Author of quotes: Leo Tolstoy. Page 5

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...

Evil can be done together. Good can only be done one by one.

2) A good employee does not quit his job if he knows that he will not see it in action and will not receive a reward. The same with the work of life until the very last minute of death.

Okay, when you go to bed, make peace with everyone.

The possibility of governmental violence, as well as any violence of a small number of people against a large one, has always produced and produces only that a small number is armed, and the majority is unarmed, or a small number is better armed than a large one. This is how it happened during all the conquests: this is how the peoples conquered - the Greeks, Romans, knights, Cortes, and now they conquer people in Africa, Asia, just keep their subjects in peacetime all governments. As in the old days, so now some people rule over others only because some are armed and others are not. In the old days, warriors with their leaders attacked defenseless inhabitants and subjugated them to themselves and robbed them, and everyone, according to their participation, their courage, cruelty, shared the booty, and it was clear to each warrior that the violence he committed was beneficial to him. Now, however, armed people, taken mainly from the workers, go against defenseless people, strikers, rebels or inhabitants of foreign countries, and subdue them and rob them (i.e., force them to give their labor) not for themselves, but for people who do not even participate in the conquest. The only difference between conquerors and governments is that the conquerors themselves, with their wars, attacked defenseless inhabitants and, in case of disobedience, carried out their threats of torture and murder, while governments do not themselves carry out, in case of disobedience, torture and murder of unarmed inhabitants , but they force deceived people to do this, and especially for this brutalized people, taken from the very people that they rape. So that the former violence was carried out by personal efforts: the courage, cruelty, dexterity of the conquerors themselves; the present violence is produced by deceit.

... among the Christian world there is no need to protect peoples from each other, that all the enmities of peoples among themselves are caused only by the governments themselves, and that troops are needed only for a small number of those in power, for the peoples they are not only not needed, but extremely harmful, serving as a tool to enslave people...