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
What an immense mass of evil must result...from allowing men to assume the right of anticipating what may happen.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Tolstoy critiques the tendency of people to predict the future and the potential harm it can cause.
In this quote, Leo Tolstoy expresses his concern about the dangers of humans presuming to predict future events. He suggests that this presumption can lead to significant negativity and unintended consequences, highlighting the complexities and uncertainties of life that cannot be anticipated or controlled.
Themes
PredictionFutureConsequencesUncertaintyHuman Nature
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the unpredictability of life events, you can use this quote to emphasize the dangers of trying to predict outcomes.
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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 β such is my idea of happiness.
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