Leo Tolstoy

“ All the peoples of the so-called Christian world have been reduced by patriotism to such a state of brutality, that not only those who are obliged to kill or be killed desire slaughter and rejoice in murder, but all the people of Europe and America, living peaceably in their homes exposed to no danger, are, at each war—thanks to easy means of communication, and to the press—in the position of the spectators in a Roman circus, and, like them, delight in the slaughter, and raise the blooodthirsty cry, "Pollice verso." ”

“ That philosophy which is founded on man's welfare as the conception of life can never prove to a reasoning being, with the ever-present consciousness of death, that it is fitting for him to renounce his own desirable, conceivable, and certain welfare, not for the certain welfare of others—for he can never know the results of his sacrifice—but merely because it is right that he should do so: that it is the categorical imperative. ”

“ These are the reasons why I cannot agree with you and cannot rebuke the blind tools of ignorance and evil, but see the cause of war in a region in which I can myself contribute either to the diminution or augmentation of the evil. To contribute to the fraternal equalisation of property, to take advantage to the least possible extent of the privileges which have fallen to my lot; to refrain from in any way participating in military activity, to destroy the spell which makes men, whilst becoming hired murderers, imagine that they are acting well by serving in the army ”

“ If I were free I would immediately, even at my age, join such a colony.
I only wished to say that the mere forming of communities is not a solution of the Christian problem, but is only one of the means for its solution. The revolution that is going on for the attainment of the Christian ideal is so enormous, our life is so different from what it ought to be, that for the perfect success of this revolution, for the concordance of conscience and life is needed the work of all men—men living in commimities, as well as men of the world living in the most different conditions. ”

“ To try to answer these questions by searching for their reasons in the historical circumstances of the time, life, and character and special qualities of those men who first accepted and expressed this conception of life, is as though one were to try to prove why the rising sun first casts his rays on certain objects. The sun of truth, rising higher and higher upon the world, enlightens it ever further, and is reflected by those forms on which first fall the illumination of its rays, and which are most capable of reflecting them. ”

“ Socialists wish to remove inequality and oppression by assigning all capital to the nation, to humanity, so that the centralised unit will become humanity itself. But, in the first place, not only humanity, but even nations do not as yet admit the necessity for this, and until they do, this system cannot be adopted by all humanity; secondly, among men striving each for his own welfare, it would be impossible to find men sufficiently disinterested to manage the capital of humanity without taking advantage of their power—men who would not again introduce into the world inequality and oppression. ”

“ The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order, and in the assertion that, without authority, there could not be worse violence than that of authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy can be instituted by a revolution. "To establish Anarchy." "Anarchy will be instituted." But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require protection from governmental power, and by there being more and more people who will be ashamed of applying this power. ”

“ The rich will hold out longer than the workers, and the armies are always on the side of the capitalists. The people will never extricate themselves from the want in which they are kept, as long as the army is in the hands of the governing classes.
But who compose these armies that keep the people in this state of slavery? Who are these soldiers that will fire at the peasants who take the land, or at the strikers who will not disperse, and at the smugglers who bring in goods without paying taxes, who put in prison and guard there those who refuse to pay taxes? ”

“ The government and the upper governing classes, to excuse their domination of the labourers, behave like a gipsy who whips his horse before he turns a corner and then pretends he cannot hold it in. They provoke their own people and some foreign government, and then pretend that for the well-being or for the defence of their people they must declare war,, which again brings profit only to generals, officers, officials, merchants, and, in general, to the rich. ”

“ Each religion selects a certain circle of subjects which must be studied, and hence the science of every time and nation inevitably bears the character of its religion in the point of view from which its examination is made. So the pagan science, reinstituted at the Renaissance, and flourishing at present among us under the title of Christian, always has been, and continues to be, merely an investigation of the circumstances by which man may attain the highest welfare, and of those phenomena of the universe which may be put under contribution to the same end. ”

“ The whole path, travelled both by individuals and by homogeneous groups, may be represented as a consecutive fight of steps from the very lowest, on the level of animal life, to the very highest to which the consciousness of man has attained at a given moment of history.
Each man, like each separate homogeneous group, nation, or State, always moved and moves up this ladder of ideas. Some portions of humanity move on, others lag far behind, others, again,—the majority,—move somewhere between the most advanced and the most backward. ”

“ To assert that social progress produces morality is equivalent to saying that the erection of stoves produces heat. Heat proceeds from the sun; and stoves produce heat only when fuel—the work of the sun—is kindled in them; so morality proceeds from religion, and social forms of life produce morality only when into these forms are put the results of religious influence on humanity—this is, morality. ”

“ That governments, even if they wished to, can terminate neither armaments nor wars.
Governments to have a reason for existing must defend their people from other people's attack; but not one people wishes to attack, or does attack, another. And, therefore, governments, far from wishing for peace, carefully excite the anger of other nations against themselves. And having excited other people's anger against themselves, and stirred up the patriotism of their own people, each government then assures its people that it is in danger, and must be defended. ”

“ Wilt thou, a rational and good being, having for a moment appeared in this world, and at any moment liable to disappear,—wilt thou take part in the murder of erring men or men of a different race, wilt thou participate in the exterminating of whole nations of so-called savages, wilt thou participate in the artificial deterioration of generations of men by means of opium and spirits for the sake of profit, wilt thou participate in all these actions, or even be in agreement with those who permit them, or wilt thou not? ”

“ Notwithstanding the obvious absurdity of the assertion that people are in danger of being attacked by the governments of other States; who, in their turn, affirm that they—in spite of all their desire for peace—find themselves in precisely the same danger; notwithstanding the humiliation of that slavery to which men subject themselves by entering the army; notwithstanding the cruelty of the work to which they are summoned, men nevertheless submit to this fraud, give their money to be used for their own subjugation, and themselves help to enslave others. ”

“ Liberation from oppression by political rights is leading to even greater excitement and ill-will. Thus attempts at equalisation and deliverance from oppression are made, though without success; while the unification, the subjugation of ever greater and greater numbers of men by one is always increasing. The greater the centralisation of labour the more profitable it is, but also the more striking and revolting is the inequality.
What, then, is to be done? Individual labour is unprofitable; centralised labour is more profitable, but the inequality and oppression are terrible. ”

“ And so humanity stands unavoidably face to face with this dilemma: either the forward movement attained by the centralisation of labour must be renounced,—there must even be retrogression rather than an infringement of equality or allowance of oppression,—or else it should be boldly admitted that inequality and oppression must exist, that "when wood is chopped, splinters will fly," that there must be victims, and that struggle is the law of humanity. ”

“ Patriotism as a feeling of exclusive love for one's own people, and as a doctrine of the virtue of sacrificing one's tranquillity, one's property, and even one's life, in defence of the weak among them from slaughter and outrage hy their enemies, was the highest idea of the period when each nation considered it feasible and just, to subject to slaughter and outrage the people of other nations for its own advantage. ”

“ I can imagine that if bees, in addition to their instinct, as we call it, in addition to the consciousness of their law, were able to invent the best organisation of their social life, they would invent such a life that they would perish.
In this tendency of the law of life there is something less and something more than reasoning. And it alone leads to that way of truth, which is the right one for man and for humanity. ”

“ Why should the abolition of the organisation which arose in consequence of violence, and which traditionally has been handed down from generation to generation to do violence,—why should the abolition of such an organisation, now devoid of use, cause people to outrage and kill one another? On the contrary, the presumption is that the abolition of the organ of violence would result in people ceasing to violate and kill one another. ”

“ There is no religion, however cultured, however crude, but has its beginnings in the assessment of the relations of man to the surrounding universe or to its first cause. There is no ceremony of religion so rustic, nor ritual so refined, which has not a like foundation. All the teaching of religion is the expression of the relations in which the founder of the religion regards himself—and therefore all mankind—as standing towards the universe or towards its origin and first cause. ”

“ How is it that sensible people—often people who can read, and even educated people—believe in such an evident lie? However little education a man may have, he cannot but know that Christ did not sanction murder, but taught kindness, meekness, forgiveness of injuries, love of one's enemies; and therefore he cannot help seeing that on the basis of Christian teaching he cannot pledge himself in advance to kill all whom he may be ordered to kill.
The question is, How can sensible people believe, as all now serving in the army have believed and still believe, such an evident fraud? ”

“ Understand that your life can in no way be bettered by Alsace becoming German or French, and Ireland or Poland being free or enslaved; whoever holds them, you are free to live where you will, if even you be an Alsatian, an Irishman, or a Pole, yet understand that by stirring up patriotism you will only make the case worse; for the subjection in which your people are kept has resulted simply from the struggle between patriotisms, and every manifestation of patriotism in one nation provokes a counteracting reaction in another. ”

“ Enlightened, sensible, good Christian people who confess the principle of love and brotherhood, who regard murder as an awful crime, who, with very few exceptions, are unable to kill an animal—all these people suddenly, provided that these crimes are called war, not only acknowledge the destruction, plunder, and killing of people to be right and legal, but themselves contribute towards these plunders and murders, prepare themselves for them, take part in them, are proud of them. ”

“ Strictly speaking, man can only be related to the universe in two ways: the personal, which is the recognition of life as the welfare of the individual, separately or in union with others; and the Christian, which is the recognition of life as the service of Him who sent man into the world. The social relation of man to the universe is merely an enlargement of the personal. ”

“ And to such governments is allowed full power, not only over property and lives, but even over the spiritual and moral development, the education, and the religious guidance of everybody.
People construct such a terrible machine of power, they allow anyone who can, to seize it (and the chances always are that it will be seized by the most morally worthless) —they slavishly submit to him, and are then surprised that evil comes of it. They are afraid of Anarchists' bombs, and are not afraid of this terrible organisation which is always threatening them with the greatest calamities. ”

“ The organisation most profitable for all will be attained not while everyone's aim is profit, material welfare, but only when the aim of all is that welfare which is independent of earthly well-being—when everyone will say from his heart, "Blessed are the poor; blessed are those that weep, those who are persecuted. Only when everyone seeks, not material but spiritual welfare, which always coincides with sacrifice, is verified by sacrifice—only then will result the greatest welfare for all. ”

“ In a world in which people run round like trained animals, and are not capable of any other idea than that of overreaching one another for the sake of mammon,—in such a world let people think me a crank; but, for all that, I feel in myself the divine idea of peace, which is so beautifully expressed in the Sermon on the Mount. My deepest conviction is that war is only trade on a larger scale—trade carried on by the ambitious and the powerful with the happiness of the peoples. ”