War & Peace Quote by Edmond About

"I fight fairly, and in good faith" sounds like a moral receipt handed over before the brawl even starts. Edmond About, a novelist-journalist with a skeptic's eye for public virtue, makes the line do double duty: it's a declaration of principles and a preemptive defense against the inevitable accusation that fighting itself is indecent. The phrase "fight fairly" insists on rules, as if conflict can be purified by etiquette; "in good faith" adds a lawyerly sheen, importing the language of contracts into the mess of human antagonism.

That tension is the point. About wrote in a 19th-century France where politics, polemics, and reputation were blood sports dressed up as civilization. Claiming fairness is never neutral; it's a bid to control the terms of engagement. If I am "fair", then anyone who counters me must be unfair, emotional, underhanded, corrupt. It's a rhetorical judo move: the speaker doesn't just argue a position, he claims the moral high ground from which all rebuttals look like dirty tricks.

Subtextually, there's a wink at how performative "good faith" can be. People announce it when they expect disbelief. The line captures a modern anxiety avant la lettre: we live in conflicts where sincerity is constantly litigated. About's compact sentence understands that in public life, the first battle is over legitimacy, and the quickest way to win it is to sound like you already have.