“It is apparent that nations cannot exist for us. They are the playthings of children, such toys as children break from boredom and weariness.”

— Sherwood Anderson

A New Testament (1927)
Context: We have not approached the time when we may speak to each other, but in the mornings sometimes I have heard, echoing far off, the sound of a trumpet. It is apparent that nations cannot exist for us. They are the playthings of children, such toys as children break from boredom and weariness. The branch of a tree is my country. My freedom sleeps in a mulberry bush. My country is in the shivering legs of a little lost dog.

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Sherwood Anderson 19

writer 1876–1941

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