Conversation

Leo Tolstoy, who died Nov 20 1920, was born to an aristocratic family, served in the military, and then won fame and wealth as author of such great novels as *War and Peace*. Despite his success he felt there must be a deeper meaning to life.
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He concluded that the search for happiness was inseparable from the call to holiness, the effort to conform one’s life to the rule of God, summarized, as he believed, in the Sermon on the Mount. He set out to live a simple life on his family estate.
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But he was never able fully to embrace the ideals he preached. His quest for happiness was marked by the ambivalence and divided conscience that accompanied him until his death, at the age of 82, in a tiny village where he collapsed during a final flight from his home and family.
“Man gives himself to the illusion of egoism, lives for himself—and he suffers. It suffices that he begin to live for others, and the suffering becomes lighter, and there is obtained the highest good in the world: love of people.”—Leo Tolstoy
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