There is only one way to improve ourselves, and that is by some of us setting an example which the others may pick up and imitate till the new fashion spreads from east to west. Some of us are in more favorable positions than others to set new fashions. Some are much more striking personally and imitable, so to speak.
—William James, “The Gospel of Relaxation,” in Talks for Teachers
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, Leo Tolstoy, “Christianity and patriotism,” in Selected Essays, translated by Aylmer Maude
