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
It's not so much that he can't fall in love, but he has not the weakness necessary.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that one may not fall in love due to a lack of vulnerability or emotional weakness.
In this quote, Leo Tolstoy reflects on the nature of love and emotional vulnerability. He implies that falling in love requires a certain level of weakness or openness, which some individuals may resist due to fear or past experiences. This speaks to the complexity of human emotion, where the ability to love is often intertwined with the courage to expose oneself to potential pain and heartache.
Themes
LoveVulnerabilityEmotionRelationshipWeakness
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the difficulties of forming deep relationships, you might say, 'Isn't it true that, according to Tolstoy, sometimes it's the fear of vulnerability that holds us back from love?'
More from Leo Tolstoy
All quotes βPierre 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!
Leo TolstoyRead
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.
Leo TolstoyRead
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.
Leo TolstoyRead
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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I am convinced that unconditional love is the most powerful known stimulant of the immune system. If I told patients to raise their blood levels of immune globulins or killer T cells, no one would know how. But if I can teach them to love themselves and others fully, the same changes happen automatically. The truth is: love heals.
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Stronger than lover's love is lover's hate. Incurable, in each, the wounds they make.
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