15Mayмая · 15-е мая
Правдивость не есть добродетель, но признак отсутствия пороков.
Truthfulness is not a virtue, but a sign of the absence of vices.
1. Истине никогда не вредила насмешка, но рост истины останавливается в насмехающемся.
1. Mockery has never harmed truth, but the growth of truth stops in the mocker.
From The World's Advance-Thought and the Universal Republic · shortened by Tolstoy .
Lucy Mallory’s own wordsNo truth has ever been hurt by a sneer, but the growth of truth in the one who sneers has been stopped by his sneer, to his own detriment.
Source text: iapsop.comDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. The World's Advance-Thought and the Universal Republic (Lucy A. Mallory's journal, Portland, Oregon), vol. XIV, no. 10, November 1901, p. 147, the last of a run of the editor's paragraphs, signed 'Lucy A. Mallory'.
Shortened. 'No truth has ever been hurt by a sneer' becomes 'Truth was never harmed by mockery' (Истине никогда не вредила насмешка); 'the growth of truth in the one who sneers has been stopped by his sneer, to his own detriment' becomes 'the growth of truth stops in the one who mocks': 'by his sneer' and 'to his own detriment' are left out. The archive.org scan of vol. XIV (saved) has the same paragraph, and the New York Magazine of Mysteries reprinted it in May 1902 (archive.org full-text search; not saved). No printable.
2. Самая обычная и распространенная причина лжи есть желание обмануть не людей, а самого себя. Эта же ложь и самая вредная.
2. The most usual and widespread cause of falsehood is the desire to deceive not other people but oneself. And this falsehood is also the most harmful.
3. Тысячи путей ведут к заблуждению; к истине — только один.
3. Thousands of paths lead to error; to truth, only one.
Probably from Discours sur les sciences et les arts · shortened by Tolstoy .
Original · FrenchQue de dangers, que de fausses routes dans l’investigation des Sciences !
Le désavantage est visible : car le faux est susceptible d’une infinité de combinaisons ; mais la vérité n’a qu’une manière d’être.
Source text: fr.wikisource.orgIn English · G. D. H. Cole, 1913What a number of wrong paths present themselves in the investigation of the sciences!
The disadvantages we lie under are evident; for falsehood is capable of an infinite variety of combinations; but the truth has only one manner of being.
Source text: gutenberg.orgTolstoy’s own version · Мысли мудрых людей на каждый деньТысячи путей ведут к заблуждению; к истине — только один.
Source text: tolstoy.ruRelated · Montaigne, Essais, livre I, ch. 9, Des menteursMais le revers de la verité a cent mille figures et un champ indefiny. Les Pythagoriens font le bien certain et finy, le mal infiny et incertain. Mille routtes desvoient du blanc, une y va.
Source text: fr.wikisource.orgDetails
A likely source, not certain. Discours sur les sciences et les arts (1750), part II, Geneva 1782 edition (Wikisource), second part; Cole's translation, part II.
The saying was not found in this form in Rousseau. The Circle repeats Tolstoy's Thoughts of Wise Men (1903), where it is signed «Ж.-Ж. Руссо»; the commentary of Jubilee vol. 40 does not name its source. The nearest Rousseau found is the First Discourse, which speaks of the 'fausses routes' of inquiry and says 'le faux est susceptible d'une infinité de combinaisons ; mais la vérité n'a qu'une manière d'être' (falsehood admits endless combinations; truth has one way of being); the saying may condense it. Its form, a thousand roads and one, is Montaigne's: 'Mille routtes desvoient du blanc, une y va' (a thousand roads lead away from the mark, one leads to it; Essais I.9, Cotton: 'There are a thousand ways to miss the white, there is only one to hit it'). Searched: Rousseau's Émile (books II–IV), Julie, the Narcisse preface and the Profession de foi as saved, Boiste's Dictionnaire universel (1851), web searches for 'mille chemins' and 'mille routes' with 'erreur' and 'vérité', and for the English 'a thousand paths lead to error'.
4. Нет несчастия хуже того, когда человек начинает бояться истины, чтобы она не обличила его.
4. There is no misfortune worse than when we begin to fear the truth, lest it expose us.
5. Только одна самоочевидная правда должна осуществляться людьми.
5. Only self-evident truth should be put into practice by people.
Source not found yet .
Tolstoy’s own version · Мысли мудрых людей на каждый деньТолько одна самоочевидная правда должна осуществляться людьми.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
Not found yet.
The same sentence stands alone in Thoughts of Wise Men (1903), 26 July, signed «Конфуций». In that book, the Jubilee vol. 40 commentary says, «Конфуций» marks D. Konissi's Russian Great Learning (1893) and Zhongyong (1895), and Tolstoy's own versions from Pauthier are signed «Китайская мудрость»; so the sentence is probably Konissi's, from one of the two. No passage of either says it in these words. Nearest in thought is Zhongyong ch. 20: 'that by which the duties are practised is one' (所以行之者一也; Legge: 'singleness'), which Zhu Xi glosses as sincerity (誠), and 'sincerity is the way of Heaven; to make oneself sincere is the way of man' (誠者，天之道也；誠之者，人之道也). «Самоочевидная правда» (self-evident truth) could render 誠, but without Konissi's text this cannot be checked.
Searched: Thoughts of Wise Men (1903) and its source list (Jubilee vol. 40); the Jubilee vols. 41-42 (attribution corrections); D. Konissi's Russian Great Learning (1893) and Zhongyong (1895) in Вопросы философии и психологии, not found online (archive.org holds the 1893 volume with books 19-21 only; HathiTrust refused access); Pauthier's Ta-hio and Tchoung-young; Legge's Great Learning and Doctrine of the Mean (1895 printing); the Chinese Daxue and Zhongyong; a web search for «самоочевидная правда» with Confucius.
6. Нельзя утверждать никакой неправды, не присочинив для нее еще другой неправды.
6. No untruth can be asserted without making up yet another untruth to go with it.
Source not found yet .
Not found yet.
Not found. The thought (one cannot assert any untruth without inventing another untruth for it) is not in Thoughts of Wise Men (1903), «На каждый день», or «Путь жизни». The nearest Lessing passage found is in Eine Duplik (1778), § I, where Lessing asks whether a deliberate lie is any less deliberate “because I must make it if I want to stay consistent with what I said before” (weil ich sie machen muß, wenn ich dem, was ich zuvor gesagt, gleichförmig bleiben will); it argues a point about the Evangelists and is not the same thought. The Jubilee list of the Circle's sources names two Lessing anthologies, G. Blumenau's Lessing-Perlen (Bielefeld) and Posrednik's «Избранные мысли Шиллера и Лессинга», vol. I (1903); neither was found online. Attribution left as printed.
Searched: Lachmann's edition of Lessing's sämmtliche Schriften, vols. I and II (1838; plays, poems, fables), III, VIII, XI.2, XII, and XIII (saved and archive.org OCR) for Lüge, Lügen, Unwahrheit, erdichten, ersinnen, and erfinden near one another; Feuchtersleben's Lessing anthology (Geist deutscher Klassiker, 1866); the Gutenberg German texts of the Hamburgische Dramaturgie, Emilia Galotti, Miss Sara Sampson, Nathan der Weise, Minna von Barnhelm, Der junge Gelehrte, Ernst und Falk, the Fabeln und Erzählungen, the Abhandlungen über die Fabel, Laokoon, the Gedichte, Lieder, and Oden; the saved Jubilee vols. 40, 41, 43, and 45 for «присочин»; web searches in German and Russian.
7. Как, кажется, легко говорить правду, а как много нужно внутренней работы, чтобы достигнуть этого.
Степень правдивости человека есть указатель степени его нравственного совершенства.
7. How easy it seems to tell the truth, but how much inner work is needed to achieve it.
The degree of our truthfulness is an indicator of the degree of our moral perfection.
8. Правдивость — единственная монета, которой везде ход.
8. Truthfulness is the only coin that passes everywhere.
Source not found yet .
Not found yet.
No source was found, and no Chinese saying with truthfulness as a coin current everywhere turned up in the four collections of Chinese proverbs searched. Not in Thoughts of Wise Men (1903). The Jubilee list of Tolstoy's anthologies names Everybody's Book of Proverbs and Quotations (London, 1890) and T. Tolstaya's «Восточная мудрость» (Посредник, 1903), neither found online; either may hold it.
Searched: Thoughts of Wise Men (1903) and its source list (Jubilee vol. 40); the Jubilee vols. 41-42 (attribution corrections, list of Tolstoy's sources); Conway's Sacred Anthology, Southgate (both), Coit, and Tileston, with every saved source, for truth, sincerity, or honesty beside a coin (English, French, German); W. Scarborough, A Collection of Chinese Proverbs (1875); A. H. Smith, Proverbs and Common Sayings from the Chinese (1902); J. F. Davis, Chinese Novels … with Proverbs and Moral Maxims (1822); Kwong Ki Chiu, A Dictionary of English Phrases … with a Selection of Chinese Proverbs (1881), all on archive.org; web searches in English and Russian.
9. Будем правдивы. В этом тайна красноречия и добродетели, в этом нравственное влияние, в этом высшее правило искусства и жизни.
9. Let us be truthful. In this lies the secret of eloquence and of virtue, in this lies moral influence, in this lies the highest rule of art and of life.
From Fragments d'un journal intime · close to the original .
Original · FrenchSoyons vrais, là est le secret de l'éloquence et de la vertu, là est l'autorité morale, c'est la plus haute maxime de l'art et de la vie.
Source text: archive.orgIn English · Mrs. Humphry Ward, 1885Let us be true: this is the highest maxim of art and of life, the secret of eloquence and of virtue, and of all moral authority.
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Fragments d'un journal intime, Journal, among the fragments after the entry of 17 décembre 1854 (7th ed., Geneva 1897, t. I, p. 94); Ward's translation, after December 17, 1854.
A one-line fragment, word for word; 'l'autorité morale' becomes «нравственное влияние» ('moral influence').
Очень обычная ошибка думать, что есть такие дела, в которых можно отступить от правды. Последствия и внутренние и внешние всякой самой малой неправды во много раз вреднее той неловкости, неприятности, которая может произойти от высказывания правды.
It is a very common mistake to think that there are matters in which one may depart from the truth. The consequences, both inner and outer, of every untruth, even the smallest, are many times more harmful than the awkwardness, the unpleasantness, that may come from speaking the truth.
Tolstoy TodayТолстой сегодня · tolstoytoday.org/may/15