To the strengthening of faith

Many do not allow even the thought that an intellectual man of our time could have such a lively and sincere faith as the simple masses do out of ignorance. But this is a great mistake. An educated man, once he gets past a certain [point] is able to believe much more deeply and ardently than an ordinary person who believes partly by habit (following the example of others), partly because his faith, his vague religious ideas are not troubled by any opposing ideas. There is nothing for him to conquer, no intellectual battles to fight. For him, what he must conquer in the spiritual arena are not ideas but passions, feelings, habits, anger, rudeness, malice, envy, greed, drunkenness, depravity, laziness, etc. For an intellectual the warfare is much more difficult and complex. Like the ordinary person he must battle all these passions and habits, but in addition he must also break his intellectual pride and consciously subjugate his mind to the teaching of the Church. Once we get past this mystical threshold, which I mentioned earlier, then our erudition will itself begin to help us in strengthening our faith.
Konstantin Leontiev

The exhaustion of faith

'My elder! Tell me sincerely, I bet of you in the name of God, tell me what you think of this: why did the evil spirits appear before the eyes of people in ancient times, as the sacred tradition tells us, and why do they no longer present themselves before our own eyes?'
Father Arseny glanced at me attentively and keenly. In his eyes, as I recall, the flame of a certain joyous faith was suddenly kindled, and after pondering for a while, he answered me thus:
'In those days all men, even the pagans, had a great deal of faith. Now men have become powerless, and faith is weakening. The earth itself is growing old, and men are growing senile in both spirit and flesh. With the exhaustion of men's strength, faith has also become exhausted. Now it is more profitable for the spirits of temptation not to be seen by us. They say to themselves, 'Things are well as they are!' Should a man of weak faith of a godless man see a demon before him and understand this, he would as a consequence begin to have a firmer faith in goodness.'
Konstantin Leontiev

Monarchical socialism?

I shall even say more: if socialism—not as a nihilistic revolt and delirium of self-negation, but rather as a lawful organization of labor and capital, as a new kind of corporate, coervice serf-state imposed upon human societies—has any future at all, then nothing but a monarchical government will be able to create this new order...
Konstantin Leontiev

The way of progress

Oh, hateful equality! Oh, base uniformity! Oh, thrice accursed progress!
Oh, the massive, blood-soaked, but picturesque mountain of universal history! Since the end of the last century you have been laboring in torments of new births. And out of your suffering depths merely a mouse crawls out! A self-satisfied caricature of the people of former days is born, the average rational European, in his comic clothes that even the ideal mirror of art cannot reflect, with a small and self-deluded mind, with his creepy, practical good will!
No! Never yet in the history of our times has anybody seen such a monstrous combination of mental pride before God and ethical submission before the ideal of a homogeneous, gray, laboring, and godlessly passionless all-mankind!
Is it possible to love such a mankind?
Should one not, with all the strength of even a Christian soul, hate—not the people who are stupid and have lost their way—but a future of theirs such as this?
Yes, one should! One should! Thrice, one should! For it hath been said, 'Love thy neighbor, and hate his sins!'
Konstantin Leontiev

Basic beliefs

I do not believe in the infallibility of my mind; I do not believe in the infallibility of other minds, even the greatest; all the more, I do not believe in the sinlessness of collective mankind; but in order to live, everyone must believe in something. Let me then believe in the Gospel, as explained by the church, and not otherwise.
Konstantin Leontiev

The dawn of a better life

...I also loved to read the Holy Scriptures; and when, toward the end of the Old Testament, in its concluding chapters, I somehow had a sense of emptiness and peace, and the strict Romans were already present, a feeling of barely audible, barely noticeable, sweet expectation stirred within me. The dawn of a better life seemed to be awaiting the whole world. There was no light as yet, and one felt both sad and relieved. Then a poor child was born in Bethlehem....How good it is in these dry deserts, where only palm trees grow and people walk about barefoot in light robes! And already Peter was weeping in the night when the cock crowed, and I wept with him; all grew dark, the dead rose out of their graves and walked into town, the curtain in the temple was rent….Before me is a picture....Christ manifest himself for a minute to a couple of disciples, who were on their way to Emmaus. Some poor little town, this Emmaus; three smallish men are hurrying out of some valley, their robes blowing behind them; to one side are rocks, and in the distance looms an agglomeration of small houses with flat roofs. How deserted it all seems! As though after dinner when it is no longer hot, you might enter a large green garden which no one is using and where the shadows cast by the trees grow more and more elongated. As though the person closest to one had departed from the house and from this garden, in which he could have strolled had he wished. And something new was about to begin, was about to glimmer….But what was it? Even then I could not explain it, nor can I do so now.
Konstantin Leontiev