Leo Tolstoy - Bethink Yourselves: “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”
By Leo Tolstoi
()
About this ebook
Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was born on September 9th 1828 into Russian nobility but abandoned his title and through his interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus became a fervent Christian anarchist and pacifist. His writings on non-violence were to have a profound impact on Gandhi and Martin Luther King. His reputation for many people is based on the epic, in length and scope, of his novel ‘War & Peace’. For that alone Tolstoy would be widely considered to be one of the greatest novelists of all time. But such was the breadth of his talents that he was consummate at short stories, essays and plays. Here we publish “Bethink Yourselves” one of a number of those classic plays that he wrote.
Leo Tolstoi
Leo Tolstoy grew up in Russia, raised by a elderly aunt and educated by French tutors while studying at Kazen University before giving up on his education and volunteering for military duty. When writing his greatest works, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Tolstoy drew upon his diaries for material. At eighty-two, while away from home, he suffered from declining health and died in Astapovo, Riazan in 1910.
Read more from Leo Tolstoi
War and Peace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/550 Great Love Letters You Have To Read (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul, Written and Se Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Death of Ivan Ilyich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Christmas Library: 250+ Essential Christmas Novels, Poems, Carols, Short Stories...by 100+ Authors Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Confession Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5War and Peace : Complete and Unabridged Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Following the Call: Living the Sermon on the Mount Together Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wise Thoughts for Every Day: On God, Love, the Human Spirit, and Living a Good Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tolstoy's Stories for Children Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/550 Beautiful Christmas Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaster and Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gospel in Brief: The Life of Jesus Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What is Art? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Greatest Christmas Stories of All Time: Timeless Classics That Celebrate the Season Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBig Book of Christmas Tales: 250+ Short Stories, Fairytales and Holiday Myths & Legends Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Death of Ivan Ilych (Complete Version, Best Navigation, Active TOC) (A to Z Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gospel in Tolstoy: Selections from His Short Stories, Spiritual Writings & Novels Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Thoughtful Wisdom for Every Day: 365 Days of Love, Kindness, Healing, Faith, and Peace Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBEST RUSSIAN SHORT STORIES Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confession and Other Religious Writings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Leo Tolstoy - Bethink Yourselves
Related ebooks
Reverence for Life: The Ethics of Albert Schweitzer for the Twenty-First Century Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Republic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Methods of Ethics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Princess Casamassima (1886) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Elixir Of Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEvolution and Ethics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Trespassing: My Sojourn in the Halls of Privilege Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The David Hume Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ethics of Socialism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Practice and Theory of Bolshevism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEssentially Mira: The Extraordinary Journey Behind Forest Essentials Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Data of Ethics Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Perfection of Things Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCritique of Pure Reason Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMicrocosmographia Academica: Being a Guide for the Young Academic Politician. Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Philosophy of Benjamin Disraeli Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAgrarian Justice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Life of Johnson (Abridged) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Émile Zola: The father of naturalism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Brothers Karamazov: New Revised Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHypocrisy and Integrity: Machiavelli, Rousseau, and the Ethics of Politics Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5War and Debt: The Culling of Humanity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKant's Principles of Politics and Perpetual Peace Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDoña Perfecta: Historical Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Literary Criticism For You
The 48 Laws of Power: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Reader’s Companion to J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Man's Search for Meaning: by Viktor E. Frankl | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Art of Seduction: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Killers of the Flower Moon: by David Grann | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/512 Rules For Life: by Jordan Peterson | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letters to a Young Poet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Verity: by Colleen Hoover | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Circe: by Madeline Miller | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lincoln Lawyer: A Mysterious Profile Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.by Brené Brown | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret History: by Donna Tartt | Conversation Starters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJust Kids: A National Book Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Virtues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bad Feminist: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Alone: by Kristin Hannah | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Leo Tolstoy - Bethink Yourselves
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Leo Tolstoy - Bethink Yourselves - Leo Tolstoi
Bethink Yourselves
by Leo Tolstoy
This is your hour, and the power of darkness.
Luke xxii. 53.
Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was born on September 9th 1828 into Russian nobility but abandoned his title and through his interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus became a fervent Christian anarchist and pacifist. His writings on non-violence were to have a profound impact on Gandhi and Martin Luther King. His reputation for many people is based on the epic, in length and scope, of his novel ‘War & Peace’. For that alone Tolstoy would be widely considered to be one of the greatest novelists of all time. But such was the breadth of his talents that he was consummate at short stories, essays and plays. Here we publish Bethink Yourselves
one of a number of those classic plays that he wrote.
Leo Tolstoy died acclaimed and admired throughout the world on November 20th 1910.
Table Of Contents
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
Leo Tolstoy – A Short Biography
I
Again war. Again sufferings, necessary to nobody, utterly uncalled for; again fraud; again the universal stupefaction and brutalization of men.
Men who are separated from each other by thousands of miles, hundreds of thousands of such men (on the one hand, Buddhists, whose law forbids the killing, not only of men, but of animals; on the other hand, Christians, professing the law of brotherhood and love) like wild beasts on land and on sea are seeking out each other, in order to kill, torture, and mutilate each other in the most cruel way. What can this be? Is it a dream or a reality? Something is taking place which should not, cannot be; one longs to believe that it is a dream and to awake from it. But no, it is not a dream, it is a dreadful reality!
One could yet understand how a poor, uneducated, defrauded Japanese, torn from his field and taught that Buddhism consists not in compassion to all that lives, but in sacrifices to idols, and how a similar poor illiterate fellow from the neighborhood of Toula or Nijni Novgorod, who has been taught that Christianity consists in worshipping Christ, the Madonna, Saints, and their ikons, one could understand how these unfortunate men, brought by the violence and deceit of centuries to recognize the greatest crime in the world, the murder of one's brethren, as a virtuous act, can commit these dreadful deeds, without regarding themselves as being guilty in so doing.
But how can so-called enlightened men preach war, support it, participate in it, and, worst of all, without suffering the dangers of war themselves, incite others to it, sending their unfortunate defrauded brothers to fight? These so-called enlightened men cannot possibly ignore, I do not say the Christian law, if they recognize themselves to be Christians, but all that has been written, is being written, has and is being said, about the cruelty, futility, and senselessness of war. They are regarded as enlightened men precisely because they know all this. The majority of them have themselves written and spoken about this. Not to mention The Hague Conference, which called forth universal praise, or all the books, pamphlets, newspaper articles, and speeches demonstrating the possibility of the solution of international misunderstandings by international arbitration, no enlightened man can help knowing that the universal competition in the armaments of States must inevitably lead them to endless wars, or to a general bankruptcy, or to both the one and the other. They cannot but know that besides the senseless, purposeless expenditure of milliards of roubles, i.e. of human labor, on the preparations for war, during the wars themselves millions of the most energetic and vigorous men perish in that period of their life which is best for productive labor (during the past century wars have destroyed fourteen million men). Enlightened men cannot but know that occasions for war are always such as are not worth not only one human life, but not one hundredth part of all that which is spent upon wars (in fighting for the emancipation of the negroes much more was spent than it would have cost to redeem them from slavery).
Every one knows and cannot help knowing that, above all, wars, calling forth the lowest animal passions, deprave and brutalize men. Every one knows the weakness of the arguments in favor of war, such as were brought forward by De Maistre, Moltke, and others, for they are all founded on the sophism that in every human calamity it is possible to find an