“
One can only live while one is intoxicated with life; as soon as one is sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere fraud and a stupid fraud!
• Variant: It is possible to live only as long as life intoxicates us; once we are sober we cannot help seeing that it is all a delusion, a stupid delusion.
— Leo Tolstoy
What It Means
This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "One can only live while one is intoxicated with life; as soon as one is sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere fraud and a stupid fraud!
• Variant: It is possible to live only as long as life intoxicates us; once we are sober we cannot help seeing that it is all a delusion, a stupid delusion." in the context of "Ch. 4" to mean that wisdom is timeless.
Source: Wikiquote: "Leo Tolstoy" (Quotes, Confession (1882))
The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
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About Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevitch Tolstoy Ле́в Никола́евич Толсто́й, usually rendered Leo Tolstoy, or sometimes Tolstoi (9 September 1828 – 20 November 1910) was a Russian writer, philosopher and social activist (social critic), whose novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina are internationally praised classics of world literature. He was a major influence on the development of Christian anarchism and pacifism, contributing to such nonviolent resistance movements as those of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and James Bevel.
About Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevitch Tolstoy Ле́в Никола́евич Толсто́й, usually rendered Leo Tolstoy, or sometimes Tolstoi (9 September 1828 – 20 November 1910) was a Russian writer, philosopher and social activist (social critic), whose novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina are internationally praised classics of world literature. He was a major influence on the development of Christian anarchism and pacifism, contributing to such nonviolent resistance movements as those of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and James Bevel.
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