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
Vegetarianism serves as the criterion by which we know that the pursuit of moral perfection on the part of humanity is genuine and sincere.
Interpretation
Vegetarianism reflects humanity's genuine commitment to moral values.
In this quote, Tolstoy suggests that the choice to be vegetarian is not just a dietary preference but serves as a measure of one's moral integrity and sincerity in the pursuit of ethical living. He implies that adopting vegetarianism is a significant step towards achieving moral perfection, as it demonstrates a commitment to compassion and the well-being of all living beings.
In practice
In a discussion about ethical eating choices at a community event.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
The belief that politics can be scientific must inevitably produce tyrannies. Politics cannot be a science, because in politics theory and practice cannot be separated, and the sciences depend upon their separation. Empirical politics must be kept in bounds by democratic institutions, which leave it up to the subjects of the experiment to say whether it shall be tried, and to stop it if they dislike it, because, in politics, there is a distinction, unknown to science, between Truth and Justice.
The new American finds his challenge and his love in the traffic-choked streets, skies nested in smog, choking with the acids of industry, the screech of rubber and houses leashed in against one another while the town lets wither a time and die.
Amor Fati β βLove Your Fateβ, which is in fact your life.
Dear brothers and sisters, after the great Pope John Paul II, the cardinals have elected me - a simple, humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord.
We must, therefore, be here as strangers and pilgrims, that we may plainly declare that we seek a city above.
When everyone is determined to present someone as a monster, there are two possibilities: either heβs a saint or they themselves are not telling the whole story.
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