Book: Hadji Murat

Judge the future by the past.

The war seemed to him [Officer Butler] only in that he exposed himself to danger, the possibility of death, and thereby deserved rewards and the respect of both his local comrades and his Russian friends. The other side of the war: death, wounds of soldiers, officers, mountaineers, strange as it may be to say, was not even imagined in his imagination. Even unconsciously, in order to maintain his poetic idea of war, he never looked at the dead and wounded.

The constant, obvious, contrary to evidence, flattery of the people around him [Emperor Nicholas] brought him to the point where he no longer saw his contradictions, no longer adjusted his actions and words to reality, with logic or even with simple common sense, but was completely confident that all his orders, no matter how senseless, unfair and inconsistent with each other, became meaningful, fair, and consistent with each other only because he made them.

...The praise for his strategic abilities was especially pleasing to Nikolai, because although he was proud of his strategic abilities, deep down he was aware that he had none. And now he wanted to hear more detailed praise for himself.

Chernyshev immediately realized that this only honest man in Russia was Nikolai himself, and smiled approvingly. at

In service and in such complicated matters, it is difficult, not to say impossible, to follow one straight path without risking mistakes and without taking responsibility; but since the road seems straight, you must follow it, come what may.

Soldiering was like death. The soldier was a cut-off piece, and there was no need to remember him - to stir up the soul - there was no need.

Although everyone, especially the officers who had been in action, knew and could know that in the war then in the Caucasus, and never anywhere does that hand-to-hand cutting with swords, which is always assumed and described, happen (and if such hand-to-hand fighting with swords and bayonets does happen, then they always cut and stab only those who are running), this fiction of hand-to-hand combat was recognized by the officers and gave them that calm pride and gaiety with which they, some in brave, others, on the contrary, in the most modest poses, sat on the drums, smoked, drank and joked, not caring about death, which, like Sleptsov, could befall each of them at any moment.

What a destructive, cruel creature man is, how many different living beings and plants he destroyed to maintain his life...