“The Most difficult thing but an essential one – is to love Life, to love it even while one suffers, because Life is all, Life is God, and to love Life means to love God.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Last update Dec. 16, 2021. History

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Leo Tolstoy 456

Russian writer 1828–1910

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“To love life is to love God. Harder and more blessed than all else is to love this life in one's sufferings, in undeserved sufferings.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Bk. XIV, ch. 15
War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)

“He who loves God is also able to accept life and to love it. This is not the same as to love God. For many pious people in all generations the love of God is the other side of the hatred for life. And there is much hostility towards life in all of us, even in those who have completely surrendered to life. Our hostility towards life is manifested in cynicism and disgust, in bitterness and continuous accusations against life. We feel rejected by life, not so much because of its objective darkness and threats and horrors, but because of our estrangement from its power and meaning. He who is reunited with God, the creative Ground of life, the power of life in everything that lives, is reunited with life. He feels accepted by it and he can love it. He understands that the greater love is, the greater the estrangement which is conquered by it. In metaphorical language I should like to say to those who feel deeply their hostility towards life: Life accepts you; life loves you as a separated part of itself; life wants to reunite you with itself, even when it seems to destroy you.”

Paul Tillich (1886–1965) German-American theologian and philosopher

Chap. 1: "To Whom Much is Forgiven..."
The New Being (1955)

“I love sport because I love life, and sport is one of the basic joys of life”

Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1932–2017) Russian poet, film director, teacher

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“It answers the question that was tormenting you: my love, you are not 'one thing in my life' - not even the most important - because my life no longer belongs to me because… you are always me.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

“I've learned two things in my life. One that love is the beginning and end of all meaning. And two that it is the same thing whatever shape our souls have taken on this journey. Love is love. Is love.”

Clive Barker (1952) author, film director and visual artist

“All love - love of children, love of parents, love of God or life - comes out of making physical love. Without the making of love there is no body to love anything.”

Barry Long (1926–2003) Australian spiritual teacher and writer

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“The motive, principle, and end of the religious life is to make an absolute gift of self to God in a self-forgetting love, to end one's own life in order to make room for God's life.”

Edith Stein (1891–1942) Jewish-German nun, theologian and philosopher

Essays on Woman (1996), The Ethos of Woman's Professions (1930)

“The one essential thing is bhakti, loving devotion to God.”

Ramakrishna (1836–1886) Indian mystic and religious preacher

Source: The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1942), p. 607
Context: The one essential thing is bhakti, loving devotion to God. Do the Theosophists seek bhakti? They are good if they do. If Theosophy makes the realization of God the goal of life, then it is good. One cannot seek God if one constantly busies oneself with the mahātmās and the lunar, solar, and stellar planes. A man should practise sādhanā and pray to God with a longing heart for love of His Lotus Feet. He should direct his mind to God alone, withdrawing it from the various objects of the world. … You may speak of the scriptures, of philosophy, of Vedanta; but you will not find God in any of those. You will never succeed in realizing God unless your soul becomes restless for Him.

“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. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Thoughts of Prince Andrew Bk XII, Ch. 16
War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)

“"Satan is a tool of God's love in the sense that he forces us to see God's loving patience." — Answers to 200 of Life's most Probing Questions”

Pat Robertson (1930) American media mogul, executive chairman, and a former Southern Baptist minister

“The Most difficult thing but an essential one – is to love Life, to love it even while one suffers, because Life is all, Life is God, and to love Life means to love God.”

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Leo Tolstoy 456

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