Outline

Is faith necessary to live a fulfilling life?

Tolstoy

Pyotr Ivanovich went in, feeling, as is always the case, at a loss as to what he should do there. One thing he did know was that in these circumstances it never does any harm to cross oneself. He wasn't altogether sure whether one should also bow and so he chose a middle course: entering the room, he started to cross himself and made a kind of slight bow (Tolstoy 31)

The requiem began--candles, groans, incense, tears, sobs. Pyotr Ivanovich stood frowning, looking at the feet in front of him. He didn't look once at the dead man and right until the end didn't give in to any depressing influences. He was one of the first to leave.
(Tolstoy 38)

"So, Gerasim, my friend," said Pyotr Ivanovich in order to say something. "It's sad, isn't it?" "It's God's will. We'll all be there," said Gerasim
(Tolstoy 38)

He wept for his helplessness, for his horrible loneliness, for people's cruelty, for God's cruelty, for God's absence. "Why have you done all this? Why have you brought me here? Why, why do you torment me so horribly?"
(Tolstoy 97)

When the priest came and took his confession, he was calmed; he felt a kind of relief from his doubts and, as a consequence of that, from his sufferings, and a moment of hope came to him. He again began to think of his appendix and the possibility of curing it. He received communion with tears in his eyes.
(Tolstoy 106)

My loss of faith happened in me as it happened then and does now among people with our kind of upbringing. In the majority of cases I think it happens like this: people live as all other people do, and they all live on the basis of principles which not only have nothing in common with Christian teaching but also for the most part are in opposition to it"
(Tolstoy 116)

those words were an indicator that where he thought faith existed there had long been a void, and that therefore the words he spoke and the signs of the cross and the bows he made when he stood in prayer were all completely meaningless actions. Having recognized their meaninglessness he could not continue them.
(Tolstoy 118)

This belief in the meaning of poetry and the development of life was a religious faith, and I was one of its priests. To be its priest was very profitable and agreeable.
(Tolstoy 122)

"Everything is evolving and I am evolving, and why I am evolving together with everyone else will be made clear." That was how I then had to formulate my faith.
(Tolstoy 127)

My life came to a halt. I could breathe, eat, drink, sleep, and I couldn't not breathe, eat, drink, sleep; but I had no life because I had no desires in the fulfillment of which I might find any meaning.
(Tolstoy 132)

Where there is life, ever since mankind has existed faith gives the possibility of living, and the main features of faith are everywhere and always one and the same.
(Tolstoy 169)

Faith is the life force. If a man lives, then he believes in something. If he didn't believe that one must live for something, then he wouldn't live. If he doesn't see and doesn't understand the illusoriness of the finite, he believes in the finite; if he does understand the illusoriness of the finite, he must believe in the infinite without which one cannot live.
(Tolstoy 170)

At that time Russia was fighting a war. And Russians began to kill their brethren in the name of Christian love. It was impossible not to think about that. It was also impossible not to see that killing is an evil, is against the very first foundations of every faith. And furthermore they offered prayers in the churches for the success of our arms
(Tolstoy 201)

Sophocles

And I was not about to pay the judicial penalty before the gods
For these things, out of fear of the thought of any man!
For I knew already that I would die--how could I not?
I would, even if you had not made the proclamation! And if
I should die before my time, I say that that is a gain!
(Sophocles 167)

Thus deserted of loved ones, the ill-fated one
Goes living into the deep-dug pit of the dead!
What justice of the divinities have I transgressed?
Why should I, miserable one, still look to the gods?
(Sophocles 181)

Not even if Zeus's eagles were willing to
Snatch the carrion and take it to the throne of Zeus
(Sophocles 185)

Plato

The cause of this is that this was our ancient nature and we were wholes. So love is the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole.
(Plato 22)

Mortal nature is capable of immortality only in this way, the way of generation, because it is always leaving behind another that is young to replace the old.
(Plato 38)

'but I believe that all do all things for the sake of immortal virtue and a famous reputation of that sort; and the better they are, so much the more is it thus; for they love the immortal'
(Plato 39)

It is at this place in life, in beholding the beautiful itself, my dear Socrates,' the Mantinean stranger said, 'that it is worth living, if--for a human being--it is [worth living] at any place.'
(Plato 42)