Quotes from War and Peace

Quotations follow the Louise and Aylmer Maude translation (Oxford World's Classics, 1922) — our recommended edition.

1. 2

   There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness, and truth.

2. 3

   We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.

3. 4

   If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.

4. 5

   How was it I did not see that lofty sky before? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite sky.

5. 6

   A king is history's slave.

6. 7

   And there is no greatness where simplicity, goodness, and truth are absent.

7. 8

   All we can know is that we know nothing. And that's the height of human wisdom.

8. 9

   In historic events the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself.

9. 10

   Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.

10. 11

    Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.

11. 12

    Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity.

12. 13

    Never, never marry, my dear fellow! That's my advice: never marry till you can say to yourself that you have done all you are capable of.

13. 14

    While imprisoned in the shed Pierre had learned not with his intellect but with his whole being, by life itself, that man is created for happiness, that happiness is within him, in the satisfaction of simple human needs, and that all unhappiness arises not from privation but from superfluity.

14. 15

    Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.

15. 16

    To love life is to love God. Harder and more blessed than all else is to love this life in one's sufferings, in innocent sufferings.

16. 17

    Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait.

17. 18

    Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the society of clever women.

18. 19

    It is not difficult to capture a fortress but it is difficult to win a campaign. For that, not storming and attacking but patience and time are wanted.

19. 20

    If vicious people are united and constitute a power, then honest folk must do the same.

20. 21

    If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, the possibility of life is destroyed.