“History is the life of nations and of humanity. To seize and put into words, to describe directly the life of humanity or even of a single nation, appears impossible.”

—  Leo Tolstoy , book War and Peace

Epilogue II, ch. 1 http://www.classicreader.com/book/92/354/
War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)

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Leo Tolstoy 456
Russian writer 1828–1910

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