Nothing can give a man strength when he is looking for salvation other than his own effort.
May 8
There is nothing more attractive than humbleness and kindness. But you should not seek kindness which advertises itself.
A wise man said to another man who was chasing him, “If you have any grievance against me, tell me now, before we enter the city, otherwise other people will hear it and they will attack you.”
—EGYPTIAN WISDOM
But he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For which is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth.
—LUKE 22:26-27
The rivers and seas are the masters of the valleys across which they flow. This is because they are lower than the valleys. In the same way, a person who wants to be higher than other people should be lower than they; if he wants to guide people, he should be below them.
—LAO-TZU
A wise man was told that he was considered to be a bad person. He answered, “It is good that they do not know everything about me, because otherwise they could say worse things about me.”
Try to avoid making judgments about yourself, especially by comparing yourself with others. Compare yourself only with perfection.
May 9
Life is constant change; it ought to consist of weakening the material and increasing the spiritual side of our existence.
Seek to learn constantly while you live; do not wait in the faith that old age by itself will bring wisdom.
—SOLON
Virtue always lasts longer than other qualities, and it always starts from the beginning.
—IMMANUEL KANT
The kindness of a dove is not virtue. A dove is not more virtuous than an eagle. Virtue begins only when there is an effort.
If God wanted to, he could have made us one nation, but he tests us. Wherever you go, in all places, try as much as you can to be kind, to be good, and then the day will come when God will unite all of us.
—The KORAN
We cannot stop on the way to self-perfection. As soon as you notice that you have a bigger interest in the outer world than in yourself, then you should know that the world moves behind you.
Only spiritual things exist in reality, and the material world is only an illusion.
If you want to save your soul, forget about your comfort.
May 10
Truly, only those things which are spiritual are real. Those things which can be seen and felt are only an illusion.
Life is given to us not only for pleasures.
—NIKOLAI GOGOL
No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
—MATTHEW 6:24
In the long run, there is only one subject worthy of study, and this is the different forms of transformation of the spirit. All other subjects and studies can be brought to these basic things.
—HENRI AMIEL
I can send my thoughts to many different people at once; they will cross the seas and they will go to different lands if there is God’s will, and the power of love and wisdom. My thoughts by themselves are a spiritual power; they can exist at the same time in thousands of places. My body, however, can only exist at one place at one time.
—LUCY MALORY
It seems to us that the most clear, understandable, and obviously existing things are not all there is. There is something else: unclear, unknown, contradictory, and nonexistent.
May 11
The moving force of all perfection, both for individuals and for whole nations, is not the understanding of what exists in this world, but the understanding of what can be achieved.
The weaker my hands, the more effort I should make to achieve perfection.
“You must be as perfect as your father in heaven.”
The perfection of the highest kindness is the goal for which all mankind strives. Christian learning about perfection is a tool for all mankind.
A person who sails far from the shore can see some shore-lines or cliffs. But when sailors go really far away from the shore, they can be guided only by the stars high up in the sky, and the compass which indicates their direction, and both these things are given to us.
No matter how low a person may fall, he will always be able to see that perfection toward which he should move.
May 12
Life is the constant approach to death; therefore, life can be bliss only when death does not seem to be an evil.
We say sometimes, “Here I will live in the rainy season, there I will live in the summer.” So a crazy man dreams, because he does not think about death. But then death comes, and it takes all people with it: the man who is busy, and he who is concerned with something, and he who is greedy, and he who is absent-minded. Neither your son, nor your father, nor family or friends can help you when death comes. A wise man, one who understands this, looks for the way which leads to calmness.
—BUDDHIST WISDOM
A man comes into the world with his hands pushed into fists, as if he wants to say, “All this world is mine.” A man leaves this world with his palms open, as if to say, “Look, I take nothing with me.”
—The TALMUD
You should live your life as if you are ready to say good-bye to it at any moment, as if the time left you is some pleasant surprise.
—MARCUS AURELIUS
Your life is a small stretch of unlimited time. So have a good look at it, and make the best of it.
—SAID-BEN-HAMED
Remember, you do not live in the world, you only pass through it.
May 13
Every person should decide questions of life and death for himself.
A wise man sets requirements only for himself; an unwise man makes requirements for others.
—CHINESE WISDOM
A soul does not learn; it simply remembers what it knew all the time.
—DAUD EL GAFFER
A wise man always finds some support for himself in everything, because his gift is in obtaining goodness from everything.
—JOHN RUSKIN
Nothing will bring you peace except yourself.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Only the truth which was acquired by your own thinking, through the efforts of your intellect, becomes a member of your own body, and only this truth really belongs to us.
—ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
May 14
The soul knows everything. No new thing can surprise it. Nothing can be bigger than it. Let others be afraid, but the soul is not afraid of anything. It lives according to its own laws. It is bigger than space and older than time. It gives courage against all the misfortunes of life.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
God lives in all people, but not all people live in God, and this is the source of their sufferings.
A lamp cannot burn without fire, and a person cannot live without God.
—THE GOSPEL OF SRI RAMAKRISHNA, a book of HINDUISM
Do you think that anybody can damage your soul? Then why are you so embarrassed? I laugh at those who think they can damage me. They do not know who I am, they do not know what I think, they cannot even touch the things which are really mine and with which I live.
—EPICTETUS