Mahavira - A J Muste - George Fox - Alice Walker - Albert Dietrich - George Orwell - Christopher Hitchens - Noam Chomsky - William Faulkner - Leon Trotsky - Albert Einstein - Theodore Roosevelt - Alfred North Whitehead - Vera Brittain - John Stuart Mill - Lost Horizon 1937 - Percy Bysshe Shelley -
Nonviolence is the greatest religion. Mahavira
If I can’t love Hitler, I can’t love at all. A J Muste, American pacifist, to Quaker meeting and cited New York Times 12th February 1967
There is no way to peace. Peace is the way. A J Muste, cited New York Times 16th November 1967
I told them I lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars. George Fox, 1624-91, English founder of Quakers, on being offered captaincy in Commonwealth army
All bloody principles and practices, we, as to our own particulars, do utterly deny, with all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretense whatsoever. And this is our testimony to the whole world. George Fox, journal 1661
The quietly pacifist peaceful
always die
to make room for men
who shout. Who tell lies to
children, and crush the corners
off of old men’s dreams. Alice Walker, The QPP, 1973
There are perhaps many causes worth dying for, but to me, certainly, there are none worth killing for. Albert Dietrich, Army GI, Pacifist CO: The World War II Letters of Frank and Albert Dietrich
Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, ‘he that is not with me is against me’. George Orwell
The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. George Orwell
In so far as it takes effect at all, pacifist propaganda can only be effective against those countries where a certain amount of freedom of speech is still permitted; in other words it is helpful to totalitarianism. George Orwell
If [pacifists] imagine that one can somehow ‘overcome’ the German army by lying on one’s back, let them go on imagining it, but let them also wonder occasionally whether this is not an illusion due to security, too much money and a simple ignorance of the way in which things actually happen. George Orwell
If the counsel of the peaceniks had been followed, Kuwait would today be the nineteenth province of Iraq. Bosnia would be a trampled and cleansed province of Greater Serbia, Kosovo would have been emptied of most of its inhabitants, and the Taliban would still be in power in Afghanistan. Yet nothing seems to disturb the contented air of moral superiority of those that intone the ‘peace movement’. Christopher Hitchens
I am not a committed pacifist. I would not hold that it is under all imaginable circumstances wrong to use violence, even though use of violence is in some sense unjust. I believe that one has to estimate relative justices. But the use of violence and the creation of some degree of injustice can only be justified on the basis of the claim and the assessment – which always ought to be undertaken very, very seriously and with a good deal of scepticism that this violence is being exercised because a more just result is going to be achieved. Noam Chomsky
Men have been pacifists for every reason under the sun except to avoid danger and fighting. William Faulkner, The Unvanquished
Generally speaking, by the way, that is the moral of the opponents of violence in politics: they renounce violence when it comes to introducing changes in what already exists, but in defence of the existing order they will not stop at the most ruthless acts. Leon Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution
I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war. Albert Einstein
My pacifism is an instinctive feeling, a feeling that possesses me because the murder of men is disgusting. Albert Einstein, 1920
The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer. Theodore Roosevelt
The absolute pacifist is a bad citizen; times come when force must be used to uphold right, justice and ideals. Alfred North Whitehead
All that a pacifist can undertake – but it is a very great deal – is to refuse to kill, injure or otherwise cause suffering to another human creature, and untiringly to order his life by the rule of love though others may be captured by hate. Vera Brittain, 1939
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. John Stuart Mill
I’m not going to have an army. I’m going to disband mine. And sink my battleships. I’m going to destroy every piece of warcraft. Then when the enemy approaches, we’ll say, ‘Come in, gentlemen. What can we do for you?’ Lost Horizon 1937 ***** starring Ronald Colman & Jane Wyatt & H B Warner & Sam Jaffe & John Howard & Edward Everett Horton & Thomas Mitchell & Margo & Isabel Jewell & David Clyde & David Torrence et al, director Frank Capra, Robert Conway on plane
Man has no right to kill his brother. It is no excuse that he does so in uniform: he only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder. Percy Bysshe Shelley