Abel-François VillemainАбель-Франсуа Вильмен

The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Dictionnaire universel de la langue française (Boiste), 13th ed. (Paris, 1851), s.v. «Destinée», a saying signed «Villemain».

The saying as Boiste's dictionary prints it under Villemain's name: 'Il n'est point de hasard dans la destinée; l'homme fait la sienne plutôt qu'il ne la reçoit' (there is no chance in destiny; man makes his own rather than receives it). The commentary of Jubilee vol. 40 says the Villemain of Tolstoy's Thoughts of Wise Men (1903) came from the «Иллюстрированный настольный календарь т-ва «Просвещение» на 1902 год», not online; the 1903 text, «человек скорее создает, нежели встречает свою судьбу», keeps the 'rather … than' of the French. In the Circle Tolstoy drops «скорее … нежели» for «создает, а не встречает» ('creates, and does not meet'), so the comparison becomes a flat denial. His verbs, create and meet, differ from Boiste's 'fait' and 'reçoit' and may follow the calendar's French. The passage in Villemain's own writings was not found (web searches for the French wording, Boiste).