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Christ says, "Forgive all. Forgive not once, not seven times, but forgive without end." "Love your enemies." "Do good to those who hate you." Courts of law do not forgive, but they punish; they do not do good, but evil, to those whom they call the enemies of society. So, the true sense of the doctrine is that Christ forbids all courts of law.

— Leo Tolstoy What I Believe (1885)

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Christianity

More quotes by Leo Tolstoy

I cannot recall those years without horror, loathing, and heart-rending pain.

Confession (1882)

Art is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen.

What is Art? (1897)

The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.

War and Peace (1865)

The vocation of every man and woman is to serve other people.

What Is To Be Done? (1886)

God is that infinite All of which man knows himself to be a finite part.
God alone exists truly. Man manifests Him in time, space and matter.

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Must then a Christ perish in torment in every age to save those that have no imagination?

George Bernard Shaw Saint Joan (1923)

The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence, from Jerusalem, of a lunatic asylum.

Havelock Ellis

Christianity offers reasons for not fearing death or the universe, and in so doing it fails to teach adequately the virtue of courage.

Bertrand Russell Education and the Social Order (1932)

Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law [this quote is referring to English Common Law].

Thomas Jefferson Vol. 1 Whether Christianity is Part of the Common Law (1764)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Leo Tolstoy (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.