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
In order to get the power and retain it, it is necessary to love power; but love of power is not connected with goodness, but with qualities which are the opposite of goodness, such as pride, cunning, cruelty.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The pursuit and retention of power often require a love for it, which can lead to negative traits rather than moral goodness.
Leo Tolstoy's quote reflects on the nature of power and its relationship with morality. It suggests that to gain and maintain power, one must have a strong affinity for power itself. However, this love for power is fundamentally linked to negative human qualities, including pride, cunningness, and cruelty, indicating a moral conflict that exists in the quest for power. The quote warns about the ethical implications of power dynamics and the potential for corruption that comes with an obsession for power.
Themes
PowerMoralityGoodnessTraitsCorruption
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on political leadership, one could reference this quote to highlight the moral complexities of pursuing power.
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
The laws of nature are the rules according to which the effects are produced; but there must be a cause which operates according to these rules. The laws of navigation never navigated a ship. The rules of architecture never built a house.
Thomas ReidRead
Remember, he is not, like you, a pure spirit. Never having been a human (Oh that abominable advantage of the Enemy's) you don't realize how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary.
C. S. LewisRead
Faith and Reason are like two wings of the human spirit by which is soars to the truth.
Pope John Paul IiRead
Having a scapegoat means not knowing that we have one.
Rene GirardRead
The Vedas give information on various subjects. They have come together and form one book. And in later times, when other subjects were separated from religion - when astronomy and astrology were taken out of religion - these subjects, being connected with the Vedas and being ancient, were considered very holy.
Swami VivekanandaRead
The young man knows that he is irretrievably lost. This is no town of cats, he finally realizes. It is the place where he is meant to be lost. It is another world, which has been prepared especially for him. And never again, for all eternity, will the train stop at this station to take him back to the world he came from.
Haruki MurakamiRead