Key Insights & Memorable Quotes
Below are the most popular and impactful highlights and quotes from War and Peace:
“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”
“Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women.”
“The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.”
“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.”
“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.”
“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...”
“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.”
“You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love.”
“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.”
“If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed.”
“We are asleep until we fall in Love!”
“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.”
“I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself.”
“Everything I know, I know because of love.”
“Yes, love, ...but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. I knew that feeling of love which is the essence of the soul, for which no object is needed. And I know that blissful feeling now too. To love one's neighbours; to love one's enemies. To love everything - to Love God in all His manifestations. Some one dear to one can be loved with human love; but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. And that was why I felt such joy when I felt that I loved that man. What happened to him? Is he alive? ...Loving with human love, one may pass from love to hatred; but divine love cannot change. Nothing, not even death, can shatter it. It is the very nature of the soul. And how many people I have hated in my life. And of all people none I have loved and hated more than her.... If it were only possible for me to see her once more... once, looking into those eyes to say...”
“Because of the self-confidence with which he had spoken, no one could tell whether what he said was very clever or very stupid.”
“Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself. ”
“How can one be well...when one suffers morally?”
“They say: sufferings are misfortunes," said Pierre. 'But if at once this minute, I was asked, would I remain what I was before I was taken prisoner, or go through it all again, I should say, for God's sake let me rather be a prisoner and eat horseflesh again. We imagine that as soon as we are torn out of our habitual path all is over, but it is only the beginning of something new and good. As long as there is life, there is happiness. There is a great deal, a great deal before us.”
“A man on a thousand mile walk has to forget his goal and say to himself every morning, 'Today I'm going to cover twenty-five miles and then rest up and sleep.”
“Human science fragments everything in order to understand it, kills everything in order to examine it. ”
“It's all God's will: you can die in your sleep, and God can spare you in battle.”
“Kings are the slaves of history.”
“Here's my advice to you: don't marry until you can tell yourself that you've done all you could, and until you've stopped loving the women you've chosen, until you see her clearly, otherwise you'll be cruelly and irremediably mistaken. Marry when you're old and good for nothing...Otherwise all that's good and lofty in you will be lost.”
“Life did not stop, and one had to live.”
“Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.”
“A Frenchman's self-assurance stems from his belief that he is mentally and physically irresistibly fascinating to both men and women. An Englishman's self-assurance is founded on his being a citizen of the best organized state in the world and on the fact that, as an Englishman, he always knows what to do, and that whatever he does as an Englishman is unquestionably correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets. A Russian is self-assured simply because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe in the possibility of knowing anything fully.”
“Everything depends on upbringing. ”
“God is the same everywhere.”
“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.”
