Then coming to this pass [Ryōkan] found only one way to go: he made up his mind, to go his own way, that is to say, to pursue the way of truth—the only way a true man can follow, believing that by doing so, he may turn himself into a light, be it ever so little and dim, yet bright enough to urge a helpless traveler to go even a few more steps forward.
—Misao Kodama and Hikosaku Yanagishima, The Zen Fool: Ryōkan
The governments may control the schools, the Church, the Press, milliards of rubles and millions of disciplined men made into machines, but all that apparently terrible organization of brute force is nothing before the recognition of the truth which surges in the soul of each man who knows its power, and from whom it is communicated to a second and a third, as one candle can light an infinite number of others. That light need only be kindled, and all that seemingly mighty organization will melt away like wax before the fire and be consumed.
—Leo Tolstoy, “Christianity and Patriotism”
