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
A man can spend several hours sitting cross-legged in the same position if he knows that noting prevents him from changing it; but if he knows that he has to sit with his legs crossed like that, he will get cramps, his legs will twitch and strain towards where he would like to stretch them.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Freedom of choice can influence our comfort and peace.
Leo Tolstoy's quote highlights the psychological impact of perception on our experience of discomfort. When we feel we have the freedom to change our situation, we can endure challenges more easily; conversely, the knowledge of being stuck in a situation can cause restlessness and discomfort, even when the actual conditions may remain the same.
Themes
FreedomChoicePerceptionComfortDiscomfortPsychology
In practice
Example use cases
During a meditation workshop, this quote can be used to illustrate the importance of mindset in enduring discomfort.
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!
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 — such is my idea of happiness.
Leo TolstoyRead
Similar quotes
Harry closed his eyes. He never wanted to open them again. His heart sent this message to his molecules: "For reasons obvious to all of us, this galaxy is dissolved!
Kurt VonnegutRead
I know that every time I list something that I am, I am potentially alienating a whole group of people. Publicists and managers will encourage you not to say what political party you belong to, what you eat, what you don't eat, who you sleep with and all that stuff.
Ellen DegeneresRead
Our society finds truth too strong a medicine to digest undiluted. In its purest form, truth is not a polite tap on the shoulder; it is a howling reproach.
Ted KoppelRead
To go beyond samsara and nirvana, we will need _x000D_ the two wings of emptiness and compassion. _x000D_ From now on, let us use these two wings _x000D_ to fly fearlessly into the sky of the life to come.
Dilgo Khyentse RinpocheRead
I don't think people by nature are extremists. You will never find a population of extremists. Extremists have existed throughout the centuries on all religions. And what happens is, extremists start to have more leverage when the situation is bad.
Queen Rania Of JordanRead
Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Read