In her Wall Street Journal column Peggy Noonan wrote , like a middle schooler, about how she spent her summer vacation. She spent it reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace . Tolstoy’s masterwork is long (more than 1,000 pages) but his thoughts remain relevant.
I wanted to cite one passage from her column because it provides some direct quotes on Tolstoy’s assessment of the Germans, French, British, and Russian that are worth reflecting on:
I didn’t understand what good company Tolstoy is. The Russian general Pfuel, an ethnic German, is “self-confident to the point of martyrdom as only Germans are, because only Germans are self-confident on the basis of an abstract notion—science, that is, the supposed knowledge of absolute truth.” A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally as irresistibly attractive. “An Englishman is self-assured, as being of the best organized state of the world.” “A Russian is self-assured just becau
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chicagoboyz.netChicago Boyz – Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spir
Chicago Boyz – Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spir