“And there is no greatness where simplicity, goodness, and truth are absent.”
When 'great' people are behaving badly.
This line comes on
About this line
Napoleon is fleeing Russia, his army freezing on the road behind him, and the historians are already busy turning the retreat into strategy. Tolstoy stops the entire novel to refuse the myth — and to say plainly what greatness actually requires.
Tolstoy’s drafts were hard to read. His wife, Sophia, copied the War and Peace manuscript out by hand, more than once, so it could go to the printer. She worked at night after the children were asleep, sometimes with a magnifying glass to make out his writing.
Why we carry this line
This could have been written today. So much truth in the statement. I knew it was destined for our catalog.
The design
GREATNESS sits on a beam held up by three posts: SIMPLICITY, GOODNESS, TRUTH. Take one away and it doesn’t stand. That’s Tolstoy’s argument, drawn.
The tee, the organic tee and the journal carry the same design.
Documented source
Every quote here is traced to a documented source. How we verify →