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Thread: Favorite quotes in "War and Peace"?

  1. #1
    Postmodern Geek. TheChilly's Avatar
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    Favorite quotes in "War and Peace"?

    I'm midway through the book and, so far, coming across many, many passages worth quoting (from the Constance Garnett translation). I'm tied between two of the following quotes (both from Part Nine, Chapter I):

    1. "History--that is the unconscious life of humanity in the swarm, in the community--makes every minute of the life of kings its own, as an instrument for attaining its ends."

    2. "Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own freewill, is in an historical sense not free at all, but in bondage to the whole course of previous history, and predestined from all eternity." (i.e.: Freedom isn't free, and every action you do is forever documented in even your own personal history and the histories of those around you whether you know them or not and whether it was your own choice or not... also could mean that our perception of freedom is, in a way, scripted)


    Anyone have some quotes that stand out in War and Peace?
    "We look at the world, at governments, across the spectrum, some with more freedom, some with less. And we observe that the more repressive the State is, the closer life under it resembles Death. If dying is deliverance into a condition of total non-freedom, then the State tends, in the limit, to Death. The only way to address the problem of the State is with counter-Death, also known as Chemistry." -- Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day

  2. #2
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    I read it a while ago so I cannot remember many specific quotes (although I can still recognize them). A lot of the ideas inside moved me greatly but the "death is an awakening" part sticks in my head in particular.

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    Registered User Desolation's Avatar
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    [Paraphrasing] "To love everyone meant to love no one."

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    “Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women.”

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