Leo Tolstoy

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

We walked to meet each other up at the time of our love and then we have been irresistibly drifting in different directions, and there’s no altering that.

Love those you hate you.

Boredom: the desire for desires.

I always loved you, and if one loves anyone, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be. -Dolly (Anna Karenina)

There is something in the human spirit that will survive and prevail, there is a tiny and brilliant light burning in the heart of man that will not go out no matter how dark the world becomes.

Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons.

You don’t win wars by dying for your country you win wars by making the other son of a b*tch die for his.

I have a deep sympathy with war, it so apes the gait and bearing of the soul.

The British soldier can stand up to anything except the British War Office.

Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.

If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.

I have watched men suffer the anguish of imprisonment, defy appalling human cruelty… break for a moment, then recover inhuman strength to defy their enemies once more.

I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they’d never expect it.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.

A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory. From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.

After all the field of battle possesses many advantages over the drawing-room. There at least is no room for pretension or excessive ceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of noses, which make one doubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard hand-play. It at least exhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a mask.

A skilful leech is better far, than half a hundred men of war.

War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can’t smile, grin. If you can’t grin, keep out of the way till you can.

War is not a matter for the professional pacifist or militarist. It is for the unprofessional people. They finance and fight it, they bear its losses. Therefore, they should have the deciding voice concerning it. To do this, they require all the information upon which decisions are made. They should know in a difference, whether it is soluble by rational intelligence, or inevitable by force. Not once in a thousand instances would our people (this may not be true of all peoples, however) approve an offensive war. Never would they be lax in defensive action. For this is their country. However, most of their enemies are within it.