What Men Live By, and Other Tales
1885
Four parables that cut straight to what Tolstoy believed every human being must confront: what do we actually live for? The title story follows Simon, a shoemaker so poor he cannot afford leather, who gives his only coat to a freezing stranger in the snow and discovers the answer is not survival but sacrifice. "Three Questions" distills the wisdom of a king seeking the perfect moment, the perfect advisor, and the perfect action into a single devastating insight. "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" watches a peasant greedily grab all he can see, only to learn the terrible cost of wanting more. Written in Tolstoy's final decade, when he had abandoned fiction for moral philosophy, these are not comfortable fables. They are detonations - brief, fierce, designed to wake readers from the sleep of ordinary life. They endure because they ask questions that never stop being urgent: What is enough? What do we owe each other? What remains when everything else is taken?
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“Remember then: there is only one time that is important-- Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power. The most necessary man is he with whom you are, for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings with any one else: and the most important affair is, to do him good, because for that purpose alone was man sent into this life!””
— Leo Tolstoy
“I know now that people only seem to live when they care only for themselves, and that it is by love for others that they really live. He who has Love has God in him, and is in God - - because God is Love. ””
— Leo Tolstoy
“I have learned that men live not by selfishness, but by love.””
— Leo Tolstoy
“All men love live not by what they may intend for their own well-being, but by the love that dwells in others.””
— Leo Tolstoy
“He continued to read every night, and the more he read the more clearly he understood what God required of him, and how he might live for God. And his heart grew lighter and lighter.””
— Leo Tolstoy
“I knew before that God gave life to men, and desired them to live; but now I know something above and beyond that.I have learned that God does not wish men to live each for himself, and therefore He has not revealed to them what they each need for themselves, but He wishes them to live in union, and therefore He has revealed to them what is necessary for each and for all together.I have now learned that it is only in appearance that they are kept alive through care for themselves, but that in reality they are kept alive through love. He who dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him, for God is love.””
— Leo Tolstoy
“And all men are kept alive, not by their own forethought, but because there is love in men.””
— Leo Tolstoy
“So on matters of faith," continued the Chinaman, the student of Confucius, "it is pride that causes error and discord among men. As with the sun, so it is with God. Each man wants to have a special God of his own, or at least a special God for his native land. Each nation wishes to confine in its own temples Him, whom the world cannot contain. "Can any temple compare with that which God Himself has built to unite all men in one faith and one religion? "All human temples are built on the model of this temple, which is God's own world. Every temple has its fonts, its vaulted roof, its lamps, its pictures or sculptures, its inscriptions, its books of the law, its offerings, its altars and its priests. But in what temple is there such a font as the ocean; such a vault as that of the heavens; such lamps as the sun, moon, and stars; or any figures to be compared with living, loving, mutually-helpful men? Where are there any records of God's goodness so easy to understand as the blessings which God has strewn abroad for man's happiness? Where is there any book of the law so clear to each man as that written in his heart? What sacrifices equal the self-denials which loving men and women make for one another? And what altar can be compared with the heart of a good man, on which God Himself accepts the sacrifice? "The higher a man's conception of God, the better will he know Him. And the better he knows God, the nearer will he draw to Him, imitating His goodness, His mercy, and His love of man. "Therefore, let him who sees the sun's whole light filling the world, refrain from blaming or despising the superstitious man, who in his own idol sees one ray of that same light. Let him not despise even the unbeliever who is blind and cannot see the sun at all." So spoke the Chinaman, the student of Confucius; and all who were present in the coffee-house were silent, and disputed no more as to whose faith was the best.””
— Leo Tolstoy
“And all men live not by the thought they spend on their own welfare, but because love exists in man.””
— Leo Tolstoy
