Quote of the day by Leo Tolstoy: 'Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one...'

Leo Tolstoy was a Russian novelist, philosopher, and one of the greatest writers in world literature. In May 1893, an aging Russian writer sat in his home at Yasnaya Polyana, drafting an essay about art and science. Outside his window, poor workers farmed the land under rules that had not changed for centuries. Inside, Count Leo Tolstoy was slowly giving up his wealthy lifestyle, piece by piece."Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself," Tolstoy wrote in an essay from that period, titled Three Methods of Reform (later printed in his book The Kingdom of God Is Within You).The sentence is short, but it points out a common human habit: We love telling others how to act, but we hate fixing our own faults. People find it easy to complain about government rules, point fingers at society, or demand big changes. It is much harder to look in the mirror and fix our own bad habits, anger, or dishonesty.From famous writer to simple monkWhen Tolstoy wrote those words in the 1890s, Russia was full of political anger. Young political groups believed that killing government officials and tearing down the ruling system was the only way to get justice. Writers and...