#pacifism

The idea that war can ever bring freedom is quite possibly the greatest deception that mankind has ever forced upon himself. ↗

— Michel Templet

#philosophy #war #freedom

Having been to war myself, I do not understand why so many people are so in love with it. ↗

— Michel Templet

#pacifism #war #love

Essentially, I'm a very real person; good and bad. And the public image is one of being very good, I suppose. But one of the reasons I'm attracted to people like Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, Christ, to pacifism, is because naturally, I'm the guy that would not turn the other cheek - but, when people see you're attracted to that, they think you are that. ↗

— Bono

#nature

Those who hammer their guns into plows, will plow for those who do not. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#pacifism #preparedness #guns

Sometimes, a war saves people. ↗

— José Ramos-Horta

#humanitarianism #pacifism #war #iraq

[Nicholson] Baker can't seem to get enough of the wisdom of Gandhi and cites at length an open letter he wrote to the British people on 3 July 1940. "Your soldiers are doing the same work of destruction as the Germans," wrote the Mahatma. "I want you to fight Nazism without arms." He went on to say: "Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these, but neither your souls, nor your minds. If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them." I must say that everything in me declines to be addressed in that tone of voice ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#pacifism #beauty

It was strange to us that none of these three victims made any attempt to resist the attack. Indeed, not one inhabitant in any of these worlds considered for a moment the possibility of resistance. In every case the attitude to disaster seemed to express itself in such terms as these: "To retaliate would be to wound our communal spirit beyond cure. We choose rather to die. The theme of spirit that we have created must inevitably be broken short, whether by the ruthlessness of the invader or by our own resort to arms. It is better to be destroyed than to triumph in slaying the spirit. Such as it is, the spirit that we have achieved is fair; and it is indestructibly woven into the tissue of the cosmos. We die praising the universe in which at least such an achievement as ours can be. We die knowing that the promise of further glory outlives us in other galaxies. We die praising the Star Maker, the Star Destroyer. ↗

— Olaf Stapledon

#pacifism #scifi #war #attitude

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

#freedom

And do you know another thing, Arthur? Life is too bitter already, without territories and wars and noble feuds. ↗

— T.H. White

#life #merlin #nobility #pacifism #peace

We'd be the safest country in the world if the world knew we didn't have a gun. Men are not killed because they get mad at each other. They're killed because one has a gun. ↗

— Jeannette Rankin

#murder #pacifism #violence #men