“Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.”

“The old oak, utterly transformed, draped in a tent of sappy dark green, basked faintly, undulating in the rays of the evening sun. Of the knotted fingers, the gnarled excrecenses, the aged grief and mistrust- nothing was to be seen. Through the rough, century-old bark, where there were no twigs, leaves had burst out so sappy, so young, that is was hard to believe that the aged creature had borne them. "Yes, that is the same tree," thought Prince Andrey, and all at once there came upon him an irrational, spring feeling of joy and renewal. All the best moments of his life rose to his memory at once. Austerlitz, with that lofty sky, and the dead, reproachful face of his wife, and Pierre on the ferry, and the girl, thrilled by the beauty of the night, and that night and that moon- it all rushed at once into his mind.”

“Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly. ”

“Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.”

“The reflection upon my situation and that of this army produces many an uneasy hour when all around me are wrapped in sleep. Few people know the predicament we are in.”

“Sin also affects the conscience, until one becomes slow to detect the approach of sin.”

“We see that humanism has become for many a polite name for a vocal, aggressive, influential crusade against religion in the name of social and moral advance. There is nothing new about humanism. It is the yielding to Satan’s first temptation of Adam and Eve: “Ye shall be as gods” [Genesis 3:5 KJV].”

“You were born to win, but to be a winner you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.”

“He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.”

“Se dice que un individuo puede vivir cuarenta días sin comida, cuatro días sin agua, cuatro minutos sin aire, pero solo cuatro segundos sin esperanza.”

“Now that Vronsky had deceived her, she was prepared to love Levin and to hate Vronsky.”

“Involuntarily it appeared to me that there, somewhere, was someone who amused himself by watching how I lived for thirty or forty years: learning, developing, maturing in body and mind, and how, having with matured mental powers reached the summit of life from which it all lay before me, I stood on that summit -- like an arch-fool -- seeing clearly that there is nothing in life, and that there has been and will be nothing. And he was amused... But whether that "someone" laughing at me existed or not, I was none the better off. I could give no reasonable meaning to any single action or to my whole life. I was only surprised that I could have avoided understanding this from the very beginning -- it has been so long known to all. Today or tomorrow sickness and death will come (they had come already) to those I love or to me; nothing will remain but stench and worms. Sooner or later my affairs, whatever they may be, will be forgotten, and I shall not exist. Then why go on making any effort?... How can man fail to see this? And how go on living? That is what is surprising! One can only live while one is intoxicated with life; as soon as one is sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere fraud and a stupid fraud! That is precisely what it is: there is nothing either amusing or witty about it, it is simply cruel and stupid.”

“A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable.”

“The way of success is the way of continuous pursuit of knowledge

“by literally millions whether in newspapers, magazines or today’s popular social media such as emails and Facebook. Through the generosity of Jim who is contributing his many years of work to be published in a book by the non-profit Napoleon”