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 spite of death, he felt the need of life and love. He felt that love saved him from despair, and that this love, under the menace of despair, had become still stronger and purer. The one mystery of death, still unsolved, had scarcely passed before his eyes, when another mystery had arisen, as insoluble, urging him to love and to life.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses that in the face of death, love and the desire to live become more significant and profound.
Leo Tolstoy reflects on the intrinsic connection between love and life, suggesting that even the inevitability of death cannot diminish the empowering force of love. He argues that the experience of despair, tied to death, paradoxically intensifies the need for life and deeper emotional connections, emphasizing that love can flourish even in the darkest times.
Themes
LoveLifeDeathDespairPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used to comfort someone grieving by highlighting the power of love in overcoming despair.
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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.
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