Authors:
  • In historic events, the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself. Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of history and predestined from eternity.

    War and Peace bk. 9, ch. 1 (1865 - 1869) (translation by Louise and Aylmer Maude)