In historic events, the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself. Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of history and predestined from eternity.

There are many faiths, but the spirit is one.

Is it really possible to tell someone else what one feels?

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

Ivan Ilych saw that he was dying, and he was in continual despair. In the depth of his heart he knew he was dying, but not only was he not accustomed to the thought, he simply did not and could not grasp it. The syllogism he had learnt from Kiesewetter's Logic: "Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal," had always seemed to him correct as applied to Caius, but certainly not as applied to himself. That Caius - man in the abstract - was mortal, was perfectly correct, but he was not Caius, not an abstract man, but a creature quite, quite separate from all others.

Power is the sum total of the wills of the mass, transfered by express or tactic agreement to rulers chosen by the masses.

She had no need to ask why he had come. She knew as certainly as if he had told her that he was here to be where she was.