War & Peace

To her other defects (as most people thought them, but which to Pierre were qualities) of untidiness and neglect of herself, she now added stinginess

Because it happened so! “Chance created the situation; genius utilized it,” says history.

But what is chance? What is genius

and there was Vasilisa, the wife of a village elder, who slew hundreds of the French

A man in motion always devises an aim for that motion. To be able to go a thousand miles he must imagine that something good awaits him at the end of those thousand miles.

The beast wounded at Borodino was lying where the fleeing hunter had left him; but whether he was still alive, whether he was strong and merely lying low, the hunter did not know. Suddenly the beast was heard to moan

And let the lunatics out into the town. When lunatics command our armies God evidently means these other madmen to be free.”

A sovereign should not be with the army unless he is a general!” said Napoleon

As soon as I saw him I felt he was my master and I his slave, and that I could not help loving him. Yes, his slave! Whatever he orders I shall do.

She knew what it was all meant to represent, but it was so pretentiously false and unnatural that she first felt ashamed for the actors and then amused at them

And I am also very much afraid for him spiritually. He has not a character like us women who, when we suffer, can weep away our sorrows. He keeps it all within him.