arkster | (no subject) (Reply)

"And they will have no secrets from us. We shall allow or forbid them to live with their wives and mistresses, to have or not to have children - according to whether they have been obedient or disobedient - and they will submit to us gladly and cheerfully. The most painful secrets of their conscience, all, all they will bring to us, and we shall have an answer for all. And they will be glad to believe our answer, for it will save them from the great anxiety and terrible agony they endure at present in making a free decision for themselves. And all will be happy, all the millions of creatures except the hundred thousand who rule over them. For only we, we who guard the mystery, shall be unhappy."

excerpt from Dostoevsky's The Grand Inquisitor