Art begins when a man, with a purpose of communicating to other people a feeling he once experienced, calls it up again within himself and expresses it by certain external signs.
Leo TolstoyRead
Death is more certain than the morrow, than night following day, than winter following summer. Why is it then that we prepare for the night and for the winter time, but do not prepare for death. We must prepare for death. But there is only one way to prepare for death - and that is to live well.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The inevitability of death should motivate us to live our lives meaningfully and prepare for it by living well.
In this quote, Tolstoy emphasizes the certainty of death and contrasts it with our tendency to prepare for other inevitable events in life, such as night and seasons. He argues that while we often focus on preparing for physical changes in our environment, we neglect to prepare for our own mortality. The ultimate preparation for death, he suggests, is to live a life that is virtuous and fulfilling, reinforcing the idea that how we live is intrinsically tied to how we face death.
Themes
DeathLifePreparationLiving WellMortality
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a memorial service to reflect on how one lived their life.
More from Leo Tolstoy
All quotes →Pierre looked into the sky, into the depths of the retreating, twinkling stars. "And all this is mine, and all this is in me, and all this is me!" thought Pierre. "And all this they've caught and put in a shed and boarded it up!
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People try to do all sorts of clever and difficult things to improve life instead of doing the simplest, easiest thing-refusing to participate in activities that make life bad.
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It's too easy to criticize a man when he's out of favour, and to make him shoulder the blame for everybody else's mistakes.
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Music is the shorthand of emotion. Emotions, which let themselves be described in words with such difficulty, are directly conveyed to man in music, and in that is its power and significance.
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A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.
Leo TolstoyRead
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