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
Music makes me forget myself, my true condition, it carries me off into another state of being, one that isn't my own.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Music allows individuals to transcend their personal realities and experience a different state of existence.
In this quote, Tolstoy expresses the transformative power of music, suggesting that it serves as a means of escape from one's own reality. Music can evoke deep emotions and facilitate a profound sense of connection to something greater, allowing listeners to temporarily forget their troubles and engage in an alternate state of being that goes beyond their usual experiences.
Themes
MusicEscapeTransformationEmotionsExperience
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used to inspire students in a music class to appreciate the emotional depth music can provide.
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!
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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.
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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