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
Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Love is the fundamental essence of life and understanding.
In this quote, Tolstoy emphasizes the profound role love plays in our existence, suggesting that our ability to understand the world is rooted in love. He suggests that love connects everything and serves as the divine essence, implying that death is not an end but a return to the pure source of love that binds us all together.
Themes
LoveLifeUnderstandingExistenceUnityGod
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the power of human connection, you could use this quote to illustrate the importance of love.
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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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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.
Leo TolstoyRead
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For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
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Because that is when you love somebody - when you see them being game in the face of the worst. Not courageous. Not heroic. Just game.
Philip RothRead
The very fact that a holy, eternal, all-knowing, all-powerful, merciful, fair, and just God loves you and me is nothing short of astonishing.
Francis ChanRead