It is a line of dialogue: Field Marshal Kutuzov says it to Prince Andrey in War and Peace, Book Ten, chapter 16. This exact English wording belongs to Constance Garnett’s translation ↗, first published in 1904 — other translators render the same sentence quite differently.
“The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience” Kutuzov, in Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (1869), book 10, chapter 16, translated by Constance Garnett (1904). Verified at Quotle.info
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Provenance
The source
Work
War and Peace
Location
Book Ten (Vol. III, Part 2), chapter 16
Speaker
Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov, to Prince Andrey
Translation
Constance Garnett; her War and Peace published London: Heinemann, 1904
‘We shall have to give battle, though, shan’t we?’ said Prince Andrey. ‘We must, if every one wants to; there is no help for it… But, mark my words, my dear boy! The strongest of all warriors are these two — time and patience. They do it all…’
Book Ten, ch. 16
The scanned Garnett text lower-cases ‘time and patience’. The capitalised ‘Time and Patience’ that circulates online is a later styling, not a different translation.
Checked it against the Russian: Том третий, Часть вторая, XVI ↗ reads «нет сильнее тех двух воинов, терпение и время; те всё сделают» — the word воинов, warriors, is Tolstoy’s, and Garnett kept it.
Compared the other standard English text: the Louise and Aylmer Maude translation on Project Gutenberg ↗ gives the same speech as ‘there is nothing stronger than those two: patience and time, they will do it all’ — no warriors, which is why the line can look unfindable.
Confirmed the chapter reference against the sourced War and Peace list on Wikiquote ↗, which cites Bk. X, ch. 16 but names no translator.
✓Public domain
War and Peace was serialised from 1865 and published complete in 1869 ↗. The English wording here is Constance Garnett’s translation, published by Heinemann in 1904 ↗ — well before 1931, so both the Russian original and this translation are in the public domain in the United States.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
What goes wrong with this one
The sentence is genuine Tolstoy. Almost everything wrapped around it online is not.
✕
Wording“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time” reworded
This is the form that dominates the internet. BrainyQuote carries it ↗ with no book, chapter or translator named. It matches neither Garnett’s text nor the Maude translation ↗; it reads as a later smoothing of Garnett’s line rather than any published rendering.
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SpeakerTolstoy, talking in his own voice character, not author
It is dialogue, not an authorial maxim. In the Russian chapter ↗ the words sit inside Kutuzov’s speech to Prince Andrey, defending his refusal to attack after a career of outlasting the Turks.
✕
Citation“War and Peace, Bk. X, ch. 16” with no translator half a citation
Wikiquote ↗ gives the chapter but not the translation, and the quote sites copy that. Open the Project Gutenberg War and Peace at Book Ten, chapter 16 and the sentence appears to be missing — because that is the Maude text.
✓The line is real, and it is Garnett’s: ‘The strongest of all warriors are these two — time and patience’ — Kutuzov, in War and Peace, Book Ten, chapter 16 ↗.
Context
Why Kutuzov says it
Book Ten finds Kutuzov taking command of a Russian army in retreat, with everyone around him demanding a battle. His answer to Prince Andrey is a defence of not attacking on purpose. He had been abused, he says, for both the Turkish war and the peace that ended it; Kamensky went storming fortresses with thirty thousand men, while he sent nothing but patience and time — and took more fortresses than Kamensky did.
Tolstoy returns to the thought late in the novel. In Book Thirteen, chapter 17, Kutuzov lies awake and thinks — in the Maude wording on Project Gutenberg ↗ — ‘Patience and time are my warriors, my champions,’ before reflecting that an apple should not be plucked while it is green. Two passages, two translators, one idea: that is how the line got loose from its book.
Storms and attacks are not what’s wanted, but time and patience.
The word behind the English
The Russian sentence is «нет сильнее тех двух воинов, терпение и время» — literally, there are none stronger than those two warriors, patience and time. Garnett translated воинов as ‘warriors’; the Maudes dropped the noun and wrote ‘there is nothing stronger than those two: patience and time.’ The famous English aphorism therefore exists because of a translator’s choice — even though the image itself is Tolstoy’s own.
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Tolstoy wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina before turning, in later life, to religious and moral writing. War and Peace was serialised from 1865 and appeared complete in 1869, and its governing argument is that history is not steered by great men but by the accumulated weight of ordinary lives. Kutuzov is the novel’s living proof of it — a commander whose genius is knowing when to do nothing.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Primary source
Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (1869), trans. Constance Garnett (London: William Heinemann, 1904), bk. 10, ch. 16.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience’?” Last verified 4 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-strongest-of-all-warriors-are-these-two-time-and/