Life meanwhile, the actual life of men with their real interests of health and sickness, labour and rest, with their interests of thought, science, poetry, music, love, affection, hatred, passion, went its way, as always, independently, apart from the political amity or enmity of Napoleon Bonaparte, and apart from all possible reforms. Leo Tolstoy
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Life meanwhile, the actual life of men with their real interests of health and sickness, labour and rest, with their interests of thought, science, poetry, music, love, affection, hatred, passion, went its way, as always, independently, apart from the political amity or enmity of Napoleon Bonaparte. The turning point in history which the passage refers to is the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. At this point in time Napoleon Bonaparte had won two major battles against the British and was preparing to attack Vienna when he was finally defeated. In this passage Shelley is showing how it seemed to him that what was going on in the world had no effect on his own personal life. This is a very dismissive view of what was going on in history at that point in time.

He also shows a lack of interest in events that did not involve him personally. He believes that his own real life is going on unaffected by any of this historical stuff going on around him. This view has been called "positive determinism" because it puts his own actions on a pedestal while saying that all other things are irrelevant to him personally.

Source: War And Peace

Some Similar Quotes
  1. War is what happens when language fails. - Margaret Atwood
  2. Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. - Ernest Hemingway
  3. The world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them. - J.r.r. Tolkien
  4. If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war. - Leo Tolstoy
  5. Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. - Anonymous
More Quotes By Leo Tolstoy
  1. I think... if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.
  2. Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.
  3. Love. The reason I dislike that word is that it means too much for me, far more than you can understand."- Anna Karenina {Anna Karenina}
  4. I've always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be.
  5. They've got no idea what happiness is, they don't know that without this love there is no happiness or unhappiness for us--there is no life.
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