(After witnessing executions in Paris) When I saw the heads being separated from the bodies and heard them thump, one after the next, I understood, and not just with my intellect but with my whole being, that no theories of the rationality of existence and progress could justify this crime. I realized that even if every single person since the day of creation had, according to whatever theory, found this necessary I knew that it was unnecessary and wrong, and therefore that judgments on what is good and necessary must not be based on what other people say and do, or on progress, but on the instincts of my own soul.

Confession by Leo Tolstoy