Life is not destroyed, only changed, by death.
The future is only an illusion inferred from our present state. What is important is not the length of life, but the depth of life. What is most important is not to make life longer, but to take your soul out of time, as every sublime act does. Only then does your life become fulfilled. And do not ask yourself questions about time. Jesus did not explain a thing about the eternity of life, but his influence brought people to the eternal.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Faith in the eternity is given to us not in meditation, but in life.
It is not reasoning which will convince you of the necessity of life after death, but example: when you walk very close to a person, hand in hand, and this person disappears into an abyss,
over there
, stop in front of the abyss and try to look within it.
The level of fear you feel about death is the level of your understanding of life.
The less you fear death, the more you possess freedom, tranquillity, and an understanding of the greatness of your spirit and the joy of life.
The understanding of eternity is part of the nature of the human soul.
November 29
A word is an action.
Do not say words you do not feel, lest your soul be blackened with darkness.
—From the BOOK OF DIVINE THOUGHTS
Your enemies can be more useful to you than your friends, because your friends can often pardon your weaknesses, but your enemies notice them and attract your attention to them.
Do not neglect the opinion of your enemies.
A wise man does not judge a person for his words, but at the same time does not neglect another person’s wordsy even when these words are pronounced by an unworthy person.
—CHINESE WISDOM
A person’s tongue is a tool which is sufficient to transmit the ideas created by the human mind. But in the domain of true and deep feelings, our tongue is weak.
—LAJOS KOSSUTH
Never is there a single instance when a lie can be justified.
November 30
When a humble person forgets himself, he is united with God.
People who try to force circumstances become their slaves. Those who use them become their masters.
—The TALMUD
There is nothing in this world more tender and more pliable than water, yet hard and rigid things cannot resist it.
Weakness defeats strength, tenderness defeats rigidity. Everyone knows this law, but no one acts upon it. The weakest in the world gain victory over the strongest; therefore, there is a great advantage in humility and silence. Only a few people in this world are truly humble.
—LAO-TZU
The more humble a person is, the freer and stronger be is.
December 1
A woman does not differ from a man in her chief mission. This mission is to serve God. The difference is in the method of this service. Though the mission of a woman’s life is the same as that of a man’s life and the service to God is fulfilled by the same means, namely love, for the majority of women the method of this service is more specific than for men. This is the birth and upbringing of new workers for the Lord throughout life.
If a woman’s kindness is boundless, then her rage can also have no limits. A good wife is the best gift for a husband, and an evil wife is a terrible ulcer for a man.
—The TALMUD
The more beautiful a woman is, the more honest she should be because it is only through honesty that she can deal with all the evil and damage which her beauty can produce.
—GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
It is not usually husbands who choose their wives, but wives who choose their husbands. In order to find a better father for her children, a woman must know good and evil. Therefore, women should have a good education first of all.
There is nothing more natural for a woman than self-sacrifice. Nothing can be more unpleasant in her than selfishness.
December 2
“Do not kill”: these word refer not just to the killing of a person, but to the killing of anything which is alive. This commandment was written in the people’s hearts even before it was heard on Mt. Sinai.
Whatever arguments they use against vegetarianism, men cannot prevent themselves from feeling compassion and disgust at killing sheep, cows, or chickens. Most people would rather stop eating meat than kill these animals themselves.
The more people become educated and the more our population grows, the more people will move from eating animals to eating plants.
Reading and writing do not educate if they do not help people to become kinder to all animals.
—JOHN RUSKIN
The stupidity, lawlessness, and harm, both physical and moral, of meat eating is so clear that meat eating is not supported by reasoning but by old traditions and prejudices. We should not even argue about the absence of logic in eating meat; it is self-evident.
December 3
Art is the activity whereby a person makes a conscious attempt to use the particular means at his disposal to transmit his feelings to others so that they feel them as intensely as he does.
In a true creation of art, there is not only no border between the work of art and the artist, but also between the work and the other people who experience it. The major attraction of real art lies in this unification.
A new work of art should bring a new emotion in our life.
Emerson said that music helps people to find the greatness in their souls. The same can be said about any form of art.
Contemporary artists and scholars do not fulfill and cannot fulfill their destinies, because they have transformed their duties into their rights.
December 4
It is not said by chance that the essence of divine law is to love God and your neighbor. Neighbors come and go, but God exists always. Therefore, a man can fulfill this law when he is alone in a desert, or when he is in prison. He can love God and God’s manifestations even in his thoughts, memories, and imagination.
Remember that the spirit of God exists in every person, the same spirit that gives you life. Therefore you should not only love but respect the soul of every person as a holy place.
I do not grieve that a person dies, that he loses his money, his estate, or all his property, all that can belong to a man. But it is a great pity when a person loses his greatest possession, his human dignity.
—EPICTETUS
Do not do anything, either among others or alone, which is opposed by your conscience.
In our time, people forget that first of all they should respect the human being in themselves.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Beyond his duty to his neighbor, every person has an obligation to himself, as to the Son of God.
December 5
The longer mankind exists, the more liberated it becomes from prejudice and the more clearly it perceives the law of life.
Ours is the age of criticism.
Religion and law try to escape from criticism, religion by saying that it is divine and law by showing that it is powerful. But some suspicions arise from this escape, because we can respect only those things which stand up in free and public trial.