War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy – translated by Soroush Habibi

War is not courtesy and caresses and pleasantries. It is the vilest and ugliest of all deeds. In war the aim is killing people, and the weapons and means to this aim are espionage, incitement to treason, the fabrication of lies, and the ruin of the people. Whoever kills more people than others will receive the greater reward and honor. At the front they grapple with one another intent on mutual destruction, and they vie with one another in killing and maiming one another. They deprive tens of thousands of young men of the blessing of health and the joy of life, and afterwards they hold services of prayer and thanksgiving – that God has granted them "success" in sending so many human beings into the valley of death! – they cry out "victory" and lay claim to great glory, on the sole argument that because they have killed more, they have more "merit." "The Instructive Fate of the Stone" It was making its way to the sea to arrive, to become one with the sea. - Where did the hard stone come from, in the river’s path? - Since when did it become a dam, the hard stone in the river’s path? Wave of the river piled upon wave of the river. The waves massed with the waves brimming with the desire to flow on to the sea. It slid, it was hurled, broken to pieces, the stone, out of the way. With a seething roar it became a flood, my river, which had only been making its calm way toward the sea ...