The man who, for the sake of his own animal personality, loves his family, knows whom he loves
 Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1894). copy citation

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Author Leo Tolstoy
Source The Kingdom of God Is Within You
Topic personality love
Date 1894
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by Constance Garnett
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4602/pg4602-images.html

Context

“and moreover, that love must have an object, and that humanity is not an object. It is nothing but a fiction. The family, the tribe, even the state were not invented by men, but formed themselves spontaneously, like ant-hills or swarms of bees, and have a real existence. The man who, for the sake of his own animal personality, loves his family, knows whom he loves: Anna, Dolly, John, Peter, and so on. The man who loves his tribe and takes pride in it, knows that he loves all the Guelphs or all the Ghibellines; the man who loves the state knows that he loves France bounded by the Rhine, and the Pyrenees, and its principal city Paris, and its history and so on.” source