In every threat and in every
compliment there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief
desire was to stand the other side of that stone wall. I could not but
smile to see how industriously they locked the door on my meditations,
which followed them out again without let or hindrance, and they
were really all that was dangerous. As they could not reach me, they
had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot come at
some person against whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog. I
saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone
woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends
from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and
pitied it.
Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man's sense,
intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not
armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical
strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own
fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a
multitude? They only can force me who obey a higher law than I. They
force me to become like themselves.
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