Wise Thoughts for Every Day: On God, Love, Spirit, and Living a Good Life

A treasury of timeless wisdom that the great author of War and Peace considered to be his most important and lasting contribution to humanity. During the last years of his life, Leo Tolstoy kept one book invariably on his desk, read and reread it to his family, and recommended it to all his friends. This was his compendium of wise thoughts gathered over the course of a decade from his wide-ranging readings in philosophy and religion and from his own spiritual meditations. It was banned under the communists, and only one volume, A Calendar of Wisdom, drawn largely from the writings of other famous thinkers, has been published before in English. Now, for the first time, Arcade will publish Tolstoys Wise Thoughts for Every Day, the volume comprising his own most essential ideas about spirituality and what it is to live a good life. Designed by Tolstoy to be a cycle of daily readings, this book offers thoughts and aphorisms for every day according to a succession of themes repeated each monthsuch as God, the soul, desire, our passions, humility, inequality, evil, truth, happiness, prayer, and the blessings of love. At once challenging, comforting, and inspiring, this is a spiritual treasure trove and a book of great human warmth.