War & Peace (TV Series)

Borodino (1972)

Anthony Hopkins: Pierre Bezukhov

Photos 

Quotes 

• Katishe : I tell you, I won't submit to your Napoleon.

  Pierre Bezukhov : My Napoleon?

  Katishe : Well, you've always defended him. The man of the new world. Isn't that what you called him?

  Pierre Bezukhov : Yes, yes.

  Katishe : And if I may say so, cousin, it's that kind of opinion that has disarmed us for so long.

  Pierre Bezukhov : No. I don't accept that. Those things aren't as simple as a row of knitting.

• Katishe : The point is, if you won't leave Moscow yourself, will you please give orders to have me taken to St. Petersburg?

  Pierre Bezukhov : Yes, yes, of course, if you want to go.

  Katishe : But why don't you go yourself?

  Pierre Bezukhov : Well, I don't know. I can't make up my mind. If this game comes out, it means that I shall stay in Moscow.

  Katishe : Why? Why can't it mean you leave Moscow?

  Pierre Bezukhov : Well, it can, too.

• Pierre Bezukhov : Wasn't Barclay de Tolly an able general?

  Prince Andrei Bolkonsky : I don't know what is meant by an able general.

  Pierre Bezukhov : Well, one that foresees the adversary's intentions.

  Prince Andrei Bolkonsky : That's really quite impossible for the most part, since the adversary never knows them himself.

  Pierre Bezukhov : Yet they say that war is like a game of chess, don't they?

  Prince Andrei Bolkonsky : Who says it? The people who fight wars from armchairs. In chess you can think over a move as long as you like. In war one doesn't have that luxury. In chess a knight is always stronger than a pawn, and two pawns are always stronger than one. In war a battalion is sometimes stronger than a division, and sometimes weaker than a company. Relative strengths have very little to do with the issue.

  Pierre Bezukhov : On what does success depend?

  Prince Andrei Bolkonsky : On the feeling that's in him, and in me. The battle is won by the side that's most resolved to win it.

  Pierre Bezukhov : Don't numbers make any difference at all?

  Prince Andrei Bolkonsky : They make very little. Did you ask yourself why we lost at Austerlitz? French casualties were about the same as ours, and we had actually more men than they did. We lost because early on in the day we said to ourselves, we are losing, and we did.

  Timohin : That's true, Your Excellency. We had nothing to fight for, then. We wanted to get away from the battlefield as soon as possible. But tomorrow it won't be like this. Fighting on our own soil, it makes a big difference.