Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” Quotes (102 Quotes)

We imagine that when we are thrown out of our usual ruts all is lost, but it is only then that what is new and good begins. While there is life there is happiness. There is much, much before us.

But despite the fact that the doctors treated him, bled him, and gave him medicines to drink -- he recovered.

He remembered his mother's love for him, and his family's, and his friends', and the enemy's intention to kill him seemed impossible.

It was necessary that millions of men in whose hands lay the real power -- the soldiers who fired, or transported provisions and guns -- should consent to carry out the will of these weak individuals...

On the twelfth of June, the forces of Western Europe crossed the borders of Russia, and war began--that is, an event took place contrary to human reason and to the whole of human nature.

The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.

We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done them.

But our idea is that the wolves should be fed and the sheep kept safe.

Her maternal instinct told her Natasha had too much of something, and because of this she would not be happy

It was only at her prayers that she felt able to think calmly and clearly either of Prince Andrey or Anatole, with a sense that her feelings for them were as nothing compared with her feel of worship and awe of God.

One might murder and steal and yet be happy

The strongest of all warriors are these two - Time and Patience.

Well, pray if you like, only you'd do better to use your judgment.

But she was not even grateful to him for it; nothing good on Pierre's part seemed to her to be an effort, it seemed so natural for him to be kind to everyone that there was no merit in his kindness.

Her motherly instinct told her that there was too much of something in Natasha, and that it would prevent her from being happy.

It's all God's will: you can die in your sleep, and God can spare you in battle.

One must be cunning and wicked in this world.

The subject of history is the life of peoples and mankind.

What a terrible thing war is, what a terrible thing!

But the princess had never seen the beautiful expression of her eyes; the expression that came into them when she was not thinking of herself. As is the case with everyone, her face assumed an affected, unnatural, ugly expression as soon as she looked in the looking glass.

Here I am alive, and it's not my fault, so I have to try and get by as best I can without hurting anybody until death takes over.

It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.

Pierre had for the first time experienced that strange and fascinating feeling in the Slobodsky palace, when he suddenly felt that wealth and power and life, all that men build up and guard with such effort ,is only worth anything through the joy with which it can all be cast away.

The subject of history is the life of peoples and of humanity. To catch and pin down in words--that is, to describe directly the life, not only of humanity, but even of a single people, appears to be impossible.

Whatever question arose, a swarm of these drones, without having finished their buzzing on a previous theme, flew over to the new one and by their hum drowned and obscured the voices of those who were disputing honestly.

Davout looked up and gazed intently at him. For some seconds they looked at one another, and that look saved Pierre. Apart from conditions of war and law, that look established human relations between the two men. At that moment an immense number of things passed dimly through both their minds, and they realized that they were both children of humanity and were brothers.

How can one be well...when one suffers morally?

Kings are the slaves of history.

Pierre was one of those people who are strong only when they feel themselves perfectly pure.

The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness...

When a man sees a dying animal, horror comes over him: that which he himself is, his essence, is obviously being annihilated before his eyes--is ceasing to be. But when the dying one is a person, and a beloved person, then, besides a sense of horror at the annihilation of life, there is a feeling of severance and a spiritual wound which, like a physical wound, sometimes kills and sometimes heals, but always hurts and fears any external, irritating touch.

A battle is won by him who is firmly resolved to win it.

Dumnezeu este doar unul s,i acelas,i pretutindeni.

How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what?... All will end in death, all!

Lay me down like a stone oh God, and raise me up like a new bread"."

Pierre was right when he said that one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and I now believe in it. Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy.

There are such repulsive faces in the world.

When an apple has ripened and falls, why does it fall? Because of its attraction to the earth, because its stalk withers, because it is dried by the sun, because it grows heavier, because the wind shakes it, or because the boy standing below wants to eat it?

A man's every action is inevitably conditioned by what surrounds him and by his own body.

Each man lives for himself, uses his freedom to achieve his personal goals, and feels with his whole being that right now he can or cannot do such-and-such an action; but as soon as he does it, this action, committed at a certain moment in time, becomes irreversible, and makes itself the property of history, in which is has not a free but a predestined significance.

Human science fragments everything in order to understand it, kills everything in order to examine it.

Life did not stop, and one had to live.

Power is the sum total of the wills of the mass, transfered by express or tactic agreement to rulers chosen by the masses.

There lay between them, separating them, that same terrible line of the unknown and of fear, like the line separating the living from the dead.

When one's head is gone one doesn't weep over one's hair!

All the stories and descriptions of that time without exception peak only of the patriotism, self-sacrifice, despair, grief, and heroism of the Russians. But in reality it was not like that...The majority of the people paid no attention to the general course of events but were influenced only by their immediate personal interests.

Every general and every soldier was conscious of his own insignificance, aware of being but a drop in that ocean of men, and yet at the same time was conscious of his strength as a part of that enormous whole.

I don't give a damn unless I'm fond of a person;but I'd sacrifice my life for those I am fond of; the rest I'd throttle if they stood in my way...And you may not believe me but if I still set a value on life it is only because I still hope one day to meet such a heavenly creature who will regenarate me, purify me and elevate me. But you don't understand that.

Life is everything. Life is God. Everything shifts and moves, and this movement is God. And while there is life, there is delight in the self-awareness of the divinity. To love life is to love God. The hardest and most blissful thing is to love this life in one's suffering, in the guiltlessness of suffering.

Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.