“ Men leave their customary pursuits, hasten from one side of Europe to the other, plunder and slaughter one another, triumph and are plunged in despair, and for some years the whole course of life is altered and presents an intensive movement which first increases and then slackens. ”
Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (1869). copy citation
| Author | Leo Tolstoy |
|---|---|
| Source | War and Peace |
| Topic | despair present |
| Date | 1869 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2600/2600-h/2600-h.htm |
Context
“(that is, finding the sum of these infinitesimals) can we hope to arrive at the laws of history.
The first fifteen years of the nineteenth century in Europe present an extraordinary movement of millions of people. Men leave their customary pursuits, hasten from one side of Europe to the other, plunder and slaughter one another, triumph and are plunged in despair, and for some years the whole course of life is altered and presents an intensive movement which first increases and then slackens. What was the cause of this movement, by what laws was it governed? asks the mind of man.
The historians, replying to this question, lay before us the sayings and doings of a few dozen men in a building in the city of Paris, calling these sayings and doings”
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