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"Just as in the clock the result of the complex action of innumerable wheels and pulleys is merely the slow and regular movement of the hand marking the time, so the result of all the complex human activities of these 160,000 Russian and French - of all their passions, hopes, regrets, humiliations, sufferings, outbursts of pride, fear and enthusiasm - was only the loss of the battle of Austerlitz, the battle of the three Emperors, as it was called; that is to say, a slow movement of the hand on the dial of human history"
Almost in the centre of this sky, above the Prichistensky boulevard, surrounded and convoyed on every side by stars but distinguished from them all by its nearness to the earth, its white light and its long uplifted tail, shone the huge, brilliant comet of the year 1812 - the comet which was said to portend all manner of horrors and the end of the world."
Never Take Life Seriously... Nobody gets out alive anyways
"He had the unlucky capacity many men, especially Russians, have of seeing and believing in the possibility of goodness and truth, but of seeing the evil and falsehood of life too clearly to be able to take any serious part in life. Every sphere of activity was, in his eyes, linked with evil and deception"
"The army, like a herd of cattle run wild and trampling underfoot the fodder which might have saved it from starvation, was disintegrating and perishing with every day it remained in Moscow. "Power is the relation of a given person to other persons, in which the more this person expresses opinions, theories and justifications of the collective action the less is his participation in that action"
The graphic descriptions of injuries suffered and the reality of the common soldier's life in battle are used in this novel to the extent that the senselessness of war is evoked. This is made particularly convincing with the initial patriotic desire of characters such as Rostov and Prince Andrei who wish to find glory on the battlefield. The respective development into maturity and eventual recognition of the catastrophic effects of war that these men experience illuminate how separate individuals contribute to the possibility of war coming about and how unthinking the search for glory is.
