An educator, publicist, teacher, philosopher—Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy devoted his whole life to the search for a moral ideal. Once he said: “To live honestly, you have to strive, get lost, make mistakes, begin and give up… and constantly fight and lose. And peace of mind is spiritual meanness.”
Tolstoy considered the work “On Life” one of his most important writings: in it concentrated all his views and convictions, the path to which was so painful and long. His turmoil of the soul gave way to certainty that he had chosen correctly.