The Kingdom of God is Within You by Leo Tolstoy Chapter 7 Page 36

struggles with one another has led to their demanding such material and even moral sacrifices from their subjects that everyone is forced to reflect and ask himself, “Can I make these sacrifices? And for the sake of what am I making them? I am expected for the sake of the state to make these sacrifices, to renounce everything that can be precious to man — peace, family, security, and human dignity.” What is this state, for whose sake such terrible sacrifices have to be made? And why is it so indispensably necessary? “The state,” they tell us, “is indispensably needed, in the first place, because without it we should not be protected against the attacks of evil-disposed persons; and secondly, except for the state we should be savages and should have neither religion, culture, education, nor commerce, nor means of