Leo Tolstoy

“ There exists a general law, acknowledged by all reasonable men, confirmed by tradition, by all the religions of all the nations, and by true science. This law is that men, to fulfil their destiny and attain their greatest welfare, should help one another, love one another, and in any case should not attack one another's liberty and life. ”

“ Yet, strange to say, people appear who assure us that it is quite needless to obey this law, and that there are cases in which one may and should act contrary to it; and that such deviations from the eternal law will bring more welfare, both to individuals and to societies, than the fulfilment of the reasonable, supreme law common to all humanity.
The workmen in a vast, complex factory have received from the master clear instructions, accepted by them themselves, as to what they should and should not do, both that the works may go well, and for their own welfare. ”

“ And everyone is so accustomed to these words, which hide an explanation and a justification of the most horrible and immoral actions, that it enters no one's head to ask: "Who are you, who ask, What's to be done? Who are you, that you consider yourselves called on to decide other people's fate by actions which all men (even you yourselves) know to be odious and wicked? ”

“ What's to be done? were the very words those two vagabonds from the garden, and to-day's peasant revolutionary, had used.
"It is impossible to endure these insensate horrors committed by a corrupt Government which is ruining both the country and the people. We hate the means we have to employ, but What's to be done?" say the Revolutionists on the one side.
"One cannot allow some self-selected pretenders to seize power and rule Russia as they like, perverting and ruining it. ”

“ And as soon as one gives this reply to the question, What's to be done? that stupid, crime-begetting fog is at once dispelled, under whose influence, for some reason, men imagine that they alone, of all men—they (perhaps the most entangled and the most astray from the true path of life) are called on to decide the fate of millions, and for the questionable benefit of these millions to commit deeds which, not questionably but evidently, produce disasters to these millions. ”

“ The answer is that you must do, not what the Tsar, Governor, police-officers, Duma, or some political party demands of you, but what is natural to you as a man, what is demanded of you by that Power which sent you into the world—the Power most people are accustomed to call God. ”

“ How do you know that what you wish to alter, should be altered in the way that seems good to you? Do you not know that there are many men such as you, who consider bad and harmful what you consider good and useful? ”

“ That will be the case with many who are suffering from the spiritual disease of political obsession, but I think the great majority of people suffering from all the horrors and crimes done by men who are so diseased, will at last understand the terrible deception under which those lie who acknowledge coercive power used by man to man as rightful and beneficent ”

“ I know that to men suffering from that spiritual disease: political obsession, a plain and clear answer to the question, What's to be done? an answer telling them to obey the highest law common to all mankind, the law of love to one's neighbour, will appear abstract and unpractical ”