Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy

“ For as long as I live, I know that if I'm in love with people, I feel well, peaceful, joyful, and therefore for as long as I live, I want to love and be loved. And suddenly people come and say: "Come with us, to rob, execute, kill, fight, and all of these will make it better for you, and if not for you, then for the state". ”

“ A man, a true Christian, cannot be a member of a society which has army and military institutions.
How could he agree with the fact that the head of the government, recognized by him, would also command the army and the fleet, and lead his brothers to kill his own brothers-foreigners?
A Christian cannot recognize such an official and participate in his election, cannot, by swearing in the name of God, be bound to commit the deeds of murder and violence. The objection in favor of participation in the affairs of this world becomes ugly and illogical ”

“ Would we say that these people are cowards? If two, three, four people wouldn’t defend themselves from one, that would be strange yet possible, and it could be explained by the lack of courage, but when a hundred thousand people, one hundred thousand villages, a million people do not to attack those few from whom they all suffer, staying their slaves, what is this incredible phenomenon called?
Meanwhile, what takes place in all countries with all people, is that few people dominate over hundred thousands of villages and deprive them of freedom. ”

“ The same is with the government, which vocation is to maintain such a separate entity of impossible and senseless union of people as Russia, Britain, Germany, France – cannot give their citizens a real freedom, and not a counterfeit of it, as is the case with any nifty constitutions, monarchical, republican or democratic. Chief and practically the only reason for the lack of freedom – is the deceitful doctrine of the necessity of the state. People may be deprived of their liberty even in the absence of the state, but people belonging to the state cannot have freedom. ”

“ Each government is supported by the armed men, ready to execute its will by force, - the class of people, raised to kill everybody who their superiors order to kill. They are the police and, primarily, the army. The army is nothing more than a collection of disciplined killers. Its training is the training of its murderers; its victories are murders. The army always stood and now stands at the heart of the power. The power was always in the hands of those who commanded the army; and always all rulers, from the Roman Caesar to Russian and German Emperors, are preoccupied chiefly with the army. ”

“ The deceitful doctrine of state is regarding yourself as connected with the people of one nationality, or one state, separated from the people of other nations and the other states. People torture, kill, rob each other and themselves because of this terribly false dogma. People can free themselves from this dogma only after they identify themselves with the spiritual beginning of the life, which is the same in all people. Once people recognize this beginning in themselves, they can no longer believe in human institutions which only separate that what is connected by God. ”

“ It’s enough to renounce deceitful doctrine, which was accepted based on faith alone, and to look at the situation of a person living in the state, - whether he’d belong to the most despotic or democratic state, - to be appalled at the extent of the slavery in which people live now, at the same time imagining that they are free.
Over every man, wherever he was born, there is a gathering of people, completely unknown to him, who set the laws of his life: what he should and should not do; and the more sophisticated the state structure is, the tighter is the network of these laws. ”

“ The powerful of this world look great only to those people who kneel before them. As soon as people stand up from their knees onto feet, they will see that those who seemed to them such great people - are the same as they are. ”

“ War is nothing more than a dispute between several governments about the authority over the subordinates. In the sight of such meaning of the armies, each state is brought to the need to increase its troops; and increasing the troops is contagious, as already one hundred and fifty years ago noticed Montesquieu. But when people think that the government keeps the army only for the protection against external attacks, they forget that the troops governments need primarily for self-defense against their own suppressed and enslaved citizens. ”

“ Until a person realizes what the government is, just as what the church is, he can’t relate to these institutions other than with blessing. While he is ruled by this institution, he has to think, for his own self-esteem, that it is something original, great, and holy. But as soon as he realized that this, what he is ruled by, is not is something original or sacred, and that it is only a deception created by the evil people, who, under the guise of managing, used this facility for their personal purposes, - then he can no longer experience anything but disgust toward these people. ”

“ The inhabitants of planet Earth are still in such a state the absurdity, irrationalization, dullness, that every day we read in the newspapers some rationalizations of the rulers of people about with whom and how need to connect in order to fight with other nations, and people themselves allow their superiors to manage them, as cattle led to slaughter, as if every human life is not his personal property. ”

“ This is the deception of false doctrine of the state. Only this ingrained deceitful doctrine gives the mad, not justifiable by anything, power to the hundreds of people over the millions of people, and deprives these millions of genuine freedom. A person living in Canada or in Kansas, in Bohemia, in Russia, Normandy, cannot be free while he considers himself (and often proud of it) being British, North American, Austrian, Russian, French citizen. ”

“ The inhabitants of our planet are still being brought up in the belief that there are peoples, borders, banners, and that all this is much more important than the consciousness of humanity. The truth is that if thinking people found a way to agree, - the situation would change, because no one personally wants war. But the problem is that in every state there are still millions of parasites who need war, who without war would not remain parasites. And these same parasites prevent thinking people from coming to an agreement to stop participating in the mutual murder. ”

“ American Indians lived in a way that they didn't have any power, no laws, no government. They obeyed only the established customs and conscience. Those who acted opposite to their customs and conscience, those were expelled from the society, or, when something critical, like murder, happened, those who suffered from it punished for the murder. And there, among Native Americans, was much less crimes than among our states with authorities, prisons, and judges. Where will more evil happen: where there are no laws, as with wild American Indians, or where there are too many? ”

“ The whole Christian teachings is only in knowing that the blessing of a human is in the execution of the will by which he came into this world, but the evil is in violating of this will. The requirements of this will themselves are so simple and clear, that they are just impossible to be misunderstood or misinterpreted. The requirements are not to do to another person what you don't want to be done to yourself. If you don’t want to be forced to work in a factory or mine for 10 hours straight, don’t want to be raped and killed, don't do it to others, don't participate in such acts. ”

“ As horses, cows, sheep cannot pasture themselves, because they are all the same in their nature. And people are also the same among each other. Why is it that some people may rule over others and force them to live the way they think is better? All people are equally reasonable creatures, and only that one can manage them who is above them. And above them only one thing: the spirit that lives in all of them, which we call conscience. And therefore people need to obey only their conscience, and not the people who would call themselves kings, chambers, congresses, senates, courts... ”

“ Just as life of an individual moves from one age to another, the same way the life of the mankind evolves. And as in the life of an individual, there are times when a child becomes a youth and can no longer continue to live the previous way, and then the youth becomes the adult, and the adult becomes the old man, - the same way the whole mankind passes through different ages. ”

“ But the fact is what they’re scaring with, has already been accomplished: now already the more evil ones dominate over the less evil people, and that is precisely because of the state power. And we cannot judge about what will happen without the state power. What’ll happen most likely will be that the people who produce the violence will stop doing it, and the lives of all people will become not worse, but better. ”

“ And here you are, people put in this situation not only do not see their slavery, but proud of it, consider themselves as free citizens of the great states of Britain, France, Germany, Russia, proud of that, just as doormen are proud of the importance of the masters they serve.
5.
I think we should be first of all people, and only after - subordinates. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law in the same way as it is for the goodness. The law never makes people more just, but, on the contrary, due to their respect for the law, good people are made perpetrators of injustice. ”

“ What to call what we see when a large number of people not only obey, but cringe before one person or before few people, and cringe so much that they do not have anything left of their own: neither property, nor children, nor even life itself that they would call theirs, and tolerate robbery, cruelty not from troops, not from the barbarians, but from one person, and not from Hercules or Samson, but from the people weak, who, for the most part, are very wrong morally. ”

“ Everyone can see that for the rulers, particularly who recently received their power or who manage over the newly emerging monarchies, is sometimes impossible to reconcile their course of actions with the requirements of their consciousness: very often, to maintain the order of the state, they should act against the laws of conscience, compassion, humanity, and even against religion. Rulers must be able to be flexible and to change their beliefs according to the circumstances, and as I said above, if possible, don’t need to avoid the honest path ”

“ What can be more absurd than the right of a man to kill me because he lives on the other side of the river, or because his ruler is at loggerheads with mine, even though I did not plan to quarrel with him? ”

“ Disguise is required for the rulers, because most of them are judged by what they look, and only very few people are able to distinguish the seeming from the actual. Even if those few will understand the true quality of the rulers, they won’t be dare to express their opinion, which is contrary to the opinion of the majority, and will be afraid to offend the dignity of the upper power, represented by the rulers. ”

“ Christian teaching responds to this deceitful doctrine by shifting the issue completely in another, more significant and more important for the life of each individual area. Christian teaching doesn’t propose anything to destroy nor any devices to replace the old order. Christian teaching differs from all social teachings in that it is not talking about that or other order of life, but about what is the essence of the evil and what is the true blessing of life for every one, and therefore for all people. ”

“ Anarchists are right in the following: in the denial of the existing order, and in affirming that, out of all current conditions, nothing can be worse than the aggression of the government; but they are crudely mistaken thinking that the anarchy can be installed by a revolution. The anarchy can only be installed by having more and more people who do not need the protection of the governmental power and more and more people who would be ashamed to use this power.
9.
Anarchy does not mean the lack of institutions, but only the absence of those institutions which make people obey them by force. ”

“ It’s reasonable to love virtues, respect courageous acts, recognize kindness regardless of where it is coming from, and even deprive yourself of conveniences for the sake of someone you love and who deserves it: thus, if residents of a country found such a person, who showed them great wisdom to guide them, great courage to defend them, and great care to manage them, and if, as a consequence, they are accustomed to obey him, to give him some benefits, I do not think that would be unreasonable. ”

“ And all these disasters, desolations, corruption occur not from the enemies, but from one enemy, which you create yourself. Where this enemy would had any power over you if you weren't abet the thief who robs you, if you wouldn’t be accomplices to that murderer who kills you, if you did not betray yourselves? ”

“ The purpose of the state is to establish that kind of order which would occur among the people if all of them were guided by the fairness. But even if the states have reached their goal, there still would be not only the difference, but the complete contradiction between the external justice achieved by the state, and the natural condition, in which people would be guided by the desire for fairness. In the society led by the desire for fairness, no one would create injustices ”