A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul

Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy's last major work reflects his desire to proselytize the moral faith and ideals he struggled to put into practice in his later years. Tolstoy believed that reading daily from the world's great literature was imperative for both his own spiritual edification and that of his readers, so he set himself the task of gathering a wide range of wisdom for every day of the year. He translated, abbreviated, and in many cases expressed entirely in his own words these "quotations" from diverse sources such as the New Testament, the Koran, Greek philosophy, Lao-Tzu, Buddhist thought, and the poetry, novels, and essays of both ancient writers and contemporary thinkers. An important book now released in English for the first time.