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
It's not so much that he can't fall in love, but he has not the weakness necessary.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that one may not fall in love due to a lack of vulnerability or emotional weakness.
In this quote, Leo Tolstoy reflects on the nature of love and emotional vulnerability. He implies that falling in love requires a certain level of weakness or openness, which some individuals may resist due to fear or past experiences. This speaks to the complexity of human emotion, where the ability to love is often intertwined with the courage to expose oneself to potential pain and heartache.
Themes
LoveVulnerabilityEmotionRelationshipWeakness
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the difficulties of forming deep relationships, you might say, 'Isn't it true that, according to Tolstoy, sometimes it's the fear of vulnerability that holds us back from love?'
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.
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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.
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
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I shall have poetry in my life. And adventure. And love, love, love, above all. Love as there has never been in a play. Unbiddable, ungovernable, like a riot in the heart and nothing to be done, come ruin or rapture.
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My needs were simple I didn't bother much with themes or felicitous phrases and skipped fine descriptions of weather, landscapes and interiors. I wanted characters I could believe in, and I wanted to be made curious about what was to happen to them. Generally, I preferred people to be falling in and out of love, but I didn't mind so much if they tried their hand at something else. It was vulgar to want it, but I liked someone to say 'Marry me' by the end.
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The most delicate, the most sensible of all pleasures, consists in promoting the pleasure of others.
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How is it that we do not die of love in seeing that God Himself could do no more than shed His divine blood for us drop by drop? When as man He was preparing for death, He made Himself our food in order to give us life. God becomes food, bread for his creatures. Is this not enough to make us die of love?
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The world says you are loved because of what you do. Jesus says you can now do all things because you are loved.
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