The political is not compatible with the artistic, because the former, in order to prove, has to be one-sided.
Leo TolstoyReason unites us, not only with our contemporaries, but with men who lived two thousand years before us, and with those who will live after us.
Leo TolstoyThe sole meaning of life is to serve humanity by contributing to the establishment of the kingdom of God, which can only be done by the recognition and profession of the truth by every man.
Leo TolstoyArt 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.
Leo Tolstoy