Philosophy Book
Chapter Twenty Six: Leo Tolstoy
Brief Biography of Leo Tolstoy: Summary of Ideas, Portrait & Quotes
This webpage contains a brief overview of the recently published
book 'Philosophical Sketches'. Below you will find a short Chapter summary
on Leo Tolstoy, the book cover and back page text, links to other book chapters,
and introduction. You can buy this book online at our Cafepress Philosophy
Book Shop (Book Details: 90 pages, 30 full page portraits, 8.5 inches by
11 inches, $19.50 USD)
Hope you find it interesting,
Geoff Haselhurst & Karene Jade Howie
Chapter
Twenty Six: Leo Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (commonly referred to in English
as Leo Tolstoy) was a Russian novelist, social reformer, pacifist, Christian
anarchist, vegetarian, moral thinker and an influential member of the Tolstoy
family. He was an extremely wealthy member of the Russian nobility, who came
to believe that he was undeserving of his inherited wealth, and was renowned
among the peasantry for his generosity. He would frequently return to his country
estate with vagrants whom he felt needed a helping hand, and would often dispense
large sums of money to street beggars while on trips to the city, much to his
wife's chagrin.
Tolstoy is widely regarded as one of the greatest of all novelists, particularly
noted for his masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina; in their scope,
breadth and realistic depiction of Russian life, the two books stand at the
peak of realistic fiction. As a moral philosopher he was notable for his ideas
on nonviolent resistance through his work The Kingdom of God is Within You,
which in turn influenced such twentieth-century figures as Mahatma Gandhi and
Martin Luther King. (A letter Tolstoy wrote to an Indian newspaper entitled "A
Letter to a Hindu" resulted in a long-running correspondence with Gandhi,
who was in South Africa at the time and was beginning to become an activist.)
The correspondence with Tolstoy strongly influenced Gandhi towards the concept
of nonviolent resistance, a central part of Tolstoy's view of Christianity.
... (see book for more)
True religion is that relationship, in accordance with reason
and knowledge, which man establishes with the infinite world around him, and
which binds his life to that infinity and guides his actions … and leads
to the practical rules of the law: do to others as you would have them do unto
you.… And the cause of everything is that which we call God. To know
God and to live is the same thing. God is Life.
It is impossible for there to be a person with no religion (i.e. without any
kind of relationship to the world) as it is for there to be a person without
a heart. He may not know that he has a religion, just as a person may not know
that he has a heart, but it is no more possible for a person to exist without
a religion than without a heart.
In the experimental sphere I said to myself, ‘Everything develops, differentiates,
moving towards complexity and refinement and there are laws governing this process.
You are part of a whole. When you know as much as possible about the whole, and
about the laws of its development, you will understand your place in the whole,
and your own self.’
In contrast to what I saw happening in my own circle,
where the whole of life is spent in idleness, amusement and dissatisfaction
with life, I saw that those
people who laboured hard throughout their entire lives were less dissatisfied
with life than the rich. (Leo Tolstoy, Confessions)
A lively and concise journey through the central
ideas of thirty famous philosophers. From ancient Indian, Greek and Chinese
Philosophy to modern Western Philosophy, this book explores the changing foundations
of human knowledge and their effect on how we think and live.
Includes full page portraits, brief biographies and selected quotes from some
of the greatest minds of human history on the universal subjects of Truth,
Reality, Nature, Cosmos, Wisdom, Morality, Mind, Education, Politics, Art,
Religion & God.
Written for the lay person, while remaining true to the original ideas, this
is an engaging account of the Metaphysical foundations of Philosophy that is
both illuminating and thought provoking. (Cover Photograph: Plato & Aristotle
- The School of Athens by Raphael)
Philosophy Book
Philosophical Sketches: Chapter Headings & Content Summary
Publisher / Online Bookstore Details
Space
and Motion Publications
Online print on demand publishers of books on;
Philosophy, Physics, Metaphysics, Truth, Reality, Evolution, Ecology, Nature,
Education, Politics, Fine Art, Erotic Art, Nature, Cosmos, Wisdom, Morality,
Mind, Religion & God.
http://www.spaceandmotion.com/books/online-book-publishing.htm
Related Pages: Leo Tolstoy
We also have a nice philosophy web page on Leo Tolstoy;
http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Religions-Leo-Tolstoy-True-Religion.htm
RSS
"When
forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence: Time
and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter. ... Physical
objects are not in space, but these objects are spatially extended.
In this way the concept 'empty space' loses its meaning. ... The particle
can only appear as a limited region in space in which the field strength or
the energy density are particularly high. ...
