War and Peace

by Leo Tolstoy

The very question that had formerly tormented him, the thing he had continually sought to find—the aim of life—no longer existed for him now. That search for the aim of life had not merely disappeared temporarily; he felt that it no longer existed for him and could not present itself again. And this very absence of an aim gave him the complete, joyous sense of freedom which constituted his happiness at this time. He could not see an aim, for he now had faith—not faith in any kind of rule, or words, or ideas, but faith in an ever-living ever-manifest God. Formerly he had sought Him in aims he set himself. That search for an aim had been simply a search for God, and suddenly in his captivity he had learnt, not by words or reasoning but by direct feeling, what his nurse had told him long ago: that God is here and everywhere.