Leo Tolstoy

“ I told him that I recognise non-resistance to evil by violence because, having lived seventy-five years, I have never, except in discussions, encountered that fantastic brigand, who, before my eyes, desired to kill or violate a child, but that perpetually I did and do see not one, but millions of brigands using violence towards children and women and men and old people and all the labourers in the name of the recognised right of violence over one's fellows. ”

“ The Abolitionists endeavoured to prove that slavery was unlawful, disadvantageous, cruel; that it depraved men, and so on; but the defenders of slavery in their turn proved the untimeliness and danger of emancipation, and the evil results liable to follow it. ”

“ Up to this time, we have limited its application to those who in this country are held by Southern taskmasters as marketable commodities, goods and chattels, and implements of husbandry. Henceforth we shall use it in its widest latitude - the emancipation of our whole race from the dominion of man, from the thralldom of self, from the government of brute force, from the bondage of sin, and the bringing it under the dominion of God, the control of an inward spirit, the government of the law of love... ”

“ Therefore, whether men desire it or not, it is only in the name of this principle that they can free themselves from the enslavement and oppression of each other. Whether men desire it or not, this principle lies at the basis of all true improvement in the life of men which has taken place and is still to take place.
Garrison was the first to proclaim this principle as a rule for the organisation of the life of men. ”