“Shall I ask the brave soldier who fights by my side
In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree?”
Come, send round the Wine.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“All that may be so and mankind is ready to agree with it, but it is not what was asked.”
— Leo Tolstoy, book War and Peace
Vol 2, pt 5, p 236 — Selected Works, Moscow, 1869
War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)
Context: The peculiar and amusing nature of those answers stems from the fact that modern history is like a deaf person who is in the habit of answering questions that no one has put to them.
If the purpose of history be to give a description of the movement of humanity and of the peoples, the first question — in the absence of a reply to which all the rest will be incomprehensible — is: what is the power that moves peoples? To this, modern history laboriously replies either that Napoleon was a great genius, or that Louis XIV was very proud, or that certain writers wrote certain books.
All that may be so and mankind is ready to agree with it, but it is not what was asked.
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Leo Tolstoy456
Russian writer 1828–1910Related quotes
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