27 lines
1.0 KiB
Plaintext
27 lines
1.0 KiB
Plaintext
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I sit on a man's back, choking him, and making him carry me, and yet
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assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease
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his lot by any means possible, except getting off his back.
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The changed form and substance of law is rather like what a jailer
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might do who shifted a prisoner's chains...or removed them and
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substituted bolts and bars.
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"A Russian should rejoice if Poland, the Baltic Provinces, Finland,
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Armenia, should be separated, freed from Russia; so with an Englishman
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in regard to Ireland, India and other possessions; and each should
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help to do this, because the greater the state, the more wrong and
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cruel is its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon
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which its power is founded. Therefore, if we really wish to be what
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we profess to be, we must not only cease our present desire for the
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growth of the state, but we must desire its decrease, its weakening,
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and help this forward with all our might."
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Leo Tolstoy, from "Writings on Civil Disobedience and Nonviolence,"
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written in 1886.
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