Quotessence
Home / Authors / Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenPeopleIfsLifeLoveKnowsInspirationalWorldHumansArtWarShouldThinkingReasonSoulFeelingsHumanityHeartMeanLying

Famous Leo Tolstoy Quotes

“[from Some words about 'War and Peace'] For a historian considering the achievement of a certain aim, there are heroes; for the artist treating of a man's relation to all sides of life there cannot and should not be heroes, but there should be men. [...] The historian has to deal with the results of an event, the artist with the fact of the event. An historian in describing a battle says: 'The left flank of such and such an army was advanced to attack such and such a village and drove out the enemy, but was compelled to retire; then the cavalry, which was sent to attack, overthrew...' and so on. But these words have no meaning for the artist and do not actually touch on the event itself. Either from his own experience, or from the letters, memoirs, and accounts, the artist realizes a certain event to himself, and very often (to take the example of a battle) the deductions the historian permits himself to make as to the activity of such and such armies prove to be the very opposite of the artist's deductions. The difference of the results arrived at is also to be explained by the sources from which the two draw their information. For the historian (to keep to the case of a battle) the chief source is found in the reports of the commanding officers and the commander-in-chief. The artist can draw nothing from such sources; they tell him nothing and explain nothing to him. More than that: the artist turns away from them as he finds inevitable falsehood in them. To say nothing of the fact that after any battle the two sides nearly always describe it in quite contradictory ways, in every description of a battle there is a necessary lie, resulting from the need of describing in a few words the actions of thousands of men spread over several miles, and subject to most violent moral excitement under the influence of fear, shame and death.”

ArtTruth
Author:Leo Tolstoy
Create image

“In our age the common religious perception of men is the consciousness of the brotherhood of man - we know that the well-being of man lies in the union with his fellow men. True science should indicate the various methods of applying this consciousness to life. Art should transform this perception into feeling.”

KnowsMenShouldWellsArtFeelingsAgeLyingReligiousCommonConsciousnessPerceptionMethodFellowsUnionsVariousWell BeingBrotherhoodFellow ManLying MenBrotherhood Of Man
Book:What is Art?:
Create image

“Real art, like the wife of an affectionate husband, needs no ornaments. But counterfeit art, like a prostitute, must always be decked out. The cause of production of real art is the artist's inner need to express a feeling that has accumulated...The cause of counterfeit art, as of prostitution, is gain. The consequence of true art is the introduction of a new feeling into the intercourse of life... The consequences of counterfeit art are the perversion of man, pleasure which never satisfies, and the weakening of man's spiritual strength.”

MenNeedsArtRealFeelingsSpiritualArtistCausesPleasureWifeHusbandArt IsConsequenceGainsProductionsOriginalityIntroductionProstitutionIntercourseOrnamentsAffectionatePerversionCounterfeitWeakeningSpiritual StrengthNew Feelings
Author:Leo Tolstoy
Create image

“Man's mind cannot grasp the causes of events in their completeness, but the desire to find the causes is implanted in man's soul.”

MenMindArtSoulPhilosophyDesireCausesHistoryEventsCompleteness
Book:WAR AND PEACE Complete Edition – All 15 Books in One Volume (World Classics Series): The Magnum Opus of the Greatest Russian Novelists and Author of Anna Karenina & The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Including the Biography & Memoirs of the Author)
Create image

“If people lacked the capacity to receive the thoughts of the men who preceded them and to pass on to others their own thoughts, men would be like wild beasts. And if men lacked this other capacity of being infected by art, people would be almost more savage still, and, above all, more separated from and more hostile to one another. Therefore the activity of art is a most important one, as important as the activity of speech itself and as generally diffused.”

PeopleIfsMenArtStillsImportantWould BeHe ManActivitySpeechArt IsCapacityBeastSavagesHostileWild Beasts
Author:Leo Tolstoy
Create image

“In the evolution of knowledge-mistaken and unnecessary beliefs are forced out and supplanted by truer and more necessary knowledge. So too in the evolution of feelings, which takes place by means of art. Lower feelings-less kind and less needed for the good of humanity-are forced out and replaced by kinder feelings which better serve us individually and collectively. This is the purpose of art.”

KindMeanArtFeelingsPurposeHumanityBeliefEvolutionNeededReplacedUnnecessaryMistakenKinderPurpose Of Art
Author:Leo Tolstoy
Create image

“True art and true science possess two unmistakable marks: the first, an inward mark, which is this, that the servitor of art and science will fulfil his vocation, not for profit but with self- sacrifice; and the second, an external sign, his productions will be intelligible to all the people whose welfare he has in view.”

PeopleFirstsArtTwoSelfViewsSacrificeMarkProfitProductionsWelfareInwardVocationSelf SacrificeArt And Science
Book:On the Significance of Science and Art
Create image

“Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man's emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity.”

MenWellsMeanArtIdeasFeelingsTogetherHumanityGamesIndividualEnergyPleasureEmotionProgressObjectsExpressionArt IsUnionsProductionsMysteriousWell BeingManifestationExcessIndispensableJoining
Book:Last Steps: The Late Writings of Leo Tolstoy: The Late Writings of Leo Tolstoy
Create image

“Art lifts man from his personal life into the universal life.”

MenArtUniversalLiftsPersonal LifeWisestUniversal Life
Book:WHAT IS ART? & WHEREIN IS TRUTH IN ART? (Meditations on Aesthetics & Literature): On the Significance of Science and Art, Shakespeare and the Drama, The Works of Guy De Maupassant, A. Stockham'sTokology, Amiel's Diary, S. T. Seménov's Peasant Stories, Stop and Think!...
Create image

“Great works of art are only great because they are accessible and comprehensible to everyone.”

ArtWorks Of ArtGreat Work
Book:The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Memoirs, Letters & Essays on Art, Religion and Politics: Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Resurrection, The Death of Ivan Ilych, A Confession, The Cossacks, Correspondences with Gandhi, The Kreutzer Sonata, Fables and Stories for Childrenand Many More
Create image

“"A real work of art destroys, in the consciousness of the receiver, the separation between himself and the artist."”

ArtRealArtistConsciousnessSeparationWorks Of ArtReceiverReal Work
Book:The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Memoirs, Letters & Essays on Art, Religion and Politics: Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Resurrection, The Death of Ivan Ilych, A Confession, The Cossacks, Correspondences with Gandhi, The Kreutzer Sonata, Fables and Stories for Childrenand Many More
Create image

“Art is not a pleasure, a solace, or an amusement; art is a great matter. Art is an organ of human life, transmitting man's reasonable perception into feeling.”

MenHumansArtMatterFeelingsPleasurePerceptionArt IsHuman LifeReasonableOrgansAmusementSolace
Book:WHAT IS ART? & WHEREIN IS TRUTH IN ART? (Meditations on Aesthetics & Literature): On the Significance of Science and Art, Shakespeare and the Drama, The Works of Guy De Maupassant, A. Stockham'sTokology, Amiel's Diary, S. T. Seménov's Peasant Stories, Stop and Think!...
Create image

“Art is the uniting of the subjective with the objective, of nature with reason, of the unconscious with the conscious, and therefore art is the highest means of knowledge.”

MeanArtReasonHighestConsciousArt IsObjectivesUnconsciousSubjectiveWisestUniting
Book:WHAT IS ART? & WHEREIN IS TRUTH IN ART? (Meditations on Aesthetics & Literature): On the Significance of Science and Art, Shakespeare and the Drama, The Works of Guy De Maupassant, A. Stockham'sTokology, Amiel's Diary, S. T. Seménov's Peasant Stories, Stop and Think!...
Create image

“Every work of art causes the receiver to enter into a certain kind of relationship both with him who produced the art, and with all those who, simultaneously, previously, or subsequently, receive the same artistic impression. Art is a human activity- that one man consciously by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that others are touched by these feelings and also experience them.”

MenHumansKindMeanArtFeelingsHandsCertainCausesActivityArt IsImpressionArtisticTouchedWorks Of ArtOne ManHuman ActivityReceiver
Author:Leo Tolstoy
Create image