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
He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote illustrates the intense and overwhelming nature of love, likening the beloved to a powerful celestial body.
In this quote, Tolstoy captures the complexity of love, where the speaker feels drawn to the beloved yet is aware of the need to maintain a distance, much like one avoids directly gazing at the sun. This duality of admiration and caution reflects the profound impact one can have on another, suggesting that true love can illuminate and inspire, even from afar.
Themes
LoveAdmirationDistanceIntensityLight
In practice
Example use cases
In a romantic poem at a wedding ceremony.
More from Leo Tolstoy
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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.
Leo TolstoyRead
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