quote · Legacy record
When it is impossible to stretch the very elastic threads of historical ratiocination any farther, when actions are clearly contrary to all that humanity calls right or even just, the historians produce a saving conception of ‘greatness.’ ‘Greatness,’ it seems, excludes the standards of right and wrong. For the ‘great’ man nothing is wrong, there is no atrocity for which a ‘great’ man can be blamed.
When it is impossible to stretch the very elastic threads of historical ratiocination any farther, when actions are clearly contrary to all that humanity calls right or even just, the historians produce a saving conception of ‘greatness.’ ‘Greatness,’ it seems, excludes the standards of right and wrong. For the ‘great’ man nothing is wrong, there is no atrocity for which a ‘great’ man can be blamed.
Approximate author period: c. 1869 AD · industrial
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- Author or tradition
- Leo Tolstoy
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1869 AD · industrial
author lifetime midpoint (1828–1910)
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 249537; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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