The Sunday Reading Stories
. The majority of these fifty-two stories were written by Tolstoy especially for this work; the rest were selected and adapted from writings by Plato, Buddha, Dostoevski, Pascal, Leskov, Chekhov, and others. Tolstoy’s prose style in these
Sunday Reading Stories
is very different from the sophistication of his earlier novels. These stories, which were later greatly admired by Pasternak and Solzhenitsyn, were written in a clear, simple, almost primitive language, designed, as they were, for a wide and general audience. In them, Tolstoy combined simplicity of form and philosophical depth. Because these stories did not appear in all editions, and because they are as a whole quite long, they do not appear in this edition.
On December 21, 1904, after reading the galley proofs of the second edition called
The Calendar: The Circle of Reading for Every Day,
Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “During this last day I have descended from the spiritual and moral heights where I was all this time when I communicated with the best and wisest thinkers of the world when I created my
Circle of Reading.”
This title was changed in the second revised edition, published in 1905-1907, to
Wise Thoughts by Many Writers on Truth, Life, and Behavior Collected and Arranged for Every Day of the Year by Leo Tolstoy
. From its first publication, the book was always present on Tolstoy’s desk; it became his favorite book during the last five years of his life. Every day, from 1905 to 1910, he read thoughts presented in the book for the corresponding day of the year, and he recommended the same habit to all his friends. On May 16, 1908, he wrote to a man named Gusev: “I cannot understand how some people can live without communicating with the wisest people who ever lived on Earth? … I feel very happy every day, because I read this book.”
Tolstoy prepared a third revised, shortened, and simplified edition which appeared in print under the new title
The Way of Life
in 1910, the last year of his life. He wished to make the book easily comprehensible for even the simplest and least educated people—peasants and children. Most probably, Tolstoy compared
A Calendar of Wisdom
to
War and Peace
when he wrote that “To create a book for the masses, for millions of people … 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.” Other editions appeared in Odessa and St. Petersburg in 1911-1912. A German critical edition (translated by E. Schmidt and A. Schkarvan, Dresden: Karl Reissner, 1907) included the sources of his numerous quotes.
An edition of
A Calendar of Wisdom
was published in Russia in 1912, but after the Russian Revolution publication was forbidden under the Soviet regime, because of the book’s spiritual orientation and its numerous religious quotes. When it was again published in Russia, in 1995, after the recent democratic reforms, it enjoyed tremendous success, selling over 300,000 copies.
It has never before been translated into English. The first English translation of
A Calendar of Wisdom
will be a real discovery for the English-speaking reader. Created by one of the world’s greatest novelists and thinkers to represent the very best of the world’s spiritual heritage, it draws on the greatest works of religion, philosophy, and literature the world has yet seen. It belongs among the very best creations of human genius, a work which will serve its readers as a practical spiritual guide on how to live in peace with oneself and how to live a life filled with kindness, satisfaction, and happiness. 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.
INTRODUCTION
BY LEO TOLSTOY
I took the thoughts collected here from a very large number of works and collections. I indicated the author of each thought beneath it, though I did not mark the exact source or book title or work from which I took it. In some cases, I translated these thoughts not directly from their original sources, but from a translation from the languages in which they became known to me, so sometimes my translations might not be completely identical to the originals. When I translated thoughts by German, French, or Italian thinkers, I did not strictly follow the original, usually making it shorter and easier to understand, and omitting some words. Readers might tell me that a quote is not then Pascal or Rousseau, but my own work, but I think that there is nothing wrong in conveying their thoughts in a modified form. Therefore, if someone desires to translate this book into other languages, I would like to advise them not to look for the original quotes from the English poet Coleridge, say, or the German philosopher Kant, or the French writer Rousseau, but to translate directly from my writing. Another reason some of these thoughts may not correspond to the originals is at times I took a thought from a lengthy and convoluted argument, and I had to change some words and phrases for clarity and unity of expression. In some cases I even express the thought entirely in my own words. I did this because 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.
I hope that the readers of this book may experience the same benevolent and elevating feeling which I have experienced when I was working on its creation, and which I experience again and again, when I reread it every day, working on the enlargement and improvement of the previous edition.
—LEO TOLSTOY, March 1908
Note to Reader: In all of the book’s original Russian-language editions, Tolstoy highlighted on each page the one quote that most succinctly expressed the day’s theme. These quotes have been italicized in this edition.
—PETER SEKIRIN
January 1
Better to know a few things which are good and necessary than many things which are useless and mediocre.
What a great treasure can be hidden in a small, selected library! A company of the wisest and the most deserving people from all the civilized countries of the world, for thousands of years, can make the results of their studies and their wisdom available to us. The thought which they might not even reveal to their best friends is written here in clear words for us, people from another century. Yes, we should be grateful for the best books, for the best spiritual achievements in our lives.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
There are too many mediocre books which exist just to entertain your mind. Therefore, read only those books which are accepted without doubt as good.
—LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA
Read the best books first, otherwise you’ll find you do not have time.
—HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The difference between real material poison and intellectual poison is that most material poison is disgusting to the taste, but intellectual poison, which takes the form of cheap newspapers or bad books, can unfortunately sometimes be attractive.