There is only one moral duty, only one truth, and every man is the shining recipient and guardian of it.

The present understanding of the idea of motherland divides all these great ideas, cuts them into pieces, specializes them within impenetrable circles.

We meet as many national truths as we do nations, and as many national duties, and as many national interests and rights--and they are antagonistic to each other.

Each country is separated from the next by such walls--moral frontiers, material frontiers, commercial frontiers--that you are imprisoned when you find yourself on either side of them.

We hear talk of sanctified selfishness, of the adorable expansion of one race across the others, of noble hatreds and glorious conquests, and we see these ideals trying to take shape on all hands.
This capricious multiplication of what ought to remain one leads the whole of civilization into a malignant and thorough absurdity.