Leo Tolstoy

In his book Basic Education, Mahatma Gandhi wrote “I must continue to bear testimony to truth even if I am forsaken by all” to instill the virtue of truth for the creation of ideal citizens. Gandhi was the torch-bearer of civil rights movements during the age of British imperialism, and through his words and actions, the ideals of nonviolence and peaceful protest continue to this day. Gandhi showed that the actions of one individual can represent the sentiments of inequality and discrimination…

Oscar Wilde’s quote of “It is through disobedience that progress has been made” profoundly relates to the quote “When life puts you in tough situations, don't say “why me” say “try me””. Wilde states that disobedience creates opportunity for social progress; through the multitude of impactful nonviolence protest leaders like David Henry Thoreau, Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi, it is crystalline that these memorable figures inspired change through civil disobedience. I firmly agree in…

“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.”Elie Wiesel said this in his speech after winning the Nobel Peace Prize. We must know how to take sides to help us be the voice for all of these people that have been silenced due to dehumanization. The Holocaust was a genocide during World War II in which Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany systematically murdered some seven million European Jews.…

Eternal Love To the Lighthouse, written by Virginia Woolf, is a novel about the effect relationships have on people’s lives. The first part of the novel The Window is about the Ramsay family and their guests’ time during a 12-hour span period at a summerhouse. All of them have the basic story of considering visiting the lighthouse the next day, but each character has a sub-plot. In the second part of the novel Time Passes, about ten years have gone by. Mrs. Ramsay has passed away, and the rest…

When historians look back to the twentieth century, they seldom speak of peace. Instead, they divert their attention to the hostility of this period with regard to impactful events such as countless wars and the rise and fall of political leaders, revolutionaries, and activists. Among the activists of the time, three of the most prominent were Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King Jr. Today, these men are revered not solely based on their ability to successfully lead their…

According to oxforddictionaries.com nonviolence is defined as the use of peaceful means, not force, to bring about political or social change. In both the film Selma and Book One and Two of March, nonviolence became an important tactic that was used during the Civil Rights Movement. It was applied to hopefully eradicate the evil that the African Americans faced: the evil of racism. In Panel Three on page 101 of March: Book One, John Lewis describes in a textbox how the protestors who went to…

Anton Chekhov was born on January 29, 1860, in Taganrog, Russia. Chekhov died of tuberculosis on July 15, 1904, in Badenweiler, Germany. Anton chekhov was born on the feast day of St. Anthony the Great (17 January Old Style) 29 January 1860, the third child of six surviving children, in Taganrog, a port on the Sea of Azov in southern Russia. ... He sang at the Greek Orthodox monastery in Taganrog, and in his father's choirs. He has five siblings, which is four brothers and one sister. Russian…

Throughout the semester as a class we have read multiple forms of readings varying in style and meaning. The different types of readings were meant to enrich our minds of knowledge and shape our human experience. After reading some of the forms of literature, such as Walden and Civil Disobedience, A year of Magical Thinking and the Auto Biography of an Ex-Colored Man my mind has expanded to consider different parts of life. I think about the way I live my life and the things I do as a human…

In his final novel, Hadji Murat, Tolstoy depicts the Caucasian campaigns of the mid 19th century, condemning Nicholas I’s attacks on the Islamic people of the region, as well as the tsar’s use of violence in general. However, Tolstoy also criticizes the Islamic leader Imam Shamil, even drawing some comparisons between Shamil and the tsar. In this sense, Tolstoy condemns the Russians but in doing so does not condone the leaders of the Islamic people; rather his criticism focuses on violence and…

Cesar Chavez voiced his opinion on why society should choose a nonviolent response instead of violent in a religious article on the tenth anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. As a labor union organizer and civil rights leader, Chavez understands how the use of nonviolence is powerful by experiencing the effects of peaceful protests to get a message across and attaining effective change without having to resort to violence. Chavez reaches out to his audience by stating that…