SENTENCE STARTERS: LEO TOLSTOY’S WAR AND PEACE
feel free to change pronouns etc!
“if everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.”
“nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women.”
“the strongest of all warriors are these two: time and patience.”
“it’s not given to people to judge what’s right or wrong. people have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.”
“let the dead bury the dead, but while I’m alive, i must live and be happy.”
“i simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself.”
“everything i know, i know because of love.”
“no one could tell whether what he said was very clever or very stupid.”
“how many people I have hated in my life.”
“marry when you’re old and good for nothing…otherwise all that’s good and lofty in you will be lost.”
“kings are the slaves of history.”
“god is the same everywhere.”
“pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.”
“one must be cunning and wicked in this world.”
“writing laws is easy, but governing is difficult.”
“we love people not so much for the good they’ve done us, as for the good we’ve done them.”
“don’t speak to me like that; i’m not worth it!”
“for what, for whom, must i kill and be killed?”
“he did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died.”
“everything ends in death, everything. death is terrible.”
“each man lives for himself.”
“ how often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what?”
“i don’t give a damn unless I’m fond of a person; but i’d sacrifice my life for those i am fond of.”
“i’m getting old, that’s the thing! what’s in me now won’t be there anymore.”
“there are such repulsive faces in the world.”
“well, pray if you like, only you’d do better to use your judgment.”
“it’s different for you and me. you study, you become enlightened; i study, i become confused.”
“why nowadays there’s a new fashion every day.”
“what a terrible thing war is, what a terrible thing!”
“send him to the devil, i’m busy.”
“when in doubt, my dear fellow, do nothing.”
“ it happened simply because it had to happen”
“they talked about peace, but did not believe in its possibility.”
“oh, how happy i am to have found it at last.”
“as long as there is life, there is still happiness”
‘life won’t leave one alone as it is.”
“ they are even more frightened than we are”
“why ask? why doubt what you cannot help knowing? why use words when words cannot express what one feels?”
“i love everybody and pity everybody.”
“wisdom needs no violence.”
“i’m not a goose, you’re the goose for crying over nothing”
“such is the inevitable fate of men of action, and the higher they stand in the social hierarchy the less are they free.”
