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
Several times I asked myself, "Can it be that I have overlooked something, that there is something which I have failed to understand? Is it not possible that this state of despair is common to everyone?" And I searched for an answer to my questions in every area of knowledge acquired by man. For a long time I carried on my painstaking search; I did not search casually, out of mere curiosity, but painfully, persistently, day and night, like a dying man seeking salvation. I found nothing.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses a profound existential search for understanding and meaning, highlighting a common feeling of despair.
In this quote, Leo Tolstoy conveys his deep and relentless quest for understanding the nature of despair and whether it is a universal experience. He reflects on the pain of searching for answers in various fields of knowledge, portraying the struggle of a seeker who, despite exhaustive efforts, finds no clarity or resolution, emphasizing the existential angst that many face.
Themes
DespairSearchUnderstandingExistentialismMeaning
In practice
Example use cases
Sharing this quote during a philosophy discussion to emphasize the search for meaning in life.
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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 — such is my idea of happiness.
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