Leo Tolstoy,
Christian Martyrdom in Russia
(1897)
“ I understand that you cannot take upon yourself to correct the mistake or misunderstanding of the higher authorities, but that while on service you have to fulfil the duties involved. This is certainly so; but beside the duties of a service which you have voluntarily taken upon yourself, duties obligatory for you only during the small period of your life,—you have, like every man, duties not temporary but eternal, which have been laid upon you independently of your own will, and from which you cannot liberate yourself. ”
