A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy (Deep Book Summary)

It doesn’t get much deeper or more comprehensive than A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy (Amazon).

The book is meant to be read one day at a time for the 365 days of the calendar year. Each day is loosely organized around a theme (although the theme is not explicitly stated).

Instead of reading it a day at a time, I just read the entire thing like a normal book. There’s so much good stuff that I’ll be revisiting these notes again and again.

“I cannot understand how some people can live without communicating with the wisest people who ever lived on Earth?” — Leo Tolstoy

Quick Housekeeping:

All quotes are paraphrased from Leo Tolstoy and the other original authors to make them more condensed and actionable.
I’ve organized everything into my own themes (not Tolstoy’s original calendar days).
I’ve added my own emphasis in bold text.

Book Summary Contents:

Short overview of the book
Accept that there are things we don’t know
Meaning of Life / Purpose / Know Thyself / Serving / Humanity
Art of Living / Wisdom / Knowledge / Science
Unification / Law / Surrender / Free Will
The Spiritual Shift / Improvement / Growth / Perfection
Soul / Conscience / Heart / Intellect / Thinking / Speaking / Action / Effort
Faith / Love / Peace / Truth / Freedom / Goodness / Joy / Kindness
Presence / Death / Eternity

Sloww A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy

**The Art of Living for All: A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy (Book Summary + Infographic)**

Short Overview of A Calendar of Wisdom

The introduction is by Peter Sekirin—who translated Tolstoy’s work from the original Russian. This book was Tolstoy’s last major work, in progress for 15 years before his death. Various names for the book have included: The Way of Life; Circle of Reading; A Wise Thought for Every Day; Wise Thoughts by Many Writers on Truth, Life, and Behavior Collected and Arranged for Every Day of the Year.

Peter Sekirin says:

“Tolstoy’s original goal was the delivery of wisdom to the widest possible number of people, ‘to entertain millions of readers.’ This aim remains as compelling now, in this time of increasing spiritual need, as it was then.“
“Tolstoy combined simplicity of form and philosophical depth.”
“Tolstoy added about eight hundred of his own thoughts, written during his many years of meditation, or taken from previous diary entries. He generally started each day with an opening thought of his own, added quotes by other sources, and finished each day with a closing thought of his own.”

In Tolstoy’s own words:

“The purpose of my book is not to give exact, word-for-word translations of thoughts created by other authors, but to use the great and fruitful intellectual heritage created by different writers to present for a wide reading audience an easily accessible, everyday circle of reading which will arouse their best thoughts and feelings.”
“To create a book for the masses … is incomparably more important and fruitful than to compose a novel of the kind which diverts some members of the wealthy classes for a short time, and then is forever forgotten. The region of this art of the simplest, most widely accessible feeling is enormous, and it is as yet almost untouched.”
“I have to create a circle of reading for myself: Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Lao-Tzu, Buddha, Pascal, The New Testament. This is also necessary for all people … I felt that I have been elevated to great spiritual and moral heights by communication with the best and wisest people whose books I read and whose thoughts I selected for my Circle of Reading.”

Sloww A Calendar of Wisdom Tolstoy Premium Infographic

Accept that there are things we don’t know

All that we see and know does not exist in reality, because it is the product of our limited ability to understand reality.

An unseen force guides your body, just as an unseen force guides the world.
A person cannot have complete understanding of the meaning of life. A person can only know its direction.
Life consists of numerous invisible, imperceptible changes, changes that begin at birth and end with death. It is not possible for us humans to observe them all.
We cannot imagine the scope of our ignorance, just as a blind man cannot imagine darkness until he can see.
The consequences of our notions cannot be known to us, because they ripple outward limitlessly in a limitless world.

Meaning of Life / Purpose / Know Thyself / Serving / Humanity

Meaning of Life

The first thing which a person should do is to understand the meaning of life.

The meaning of life is revealed to those who are ready to accept the things which will be revealed.
The meaning of life is to serve the force that sent you into the world.
The meaning of life is to grow spiritually and help others to do so.
The meaning of life lies in two major areas: your personal perfection and service to other people.
Clear understanding of the meaning of your life = salvation

Purpose

It seems that it is impossible to live without discovering the purpose of your life.

The real purpose of our existence is to understand this limitless life existing in this world.
Nature created us from the same origin, bound by the same law, and for the same purpose.
The purpose of life is to live according to the inner law which you understand in yourself.
The purpose of life is: the fulfillment of the law of God / to express love in all its manifestations / our soul/moral perfection / to find perfection in goodness.
Wisdom is knowing the purpose of life (love), and knowing how to achieve it (intellect).

Know Thyself

The greatest knowledge is self-knowledge.

Know Thyself — Inner Self (Spiritual Being)

The best and the most important object for every person is his inner self, his spiritual being.
You will find God in you and yourself in God. / He who understands himself will understand God.
We are separate beings, it seems, but in our inner life we are closely connected with all living things.
Self-Awareness (understand the supernatural in yourself).

KNOW THYSELF — Individual Human (Unique)

It is necessary to know yourself.
I want to be that which I am.
A person who loves himself has the advantage of having very few competitors.
Be as you are, as you have to be, and the rest is God’s business.
The better a person knows himself, the smaller and less significant he seems to himself and the higher he elevates himself toward God.

KNOW THYSELF — Collective Humanity (Common / Shared)

All living creatures are inseparably connected—we are all members of one great body.
Every person has within himself the capability to understand the life of all humanity.
Family and motherland are but two circles that are part of the wider circle that is humanity.
All divine and human learning can be summarized in one truth—that we are members of one big body.

Serving the World

Live for your soul, and without trying or even understanding that you’re doing it, you will contribute to the improvement of society.

Man’s purpose is to serve all mankind, not to serve only one man while doing harm to others.
We live for ourselves only when we live for others.
A strong and wise person uses his gifts to support other people.
Life is short. Do not forget about the most important things in our life, living for other people and doing good for them.
Humankind goes on without stopping. This movement forward is necessary for you as an individual as well. If you want to serve God, you should be a worker for the spiritual progress of humanity.

Humanity

Every single individual person, as well as all mankind together, will change, and will go on to higher stages without stopping in their development, the limit of which is God himself.

Humanity slowly but ceaselessly moves forward to the better and better understanding of the meaning of this life.
The kingdom of God on earth is the final purpose and desire of humankind.
The longer mankind exists, the more liberated it becomes from prejudice and the more clearly it perceives the law of life.
The understanding of the moral law by which we live is not only the most important but the only real concern for all humankind.
The morality of a society is alone the basis of civilization. The improvement of society can be achieved only by the moral improvement of individuals.

Art of Living / Wisdom / Knowledge / Science

Art of Living

A scholar knows many books; a well-educated person has knowledge and skills; an enlightened person understands the meaning and purpose of his life.

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.
The real knowledge is the understanding that there is a higher spiritual force.
The most important and only real knowledge is that which guides the way you lead your life (how to live).
The knowledge of how to live well is how to produce the least possible evil and the greatest goodness (leads us to find perfection).
Knowing what is the meaning of life and what is good for the people (that which helps us to be free).

Wisdom

Wisdom is understanding how eternal truth can be applied to life.

This is the first lesson of wisdom. The more a person analyzes his inner self, the more insignificant he seems to himself.
Real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know.
A wise man seeks wisdom; a madman thinks that he has found it.
Individuals die, but the wisdom they have obtained in their lives does not die with them. Mankind keeps all this wisdom, and a person uses the wisdom of those who lived before him.

Knowledge

Knowledge is a tool, not a purpose.

Knowledge is limitless. Therefore, there is a minuscule difference between those who know a lot and those who know very little.
No matter how big mankind’s store of knowledge seems to me in comparison with our previous ignorance, it is only an infinitely small part of all possible knowledge.
What is important is not the quantity of your knowledge, but its quality. You can know many things without knowing that which is most important.
Look at all of your knowledge as a gift, as a means of helping other people.

Science

Science is vitally important when it is harnessed to reveal the law of human life.

The knowledge we now accept as science interferes with more than it supports the goodness of human life.
It is better to know several basic rules of life than to study many unnecessary sciences. The major rules of life will stop you from evil and show you the good path in life.
Science is seldom connected with wisdom. A scholarly person knows many unnecessary things. A wise person knows few things, but all that he knows is necessary both for humanity and for himself.
Science can be divided into an infinite number of disciplines, and the amount of knowledge that can be pursued in each discipline is limitless. The most critical piece of knowledge, then, is the knowledge of what is essential to learn and what isn’t.

Unification / Law / Surrender / Free Will

Divine Spark & Unification

The divine spark lives in all of us, and perpetually strives toward its origin.

That which gives life is the same in all things.
A universal spirit gives us the urge to do all that is necessary—urges us to be closer to God, and brings us closer to each other.
All living creatures have the same divine beginning—understanding this is the foundation of love.
We manifest in love our understanding of the unity of our being with others, and in so doing we make our life greater. The more we love, the wider, larger, and more joyful our life becomes.
The history of mankind is the movement of humanity toward greater and greater unification.

Law & Will of God

There is only one real law—the law of God—which is the same for all of mankind.

Human law can be valid only when it is in harmony with the law of God.
We fulfill the law of God when we feel the lives of others as our own life.
Life in this world strives toward God’s will—universal will and soul that governs life.
When one understands life’s law, one manifests the part of God which lives inside him.

Surrender to Understand

Surrender to and accept your fate—God will act through you.

This is called the virtue of non-resistance. This is called harmony with Heaven.
You should not guide events, but be guided by events.
Work with nature, not against nature.
All our history proves that God may be understood, not by reasoning, but by submission to Him and obeyance to His laws. Only by doing this can we understand His will on earth.
Understanding our duty provides us with the understanding of our divine soul. And, too, the understanding of our divine soul gives us the understanding of duty.

Harmonizing Free Will with God’s Will

Look for a kind life which is in harmony with the will of God, and then you will fulfill the duty of your life.

Real happiness can be built only by harmonizing your life with the will of God.
You should be ready to unite your will with that of God.
A good life is if you serve / fulfill God’s will.
The burden, the cross, which every man has to carry exists on two planes: a longer vertical plane, which is the will of God; and a much shorter, horizontal plane, which is a man’s own will. If you orient your will so that it parallels the direction of God’s will, then you will have no cross to carry, no burden.

The Spiritual Shift / Improvement / Growth / Perfection

Shifting from Material to Spiritual

Life is constant change; it ought to consist of weakening the material and increasing the spiritual side of our existence.

Real living takes place not in the domain of outward change, but in the inner domain, where changes can hardly be observed, in our spiritual life.
For a person to know the law that makes him free, he must be elevated from a material to a spiritual life.
Salvation in all things lies in their spirituality—in the transfer of the conscious “self” from the material to the spiritual.
Let your spiritual side guide your material side, and not the other way around.
The constant struggle between flesh and spirit will never be finished. This struggle is eternal and the essence of life. The purpose of life is loving, the penetration of everything with love. It is the slow and gradual change from evil to good, it is the creation of the real life, the life filled with love.

Inner Self Improvement

Our invisible work at the improvement of our soul is the most important work in the world, and all other visible kinds of work are useful only when we do this major work.

Your chief task in life is the care of your soul. You should care for your soul and work to improve it, and you can improve it only with love.
Start the improvement of this world from within.
if you want to improve your soul, you should be ready to sacrifice it.

Spiritual Growth

Suffering is the necessary condition for spiritual growth—you should look in suffering for the seeds of your future spiritual growth.

A person who lives a spiritual life cannot help but see that suffering brings him closer to God.
As soon as you stop working at your spirit, then your body will have complete power over you.
We grow thus: We come closer to God and God comes closer to us as our will becomes united with the will of God.

Self Perfection

When I talk of moving toward perfection, I mean moving from a material to a spiritual plane.

In order to reach spiritual perfection, you should first of all take care of the purity of your soul. This can be reached when the heart looks for truth, and strives for wholeness, and depends on true knowledge.
The ideal is within you, and the obstacle to reaching this ideal is also within you. You already possess all the material from which to create your ideal self.
Sophisticated knowledge requires an extra effort that takes the student’s time from the most basic and the most important human pursuit: moral perfection.
Perfecting the self is both an inner and an outer work: You cannot improve yourself without communicating with other people, influencing them, and being influenced by them.
Nobody knows where the human race is going. The highest wisdom, then, is to know where you should go: toward perfection.

Soul / Conscience / Heart / Intellect / Thinking / Speaking / Action / Effort

Soul (Mirror of God)

The process of life should be the birth of a soul. This is the highest alchemy, and this justifies our presence on earth. This is our calling and our virtue.

The soul is a mirror in which you can see the reflection of divine intellect.
A soul does not learn; it simply remembers what it knew all the time.
The human soul, not by itself, but by some power, is pushed closer and closer to truth and goodness.
Understand your soul, and you will understand your place in the world and connection to humanity.

Conscience (Voice of God)

The voice of your conscience is the voice of God.

You cannot fight with the requirements of conscience. These are the rule of God, and it is better to submit to them.
Conscience is the understanding of the divine beginning which lives in us.
Conscience is what makes a person similar to God.
Conscience is the greatest advantage of human nature.
Conscience is the real judge between good and bad.

Heart (Feeling of God)

God cannot be understood by the human intellect, only felt by the human heart.

There is only one right pathway of life. Sooner or later, we all will meet each other on this pathway. The understanding of it is very clearly inscribed in our hearts, and it is wide and easy to find. At the end of this way is God, and He calls us to Himself.
If you want to study yourself—look into the hearts of other people. If you want to study other people—look into your own heart.
Great thoughts come directly from the heart.
Embrace what the wisdom of humanity, your intellect, and your heart tell you.
Life is movement, a walk along the way of life to the fulfillment of those ideas which illuminate us, both in our intellect and in our hearts, with divine light.

Intellect (Lamp of God)

The purpose of the intellect is to reveal the truth.

Human intellect is a divine lamp, and its light penetrates to the depth of things.
In order to understand the truth—purify your intellect, exercise it, and intellectually try and test everything which we can possibly put to the test.
A man should use that spiritual heritage which he has received from the wise and holy people of the past, but he should test everything with his intellect, accepting certain things and rejecting others.
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.
Your will is not good until you have changed the habits of your intellect, and they will improve only when they follow the eternal laws of life.

Thinking (A Spiritual Power)

Thoughts by themselves are a spiritual power.

A thought can advance your life in the right direction only when it answers questions which were asked by your soul.
Those who do not think independently are under the influence of somebody else who thinks for them.
Every thought a person dwells upon, whether he expresses it or not, either damages or improves his life.
Thought is the glorification of truth; therefore, bad thoughts are those which have not been thought through to the end.
Work toward the purification of your thoughts. Without bad thoughts you will be incapable of bad deeds.

Speaking

The language of truth is always simple.

Only speak when your words are better than your silence.
The wiser a person is, the simpler the language he uses to express his thoughts.
Words can unite people. Therefore, try to speak very clearly, and tell only the truth, for nothing can unite people more than truth and simplicity.
Let your tongue become accustomed to the words “I do not know.”
Talking and reasoning does not even have one thousandth the influence a true example has.

Action

A wise man innately knows how to act without searching, because he has the divine within himself.

There is no deed in this life so impossible that you cannot do it. Your whole life should be lived as an heroic deed.
Only one clear quality marks an action as either good or evil: If it increases the amount of love in the world, it is good. If it separates people and creates animosity among them, it is bad.
No person is without sin; no person is completely truthful. It is not that one person is virtuous and truthful and another is sinful and deceitful; rather it’s that one person strives to move toward truth and virtue and the other does not.
The worst punishment is the understanding that you failed to properly use those good things which were given to you. Do not expect a big punishment. There can be no harder punishment than this remorse.

Effort

Effort is the necessary condition of moral perfection.

To obtain wisdom, you must make an independent, serious effort of your own.
Your past deeds weigh heavily on the future direction of your life; but sometimes, you can change this direction through the effort of your spirit.
Every person should make a small effort, even the smallest effort, to improve the general well-being of humanity.

Faith / Love / Peace / Truth / Freedom / Goodness / Joy / Kindness

Faith

Faith is the understanding of the meaning of life and the acceptance of those duties and responsibilities connected to it.

Faith is the foundation on which all else rests; it is the root of all knowledge.
Faith is when your will is in consent with the world’s conscience and the world’s wisdom.
The most important change that can occur in a person’s life is a change in his faith.
Faith can change with time, because our knowledge is constantly changing. Love, on the contrary, never changes; love is eternal.
Faith is not true faith if love is not in harmony with it.

Love

Love is a consequence of understanding the divine, spiritual beginning which exists in all of us.

You should love only one thing in yourself, that which is the same in all of us (God).
To love God means to love the highest possible good which we can imagine in all things.
Real love refers not just to love for a particular person but to the spiritual state of loving everyone.
There is only one thing in this world which is worth dedicating all your life. This is creating more love among people and destroying barriers which exist between them.
Love is the feeling which solves all of the contradictions of human life and gives one the greatest bliss is known to all people.

Peace & Calmness

Inner peace by love and good deeds.

The condition of wisdom is purity; the consequence of wisdom is the peace of your soul.
Happiness and calmness are neither inside us nor outside us. They are in God, who is both inside and outside us.
Real power is not in momentary desires, but in complete calmness.
Complete outer calmness is impossible. But when there are some calm periods, we should appreciate them and make them last longer. This is the time when useful thoughts appear; they become stronger and guide us in life.
You should accept yourself, not as a master, but as a servant, and then all your bad feelings, your anxiety, alarm, uncertainty, and dissatisfaction will be changed into calmness and peace. You will be filled inside with a clear vision of your purpose, and with a great joy.

Truth

Every truth has its origin in God. When it is manifested in a man, this is not because it comes from him, but because he has such a quantity of transparency that he can reveal it.

Look for the truth; it wants to be found.
The bliss of truth surpasses all other joys in the world.
Our life can be changed, but the truth cannot be changed.
If you know the truth, or if you think that you know the truth, try to pass it on to the others, as simply as you can.

Freedom

Look for truth, and freedom will be a byproduct.

Only he who accepts that the essence or meaning of his life is not material but spiritual can be free.
When you understand yourself as a spiritual being, then you are free.
You can only liberate yourself (freedom).
Highest Good = Freedom = Goodness

Goodness

Life is constant movement, and therefore goodness in life is not a certain state, but the direction of movement. This direction is not in serving yourself, but God.

The first rule of achieving goodness is this: think only about self-perfection.
We should believe that the goodness which exists in us and in this world will be fulfilled. This is the major condition to make it happen.
Doing good is the only sure path to bliss.
How good a person feels when, exhausted from striving for goodness in his everyday life, he stretches out his hands to God.
The goodness given to us by wisdom compares to all other knowledge in the same way that in a desert, a vessel filled with water compares to mountains of gold.

Joy

Life could be limitless joy, if we would only take it for what it is, in the way it is given to us.

The best way to live joyfully is to believe that life was given for joy. When joy disappears, look for your mistake.
You must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy.
A person becomes happy to the same extent to which he or she gives happiness to other people.

Kindness

The most tender plants can push their way through the hardest rocks, and it is the same with kindness.

Kindness is for your soul as health is for your body: you do not notice it when you have it.
The general essence of all religions is love to your neighbor, and that this is requested by Manuf, Zoroaster, Buddha, Moses, Socrates, Jesus, Saint Paul, and Mohammed alike.
The most important feature of Christ’s character: his confidence in the greatness of the human soul. He saw in a person the reflection of God’s image, and, therefore, he loved everyone.
You have to respect every person—remember that in every person lives the same spirit which lives in us.
If you love your enemies, you will have no enemies.

Presence / Death / Eternity

Presence

Renew yourself completely every day—starting afresh, from the beginning.

Concentrate all efforts and all intellect on the present moment.
The virtue of a person is measured not by his outstanding efforts, but by his everyday behavior.
It’s a dangerous temptation to prepare to live, instead of living. The future does not belong to you.
Remember to live the best way you know now.
Never postpone a good deed which you can do now—death does not choose whether you have or haven’t done the things you should have done.

Death

The level of fear you feel about death is the level of your understanding of life.

You should live your life so that you are not afraid of death, and at the same time do not wish to die.
Everything natural should have its beginning, its life, and its ending. Wise people willingly submit to this order.
Your life may be cut short at any time; therefore, your life should have a deep purpose—a significance that will not depend on whether it is short or long.
What is important is not the length of life, but the depth of life.
You become free when you are ready to die at any moment.

Eternity

Remember, you do not live in the world, you only pass through it.

This world is a place for a trial—a way station to an eternal world.
Everything in this world blooms, grows, and returns to its roots.
Returning to one’s roots means becoming united with nature—becoming united with nature involves eternity.
Your purpose on earth is to be in harmony with eternity.

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