Picture an old shoemaker in a tiny basement room. His one window looks out on the street at the level of the sidewalk, so all he sees are feet. He knows every neighbor by their boots.
One night he hears a voice tell him to look out into the street tomorrow, because a special guest will come. So the next morning he rises before daylight, lights the fire and sits down by the window to work and wait.
That is Martin, in Leo Tolstoy’s story Where Love Is, God Is. His guest arrives in the way he expects least. I love that picture for an early November Wednesday, when the sky is still pale at six and we all sit at our own windows, ready for the day to begin.
This is part of Timeless Authors, our daily series on the writers who change ordinary days. Yesterday Rabindranath Tagore taught us to sing before the sunrise. Today Leo Tolstoy shows us what we truly live by.
Leo Tolstoy (1828 to 1910)
Russian novelist and moral thinker, author of War and Peace, Anna Karenina and the beloved short tale What Men Live By.
The Teaching of Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy taught that love is what every person truly lives by. The most important time is right now, and the most important person is the one in front of you. Faith gives life its strength, so each ordinary morning becomes a fresh chance to do good.
I have now understood that though it seems to men that they live by care for themselves, in truth it is love alone by which they live.
Leo Tolstoy, What Men Live By (1881), translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude
Love alone. In the story an angel sent to earth learns this from a poor shoemaker and his wife, who find a stranger shivering behind a roadside shrine, give him a coat and share their bread. Every plan you make today rests on that same love, and you get to live from it on purpose this morning.
In Their Own Words, Favorite and Lesser Known Quotes
Tolstoy wrote in Russian. Every quote below comes from the English translations by his longtime friends Louise and Aylmer Maude, in Twenty-three Tales and A Confession, both free to read on Wikisource.
Love Is What We Live By
He who has love, is in God, and God is in him, for God is love.
Leo Tolstoy, What Men Live By (1881), translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude
Tolstoy saw love as the place where the sacred meets the everyday. Every loving act today, even a small one, brings heaven a little closer to your kitchen table.
The Most Important Time Is Now
It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power.
Leo Tolstoy, Three Questions (1903), translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude
So the most important time was when you were digging the beds; and I was the most important man; and to do me good was your most important business.
Leo Tolstoy, Three Questions (1903), translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude
A king searches everywhere for the answers to three big questions, and a hermit shows him they were in his hands all along. This moment, this person, this good deed. That is the whole map for a Wednesday.
Love in Action
But he now understood that the best way to keep one’s vows to God and to do His will, is for each man while he lives to show love and do good to others.
Leo Tolstoy, Two Old Men (1885), translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude
Two old friends set out on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. One stops to help a hungry family along the road, and the other comes to see that the kindness was the truest pilgrimage. Yours today can be as close as the next room.
Faith Gives Life Its Strength
Faith is the strength of life. If a man lives he believes in something.
Leo Tolstoy, A Confession, chapter IX, translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude
Tolstoy wrote these lines after years of searching for meaning. Simply getting up this morning is already an act of faith, and you can lean into it with your whole heart.
A Light Heart Every Morning
At first he meant only to read on holidays, but having once begun he found it made his heart so light that he read every day.
Leo Tolstoy, Where Love Is, God Is (1885), translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude
And Martin’s soul grew glad.
Leo Tolstoy, Where Love Is, God Is (1885), translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude
Martin started small and kept going because it felt so good. A few quiet minutes with a wise book each morning can lighten your heart the very same way.
Who Was Leo Tolstoy?
Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828 (August 28 in the old Russian calendar) at Yasnaya Polyana, his family estate in Tula province. His mother died before he turned two, and his father died in 1837.
He studied at the University of Kazan from 1844 and returned home to Yasnaya Polyana in 1847 before finishing a degree. In 1851 he joined his older brother Nikolay in the Caucasus, entered the army and served in the Crimean War, which shaped his Sevastopol Sketches. Back home he started a school for peasant children.
War and Peace (1865 to 1869) and Anna Karenina (1875 to 1877) made him one of the greatest novelists in history. Afterward he passed through a deep spiritual crisis, described in A Confession, and turned to a simple, radical Christianity of love and nonviolence. He also wrote short tales for ordinary readers, like What Men Live By (1881).
In November 1910, at 82, he quietly left his estate, fell ill with pneumonia on the journey and died within days at Astapovo, on November 20, 1910. For a fuller life, read his biography at Britannica.
What Living by Love Really Means
Living by love means seeing love as the true engine of your day. Plans and effort matter, and love is what carries them, the warmth someone once gave you and the warmth you pass along.
So instead of asking, how can I get more done today, try asking, who is in front of me, and what good can I do for them right now?
Kahlil Gibran called work love made visible, and Iris Murdoch described a just and loving gaze. Tolstoy adds the cobbler’s window, the place where love meets the street.
Why This Teaching Fits Today
This is the first Wednesday of November, the morning after a big national Election Day. Feelings run high, the clocks have just turned back and the whole country is finding its rhythm again.
Tolstoy’s hermit offers a gentle way through a day like this. Whoever you see this morning, a neighbor, a coworker or a relative with different views, that person is the most important person in your world right now. Midweek is the perfect moment to remember it.
Your Morning Practice, the Three Questions
This takes about ten minutes.
- Rise before daylight. Like Martin, light a lamp or a candle, make something warm to drink and sit by a window.
- Ask the first question. Say quietly, the most important time is now, and take three slow breaths to arrive in it.
- Ask the second question. Name the first person you will see today and picture their face with kindness.
- Ask the third question. Choose one good thing you can do for that person before noon.
- Read one page. Read a page of Tolstoy or another wise book and let it make your heart light, the way it did for Martin.
Make it stick with an if then plan. If I pour my first cup of coffee, then I will ask my three questions before I open my phone.
Essential Reading
- Twenty-three Tales, translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude. Short, warm stories including What Men Live By, Where Love Is, God Is and Three Questions.
- A Confession. Tolstoy’s heartfelt account of his search for meaning and the faith he found.
- War and Peace (1865 to 1869). His vast novel of families, love and history, free in the Maude translation on Wikisource.
Quick Answers About Leo Tolstoy
Who was Leo Tolstoy?
Leo Tolstoy (1828 to 1910) was a Russian novelist and moral thinker born at Yasnaya Polyana in Tula province. He wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina, two of the most celebrated novels ever written.
What is Leo Tolstoy’s most famous quote?
Many readers treasure the closing line of What Men Live By, where an angel learns that “it is love alone by which they live.” Others love the hermit’s answer in Three Questions, that the most important time is now.
What are the Three Questions?
In Tolstoy’s 1903 story a king wants to know the right time to begin everything, the right people to listen to and the most important thing to do. A hermit shows him the answers are now, the person in front of you and doing that person good.
Can I read Leo Tolstoy for free?
Absolutely. Twenty-three Tales, A Confession and War and Peace are all free to read in the Louise and Aylmer Maude translations on Wikisource.
What did Tolstoy believe about love?
Tolstoy believed love is the true source of human life. In What Men Live By he writes that love alone is what people live by, and his later stories show that love at work in simple, practical kindness.
Back to the Cobbler’s Window
Martin watched the street all day for his special guest. That night he understood the guest had come again and again, in the old soldier clearing snow, the poor mother with her baby and the apple seller with the boy. Every person he helped was the visit.
Your window opens on the same street this morning.
I have now understood that though it seems to men that they live by care for themselves, in truth it is love alone by which they live.
Leo Tolstoy, What Men Live By (1881), translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude
Who will be the most important person at your window today?
Start early. Start loving. Start today.
Complement this with Rabindranath Tagore on Faith, Light and Love, Emerson’s Case for the Life Only You Can Live and Charles Dickens on Kindness and a Change of Heart.
Want a calm, intentional start every day? Hold Until Sunrise is our little app for mornings that matter.
For a little goodness in your inbox every Sunday, join us here.
With love, Paolo
Sources
- Leo Tolstoy, What Men Live By (1881), Wikisource
- Leo Tolstoy, Three Questions (1903), Wikisource
- Leo Tolstoy, Two Old Men (1885), Wikisource
- Leo Tolstoy, Where Love Is, God Is (1885), Wikisource
- Leo Tolstoy, A Confession, chapter IX, Wikisource
- Leo Tolstoy, Britannica
- Leo Tolstoy summary, Britannica
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Carry this into tomorrow morning
The practice in this post lives in an app we built, Hold Until Sunrise. Your alarm becomes a moment of stillness. You hold your phone, rest with one affirmation, and let the sunrise welcome you into the day. Begin tomorrow gently and on your own terms. Find it on the App Store here.