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
If goodness has causes, it is not goodness; if it has effects, a reward, it is not goodness either. So goodness is outside the chain of cause and effect.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Goodness exists independently of any external validation or consequences.
In this quote, Tolstoy argues that true goodness cannot be tied to specific outcomes or rewards, nor can it be seen as a reaction to certain causes. His perspective suggests that genuine goodness is an intrinsic quality that operates beyond conventional notions of cause and effect, highlighting a moral framework where acts of kindness or virtue hold value in themselves rather than for any gain they might yield.
Themes
GoodnessVirtueMoralityPhilosophySelflessness
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about altruism, this quote could reinforce the idea that true acts of kindness are valuable without expecting anything in return.
More from Leo Tolstoy
All quotes βPierre 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!
Leo TolstoyRead
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.
Leo TolstoyRead
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.
Leo TolstoyRead
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.
Leo TolstoyRead
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 β such is my idea of happiness.
Leo TolstoyRead
Similar quotes
Enjoin what is good and forbid what is evil before the worst amongst you are given authority over you and then when even the best of you make dua against them, their duas will not be accepted.
Uthman Ibn AffanRead
What we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
The first grave. Now we're getting someplace. Houses and children and graves, that's home, Tom. Those are the things that hold a man down.
John SteinbeckRead
We do not want to live in a theocracy. We should maintain that barrier and government has no business telling someone what they ought to believe or how they should conduct their private lives.
Robert ReichRead
Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock.
Frank HerbertRead
There is in each of us an ancient force that takes and an ancient force that gives. A man finds little difficulty facing that place within himself where the taking force dwells, but it's almost impossible for him to see into the giving force without changing into something other than man. For a woman, the situation is reversed. ... These things are so ancient within us that they're ground into each separate cell of our bodies... It's as easy to be overwhelmed by giving as by taking.
Frank HerbertRead