“If you want people to speak well of you,

do not speak well of yourself.”

Blaise Pascal

This is the first in a series of quotations collected from a book by Leo Tolstoy by my friend Steve G. The book was mentioned in a book titled A Swim in a Pond in the Rain that I read for one of my book clubs. It gave me an insight into thinking about stories and how they were written.

The Tolstoy book is A Calendar of Wisdom. I don’t recommend it. It is a collection of aphorisms arranged by day and mostly dealing with religion. Thanks to Steve you don’t have to read Tolstoy’s worst work because Steve went through it and collected the best of the aphorisms and I’m going to print them here on Monday’s for the next few months.