“Sebastopol” by Leo Tolstoi (Tolstoy)
“
Rational knowledge, as presented by the learned and wise, negates the meaning of life, yet the vast masses - humanity as a whole - recognise that this meaning lies in irrational knowledge. And this irrational knowledge is faith, the very thing that I could not help rejecting. This God, one in three, the creation in six days, the devils and angels and all the rest that I could not accept without going mad. My position was terrible.
I knew that I could find nothing along the path of rational knowledge, other than negation of life. While in faith I found nothing other than a negation of reason, which was even more impossible than denial of life. According to rational knowledge life is an evil and people know it. They have the choice of ending their lives and yet they have always carried on living, just as I myself have done, despite having known for a long time that life is meaningless and evil. According to faith it follows that in order to comprehend the meaning of life I must renounce my reason, the very thing for which meaning was necessary.
— Leo Tolstoy. A Confession, The Gospel In Brief, and What I Believe, transl. with an Introduction by Aylmer Maude (London: Oxford University Press, 1961)
(Source: fuckyeahexistentialism, via tentwistedtongues)
