Art Quotes by Leo Tolstoy

Art should cause violence to be set aside and it is only art that can accomplish this.

— Leo Tolstoy

“Where there has been true science, art has always been its exponent.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.

— Leo Tolstoy

All art has this characteristic-it unites people.

— Leo Tolstoy

By words one transmits thoughts to another, by means of art, one transmits feelings.

— Leo Tolstoy

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

— Leo Tolstoy

The activity of art is... as important as the activity of language itself, and as universal.

— Leo Tolstoy

Art is not a pleasure, a solace, or an amusement; art is great matter.

— Leo Tolstoy

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

— Leo Tolstoy

Art is the uniting of the subjective with the objective, of nature with reason, of the unconscious with the conscious, and therefore…

— Leo Tolstoy

Art is not a pleasure, a solace, or an amusement; art is a great matter. Art is an organ of human life,…

— Leo Tolstoy

“show them, not in reasoning but in life itself, the joy of general union beyond the barriers set up by life itself”

— Leo Tolstoy

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

— Leo Tolstoy

The appreciation of the merits of art of the emotions it conveys depends upon an understanding of the meaning of life...

— Leo Tolstoy

The artist's mission must not be to produce an irrefutable solution to a problem, but to compel us to love life in…

— Leo Tolstoy

To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of…

— Leo Tolstoy

The idea of beauty is the fundamental idea of everything. In the world we see only distortions of the fundamental idea, but…

— Leo Tolstoy

People understand the meaning of eating lies in the nourishment of the body only when they cease to consider that the object…

— Leo Tolstoy

The life of our class, of the wealthy and the learned, was not only repulsive to me but had lost all meaning.…

— Leo Tolstoy

“Only by assuming an infinitesimally small unit for observation - a differential of history (that is, the common tendencies of men) -…

— Leo Tolstoy

True science investigates and brings to human perception such truths and such knowledge as the people of a given time and society…

— Leo Tolstoy

“But perhaps it is always so, that men form their conceptions from fictitious, conventional types, and then—all the combinations made—they are tired…

— Leo Tolstoy

In spite the mountains of books written about art, no precise definition of art has been constructed. And the reason for this…

— Leo Tolstoy

“To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then by means of movements, lines,…

— Leo Tolstoy

In the evolution of knowledge-mistaken and unnecessary beliefs are forced out and supplanted by truer and more necessary knowledge. So too in…

— Leo Tolstoy

If people lacked the capacity to receive the thoughts of the men who preceded them and to pass on to others their…

— Leo Tolstoy

“We are accustomed to understand art to be only what we hear and see in theaters, concerts, and exhibitions, together with buildings,…

— Leo Tolstoy

Real art, like the wife of an affectionate husband, needs no ornaments. But counterfeit art, like a prostitute, must always be decked…

— Leo Tolstoy

“He considered it his duty to keep up with everything of note that appeared in the intellectual world. She knew, too, that…

— Leo Tolstoy

“We talked of a future life, of art, service, marriage, and education; nor did the idea ever occur to us that very…

— Leo Tolstoy

Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the…

— Leo Tolstoy

Every work of art causes the receiver to enter into a certain kind of relationship both with him who produced the art,…

— Leo Tolstoy

“[from Some words about 'War and Peace' ] For a historian considering the achievement of a certain aim, there are heroes; for…

— Leo Tolstoy

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

— Leo Tolstoy

Art is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feeling.

— Leo Tolstoy

“The one thing necessary in life, as in art is to tell the truth.”

— Leo Tolstoy

“Pestsov maintained that art is one, and that it can attai its highest mainfestation only in conjunction with all kinds of art.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Art can compel people freely, gladly, and spontaneously to sacrifice themselves in the service of man.

— Leo Tolstoy

The political is not compatible with the artistic, because the former, in order to prove, has to be one-sided.

— Leo Tolstoy

“The goal of the artist is not to solve a question irrefutably, but to force people to love life in all its…

— Leo Tolstoy