19 quotes
The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.
War and Peace (1865)
Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait.
War and Peace (1865)
Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here.
War and Peace (1865)
To love life is to love God. Harder and more blessed than all else is to love this life in one's sufferings, in undeserved sufferings.
War and Peace (1865)
All that may be so and mankind is ready to agree with it, but it is not what was asked.
War and Peace (1865)
The only thing that we know is that we know nothing — and that is the highest flight of human wisdom.
War and Peace (1865)
Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.
War and Peace (1865)
You will die — and it will all be over. You will die and find out everything — or cease asking.
War and Peace (1865)
History is the life of nations and of humanity. To seize and put into words, to describe directly the life of humanity or even of a single nation, appears impossible.
War and Peace (1865)
For us, with the rule of right and wrong given us by Christ, there is nothing for which we have no standard. And there is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.
War and Peace (1865)
Patience and time are my warriors, my champions,” thought Kutúzov. He knew that an apple should not be plucked while it is green. It will fall of itself when ripe, but if picked unripe the apple is spoiled, the tree is harmed, and your teeth are set on edge.
War and Peace (1865)
Now about your family. Do you know that since your daughter came out everyone has been enraptured by her? They say she is amazingly beautiful.
War and Peace (1865)
He did not, and could not, understand the meaning of words apart from their context. Every word and action of his was the manifestation of an activity unknown to him, which was his life.
War and Peace (1865)
Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own free will, is in an historical sense not free at all, but in bondage to the whole course of previous history, and predestined from all eternity.
War and Peace (1865)
A king is history's slave.
War and Peace (1865)
Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.
War and Peace (1865)
Despite the fact that the doctors treated him, bled him, and gave him medicines to drink, he recovered.
[sometimes quoted as "Though the doctors treated him, let his blood, and gave him medications to drink, he nevertheless recovered."]
War and Peace (1865)
In historical events great men — so-called — are but labels serving to give a name to the event, and like labels they have the least possible connection with the event itself. Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own free will, is in an historical sense not free at all, but in bondage to the whole course of previous history, and predestined from all eternity.
War and Peace (1865)
“They must understand that we can only lose by taking the offensive. Patience and time are my warriors, my champions,” thought Kutúzov. He knew that an apple should not be plucked while it is green. It will fall of itself when ripe, but if picked unripe the apple is spoiled, the tree is harmed, and your teeth are set on edge.
War and Peace (1865)