People continued — regardless of all that leads man forward — to try to unite the incompatibles : the virtue of love, and what is opposed to love, na… - Leo Tolstoy

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People continued — regardless of all that leads man forward — to try to unite the incompatibles : the virtue of love, and what is opposed to love, namely, the restraining of evil by violence. And such a teaching, despite its inner contradiction, was so firmly established that the very people who recognize love as a virtue accept as lawful at the same time an order of life based on violence and allowing men not merely to torture but even to kill one another.

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About Leo Tolstoy

Lev Nikolayevitch Tolstoy [Ле́в Никола́евич Толсто́й, usually rendered Leo Tolstoy, or sometimes Tolstoi] (9 September 1828 – 20 November 1910) was a Russian writer, philosopher and social activist (social critic), whose novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina are internationally praised classics of world literature. He was a major influence on the development of Christian anarchism and pacifism, contributing to such nonviolent resistance movements as those of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and James Bevel.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Pen Names: Л. Н. Т. Л. Н.
Birth Name: Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
Native Name: Лев Никола́евич Толсто́й
Alternative Names: Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910 Tolstoĭ, Lev Nikolaevich, graf, 1828-1910 Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoĭ Leo Tolstoi Tolstoĭ, Lev Nikolaevich, graf Tolstoy, Leo, graf
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He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others.

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Unfortunately not only were the rulers, who were considered supernatural beings, benefited by having the peoples in subjection, but as a result of the belief in, and during the rule of, these pseudodivine beings, ever larger and larger circles of people grouped and established themselves around them, and under an appearance of governing took advantage of the people. And when the old deception of a supernatural and God-appointed authority had dwindled away these men were only concerned to devise a new one which like its predecessor should make it possible to hold the people in bondage to a limited number of rulers.

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