Book: War and peace. Page 3

He spoke in that refined French in which not only spoke, but also thought of our grandfathers, with those quiet, patronising intonations peculiar solaralchemy in the light and in the court of a significant person.

- It is unfair that there is harm to another man, said Pierre, feeling with pleasure that for the first time since his arrival Prince Andrew was revived and started to talk and wanted to Express everything that made him the way he was now.
- Who told you what is bad for another man? he asked.
Evil? Evil? said Pierre. - We all know what is evil.
- Yes, we know, but the evil that I know for myself, I can't make another person more and more perking up, said Prince Andrew, apparently wanting to Express to Pierre his new view of things. He spoke in French. - Je ne connais dans la vie que maux réels bien: C'est le remord et la maladie. Il n'est de bien que l absence de ces maux. To live for myself avoiding those two evils, that's my whole philosophy now.
- And the love of neighbor, and sacrifice? 'said Pierre. - No, I don't agree! To live only so as not to do evil, not to confess, this is not enough. I lived, I lived for myself and ruined my life. And only now, when I live, at least I try (out of modesty recovered Pierre) to live for others, only now have I understood all the happiness of life. No, I don't agree with you, and you don't think what you're talking about. - Prince Andrew looked silently at Pierre and smiled mockingly.

Ellen smiled with a look that said she does not allow the possibility that someone could see her and not be caught up.

He was so busy all day that did not have time to think about what he didn't do anything.

Nothing can be forever.

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

When the Apple is ripe and falls - why is it fall? Because if that tends to earth, because if that dries up the rod, because dried by the sun, thus heavier, that the wind shakes it, because the boy standing below wants to eat it?
Nothing is the cause. All this is only the coincidence of conditions in which takes place every vital, organic, natural event. And the botanist who finds that the Apple falls because the cellular tissue decays and so forth, will be just as right and as wrong as that child standing at the bottom, which will say that the Apple fell because he wanted to eat him, and that he prayed about it.

Fatalism in history is inevitable for the explanation of irrational phenomena. The more we try to explain sensibly these phenomena of history, so they become foolish and confusing.

The more we delve into finding the reasons, the more we open them, and every single cause or a number of reasons seem to us equally valid in themselves, and equally false by its insignificance compared to the enormous event, and equally false by its invalidity to produce the occurred event.

- ... I often think how unfairly sometimes distributed the happiness of life.

There is nothing, nothing true, except the nothingness that I understand, and the greatness of something incomprehensible but most important!

Nothing can not own a person is afraid of death. And who is not afraid of it, owns everything.

Until now, I was, thank God, a friend of their children and enjoyed their full confidence, said the Countess, repeating the misconception of many parents who believe that their children have no secrets from them.

Everything from napkins to the silver, China and crystal, bore that imprint of newness that happens in the household of the young couple.