48 quotes
In the country, Tolstoy could still see the possibility of men living a Christian life; in the cities he saw no such possibility. Cities had therefore to be uprooted and destroyed. The people had to get back to the soil.
Why We Fail as Christians (1919)
Tolstoy's suggestions created no enthusiasm among the people. All.. seemed to be more than eager for Russia to hasten along the path already traversed by western civilization
Why We Fail as Christians (1919)
Tolstoy, while sympathizing with the industrial workers, believed that they ought not to organize in trade unions and he opposed strenuously nearly every form of action advocated by working-class organizations.
Why We Fail as Christians (1919)
Jesus, after leaving the Temple, went to the Mount of Olives, and there explained the meaning of his words by a picture of the Day of Judgment.
Why We Fail as Christians (1919)
One of the signs that enable us to recognize the few great men who have lived in the world is this: they are nearly always able to state in clear, simple and concise language what they want to convey to the world.
Why We Fail as Christians (1919)
St. Paul earned his living most of the time by hard labor and constantly reminded his converts that they must not defraud each other, but love one another and work with their own hands. The same rule of life is applied by the laws governing the early monastic orders.
Why We Fail as Christians (1919)
There is a world of difference between the one who would imitate the conduct of the successful merchant, who sits in the front pew of his church, and him who would follow literally the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Why We Fail as Christians (1919)
Individualism is certainly not a dominant note in the teachings of Jesus. ...He was seeking the kingdom of God on earth, not merely the salvation of isolated souls each struggling alone for individual perfection.
Why We Fail as Christians (1919)
If it is impossible to induce fathers to abandon their families, how much more impossible would it be to induce mothers? When Tolstoy sought to live the truly Christian life, the immediate obstacle he found in his path was his own wife.
Why We Fail as Christians (1919)
Contrary to every tendency which, in modern society, leads to the separation of men and classes, Tolstoy beseeches us to go to those in hunger and distress, to share their manual labor and even the greatest extreme of their poverty.
Why We Fail as Christians (1919)
Few fathers or mothers could be induced even to listen to Tolstoy without irritation, and therefore most of his admirers, followers, and hero worshipers were young men and women, some of whom were of a type that must have been a disappointment to him.
Why We Fail as Christians (1919)
Hard manual labor revealed many things to Tolstoy. As soon as he began to do regular physical work the greater part of his luxurious habits and wants, which were so numerous when he had been physically idle, disappeared.
Why We Fail as Christians (1919)
Even as late as the time of Carlyle, Ruskin, and Morris, lamentations arose over the injurious development which had changed the world from a wholesome rural and village life to a spotted fever of great cities and industrial hells.
Why We Fail as Christians (1919)
Although Tolstoy in his protest recognized the fact that he was bound up with all others, neither this nor the knowledge of his individual helplessness induced him to work with others in order to change any part of the infamous governmental system of Russia.
Why We Fail as Christians (1919)
One would have to look long and without success, I think, to find in the writings of Tolstoy, or even in the literature of modern socialism, anything approaching in passionate bitterness the words used by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah to condemn the oppressors of the poor...
Why We Fail as Christians (1919)
He [Tolstoy] did not believe in the political action advocated by the socialist party. He thought it futile to change the personnel of the Government, and it appeared to him that the making of new laws is an absurdity which could effect no change in conditions.
Why We Fail as Christians (1919)
He [Tolstoy] saw and deplored the beginning of a class struggle which has ended as we now know in Bolshevism. Class hatred and strife appeared to Tolstoy as frightfully immoral and unchristian and he pled fervently with the rich to change their manner of living.
Why We Fail as Christians (1919)
There existed democratic aspirations, if not indeed a strong under-current of revolt, among the Jewish masses; and when it was said that the poor heard Jesus gladly, it was no doubt partly because he shared the views of these Old Testament prophets upon the iniquity of riches.
Why We Fail as Christians (1919)
No one who reads the gospels thoughtfully and sympathetically will maintain that Jesus—whether God or man—was incapable of making himself completely understood. We must therefore seek for a better explanation of the confusion that exists among the avowed believers in the divinity of Christ, as well as among those who deny the divinity of Christ.
Why We Fail as Christians (1919)
Among them exists an immense opportunity for the spread of views such as Tolstoy held, but instead of espousing their cause or seeking in any manner to organize the peasants for cooperative action, he [Tolstoy] invariably taught them submission, nonresistance to evil, loyalty to their masters, and the most extreme form of Christian humility and service.
Why We Fail as Christians (1919)