The Wisdom Letter #148

Featuring Leo Tolstoy & William Blake

✺ Today’s Quotes

For today’s quotes, we have curated five bite-sized quotes from the Russian writer, Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910).

Quote № 01:

“Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone.”

— Leo Tolstoy, “War and Peace”

Quote № 02:

“Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.”

— Leo Tolstoy, “Anna Karenina”

Quote № 03:

“The whole world is now for me divided into two halves: one half is she, and there all is joy, hope, light: the other half is everything where she is not, and there is all gloom and darkness.”

— Leo Tolstoy, “War and Peace”

Quote № 04:

“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.”

— Leo Tolstoy, “The Kingdom of God Is Within You”

Quote № 05:

“I always loved you, and if one loves anyone, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be.”

— Leo Tolstoy, “Anna Karenina”

✺ Today’s Questions

Three philosophical questions to foster your curiosity:

Question № 01:

If respect is insufficient as a substitute for love, what are the ethical implications of prioritizing one over the other in personal and societal contexts? Can respect evolve into love, or are they fundamentally different in essence?

Question № 02:

Can the intense emotional duality expressed in “one half is she... the other half is everything where she is not” lead to an enriched understanding of life, or does it risk narrowing one's perspective and fostering dependence?

Question № 03:

What does the resistance to new ideas, as described in the quote, reveal about the human ego and the limits it imposes on intellectual growth? Can love or other emotions overcome these barriers?

✺ Today’s Poem

For today’s poem, we have selected “I Heard an Angel” by the English poet and painter, William Blake (1757–1827):

I heard an Angel singing
When the day was springing,
"Mercy, Pity, Peace
Is the world's release."
Thus he sung all day
Over the new mown hay,
Till the sun went down
And haycocks looked brown.
I heard a Devil curse
Over the heath and the furze,
"Mercy could be no more,
If there was nobody poor,
And pity no more could be,
If all were as happy as we."
At his curse the sun went down,
And the heavens gave a frown.
Down pour'd the heavy rain
Over the new reap'd grain…
And Miseries' increase
Is Mercy, Pity, Peace.

— William Blake, “I Heard an Angel”

✽ Thank you for reading today’s Wisdom Letter.

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