"One man may not kill. If he kills a fellow-creature, he is a murderer. If two, ten, a hundred men do so, they, too, are murderers. But a government or a nation may kill as many men as it chooses, and that will not be murder, but a great and noble action. Only gather the people together on a large scale, and a battle of ten thousand men becomes an innocent action. But precisely how many people must there be to make it so?—that is the question. One man cannot plunder and pillage, but a whole nation can. But precisely how many are needed to make it permissible? Why is it that one man, ten, a hundred, may not break the law of God, but a great number may?"
Tolstoy was not a fan of the so-called just war theory. His pupils Gandhi and MLK carried forward his beliefs.in non-violence. The GOAT for non-resistance to evil by force is Jesus. Of course, if that guy shows up again, we will have to burn him at the stake as explained by the Grand Inquisitor.
In case you were wondering why the Grand Inquisitor ends his speech to Jesus, where he tells Jesus they are going to burn him the next day, with the word Dixi.
Dixi is a Latin term for “I have spoken” often used to signify an argument is concluded. I think I'll start saying it when I pontificate my wise know-it-all thoughts in the future.
Dixi
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