You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But once you’ve robbed a man of everything he’s no longer in your power — he’s free again.

Alexander Solzhenitsen (1918-2008) Russian novelist, emigre [Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn]

The First Circle, ch. 17 [Bobynin] (1964) [tr. Guybon (1968)]