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A Calendar of Wisdom is a daily reader Tolstoy assembled in the last decade of his life. Each entry pairs several short quotes from someone like Epictetus, Buddha, Marcus Aurelius, or Pascal with a paragraph of Tolstoy’s own commentary. He intended it to be read one page a day, and read repeatedly every year for the rest of the reader’s life.
Core Principles
1. One wise idea a day is enough
Tolstoy thought one wise idea a day was enough, and he laid the book out to match. You read a quote, you read his short reflection on it, and that’s it for the day.
2. False knowledge is worse than ignorance
The useful skill is sorting what’s necessary to know from what isn’t. If you don’t know something, you can learn it. If you wrongly think you already know it, you can’t.
3. Love is the project worth a whole life
Tolstoy believed creating more love between people and reducing what divides them was the only project worth a whole life. He put money and status well below it.
4. The same problems, two thousand years ago
The contributors include Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Lao Tzu, the Buddha, Pascal, Emerson, and Tolstoy himself. You’ll realize others have had the same problems you did two thousand years ago and wrote down what they figured out.
Try It Now
1. Read one entry from A Calendar of Wisdom (or any wisdom book) every morning before checking your phone, for a month.
2. Make a list of what you read, watched, and listened to this week. Cross off everything that was not necessary to know. Look at what’s left.
3. Think of one person you’ve lost touch with or fallen out with. Send them a message today.
4. Pick one of the philosophers Tolstoy quotes (Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Lao Tzu, Pascal, the Buddha) and read one short book by them this month.
Quote
January 23
Among all sins, there is one which completely opposes the major blessing of human life, which is your love for your brother: there is no worse sin than to destroy this major joy of life, by feeling rage and hatred for your brother.
Seneca, a wise man from Rome, said that when you want to escape from your rage, when you feel that it grows, the best thing to do is to stop. Do not do anything: do not walk, do not move, do not speak. If your body or your tongue moves at this moment, then your rage will grow. Rage is very harmful for all people, but it is most harmful for the man who experiences it.
“An evil person damages not only others but himself.” — After SOCRATES
“Your enemy will pay you back with rage, will make you suffer, but the biggest damage to you will be caused by the rage and hatred existing in your heart. Neither your father, nor your mother, nor all your family can make you more good than your heart can when it forgives and forgets its abuse.” —DHAMMAPADA, a book of BUDDHIST WISDOM
Your rage cannot be justified by anything. The reason for your rage is always inside you.
