3 ideas
Tolstoy sets sayings from sages of many times and faiths (Lao-Tzu, Buddha, Epictetus, Jesus, Pascal, Emerson) side by side. The January 2 reading affirms that they express a shared religious truth. The book presents this common ground as something the reader can recognize, not as a proof that convergence makes a teaching true.
The past no longer exists and the future does not yet exist, so the present is the only place a person can act, love, or improve. Postponing goodness to a later time, or regretting past failures, spends moral energy on something that is not there. The most important deed is the one done now, for whoever is in front of you now.
Resisting evil by force produces more evil, because each retaliation becomes a new injury that seems to justify the next one. The cycle is broken only when someone refuses to return harm and answers with patience and love instead. That refusal withdraws the fuel the conflict needs.