoundrel than he who, when be looks around himself at other people, can always find an even worse scoundrel than himself; and therefore, can be quite satisfied with himself.

A person who loves himself has the advantage of having very few competitors.

There is no wisdom in he who thinks that he is wise.

A selfish person is always limited. And one is connected with the other: he is selfish because he is limited; he is limited because he is selfish.

A proud person initially causes other people to think that he has more importance than he actually has, but when this influence disappears, as it always does, he becomes only the object of jokes.

Any departure from accepted traditions and customs requires a large and serious effort, but true understanding of new things always requires such an effort.

A society says to a man: “Think as we think,-believe in what we believe, eat and drink what we eat and drink, and dress in the way we dress.”

You should behave as you think is good, but not following the advice of the crowd.

It is bad to irritate people by stepping back from their customs and traditions, but it is even worse to deny the requirements of your conscience and intellect by following the customs of the crowd.