pacifists

"When one's existence which has seemed quite secure suddenly melts away. . . when every security fails and every support gives way—then one stands face to face with the Eternal and confronts Him without protection and with fearful directness. . . When imprisonment has lasted a certain time it ceases to be punishment. One has removed one’s self from ordinary life and slowly begins to find a new standard."

"I am fully conscious of the fact that my late husband and I did nothing special; we simply tried to remain human in the midst of inhumanity."

"How can I not hesitate before accepting? Are we sufficiently aware, against the background of the darkest chapter in German history, of how guilty we are for rescuing no more than a tiny droplet out of the endless sea of despair of that period? Righteous can therefore have no other meaning than the attempt, the obligation, to do what is right and to live humanly even during times of inhumanity."

"No journalist is omnipotent, and even the most powerful journalist cannot influence those who do not read his paper. But within the range of his circulation — and readers, of course, are much more numerous than subscribers — he may be more potent than any other man. The damnable iteration day after day of earnest conviction wears like the dropping of water upon the stone."

"The Press is at once the eye and the ear and the tongue of the people. It is the visible speech if not the voice of the democracy. It is the phonograph of the world."

"The duty of a journalist is the duty of a watchman."

"An editor is the uncrowned king of an educated democracy."

"What a marvellous opportunity for attacking the devil!"

"It is the great inspector, with a myriad eyes, who never sleeps, and whose daily reports are submitted, not to a functionary or department, but to the whole people."

"What is my message? That is what troubles me. I have not got a message. I am not by any means so ardent a Radical or as ardent in anything as I was. I have read so many newspapers on both sides that my old views have become so greatly modified that I no longer feel certain of anything. That is too strong, but it is true to a certain extent. Facts and existing circumstances prevent me being so enthusiastic as some are about remodelling the Universe."

"I cannot acknowledge violence, even against violence."

"Liking does not mean love."

"We ‘made’ the moral law, we are not ‘made’ for it."

"It is the snowdrop on the hard German snow. It announces the German spring. It is a real consolation to every German who was ready to doubt whether the German soul would ever escape from the enchantment in which its pursuit of Power seemed to have inextricably involved it. That, in the midst of anger and hatred, misery and despair, this German flower could bloom is not only a glad hope for those to whom true Germanism is their spiritual home, but for other countries which feared that the de-Germanised German had come to stay."

"Where this terrible dogma does not embitter happiness, it corrupts character. Where people believe with a realized belief, their whole lives must be overshadowed with its stupendous horror; where they only pretend to believe, the extent of their hypocrisy can be measured only by their pretence."

"As women are still deprived from direct power to shape the destiny of this country, we must demand that our fellow men do their utmost to preserve peace and prevent the destruction of our communities. You are the only people who can prevent this crime from taking place. We are in contact with our sisters in Europe and America and we all believe that nothing can be gained from violence. We must appeal instead to reason and humanity."

"Dear Mrs Macdonald,"

"I send you the notice of the women’s victory here – in a municipal lodging House. It is so nice, so complete, so good & simple that it ought to be a success and an example to other places- and it is such a pleasure to me to have it called by my name even though I don’t deserve it and Mrs Clark & the women guardians Cttee ought somehow to have been joined in."

"In these days when men are making us spend all our substance and strength on winning the liberty they out to be giving us with both hands – I have no heart to subsidise men’s things at all…except just to hold my seat on the Town Council."

"This, now, is the judgement of our scientific age—the third reaction of man upon the universe! This universe is not hostile, nor yet is it friendly. It is simply indifferent."

"Many scholars find strong parallels between Raglan’s “hero myth” analysis and the Jesus story of the New Testament. [...] Price goes even further when he argues that “every detail of the [Christ] story fits the mythic hero archetype, with nothing left over.” From this Price surmises that it is “arbitrary to assert that there must have been a historical figure lying in back of the myth.”"

"Robert Price goes so far as to argue that every aspect of the Jesus story found in the Gospels fits the “mythic hero archetype, with nothing left over.” With such a strong correspondence between Jesus and universally acknowledged mythic figures, the suggestion that the Jesus story is rooted in history while the other hero stories are not seems highly implausible to some."

"[Per G. A. Wells and Earl Doherty] the Gospels later created a historical narrative around Paul’s mythological savior figure and thereby transformed him into a historical person. (G. A. Wells, The Jesus myth (Chicago:Open Court, 1999), esp. 95-111; E. Doherty, The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? (Ottawa: Canadian Humanist Pub., 1999).)"

"Christ myth theorists argue that Paul views Jesus as a cosmic savior figure, along the lines of a mystery-religion deity, not a historical person in the recent past. They argue that it was only later, when the Gospels were written, that a fictitious historical narrative was imposed on this mythical cosmic savior figure."

"Scholars who classify the Gospels as “fiction” generally hold that the Gospel authors were intentionally writing fiction and assumed their work would be read as such. There is no consensus among scholars within this camp as to what exact kind of fiction the Gospels are intended to be. Candidates include ...“legend,” (R. M. Price, The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition? (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2003), 21.)"

"If Jesus performed the feats attributed to him in the Gospels, should we not expect that he would have caught the attention of at least a few pagan writers? Instead, some scholars argue, we find little or no mention of Jesus outside the New Testament. For some—especially the most radical fringe of legendary-Jesus theorists (viz. group 1 [inclusive of Christ myth theorists])—this suggests the miracle-working figure of the Gospels is purely a legend, essentially no different from the mythological savior figures of other ancient mystery religions."

"Growing foreign perils were perceived and promptly and fully reported, first to London and then to ministers. Some permanent officials, such as Crowe in his time and later Vansittart, struggled hard to convince governments of the need for a strong foreign policy, and to puncture the prevailing euphoria with a bodkin of realism. They failed. They failed because there was another, competing influence on politicians, a more congenial and therefore in the end a more effective influence: a constellation of moralising internationalist cliques, each with its ideas-peddlers, its contact-men in high places, and its tame press. These busy romantics – from Philip Kerr (Lord Lothian) and Lord Robert Cecil on the Right, through liberals like Smuts and Gilbert Murray in the middle to Kingsley Martin and Clifford Allen on the Left – not only believed, admirably enough, that morality rather than power ought to govern relations between states but acted as though it did... The internationalists successfully imposed on governments their pretension to speak for the inarticulate and unsounded body of the British nation; that is, to represent public opinion at large."

"Germany has said that British democracy is degenerate. Well, I for one was never more proud of British democracy than when Professor Freud, that great scientist, aged and infirm, became an exile from his country and was welcomed within our shores. There was taken to him as an invalid the register of the Royal Society in order that he might inscribe his name therein, an act which I believe has never been carried through in this country except for members of our Royal Family; and thus degenerate democracy linked an exiled and distinguished Jewish scientist with members of our own Royal Family. That seemed to me a cause of pride, and not a sign of degeneracy."

"He believed that Christianity stood for the bettering of their fellow men, and the raising of their condition. Were not these the very tenets of Socialism?"

"The object of the Socialist movement is not material but spiritual; it lies in the discovery of methods of reducing to a minimum the attention of man to the material things of life in order that he may have more time to develop personality and make what use he will of a splendid leisure."

"The use of market values and technology as a social barometer has devalued the worth of individuals, rendered irrelevant the quality of their lives, and stunted their creativity."

"It is not a Buddhist approach to say that if everyone practiced Buddhism, the world would be a better place. Wars and oppression begin from this kind of thinking."

"We have more than enough programs, organisations, parties, and strategies in the world for the alleviation of suffering and injustice."

"Radical transformation of society requires personal and spiritual change first or at least simultaneously."

"People seeking to live spiritually must be concerned with their social and physical environment."

"For months the Muslim minority throughout India was safe from molestation. The R.S.S., by destroying the Mahatma, had given the country the shock it needed. Those who had been angrily criticising him now saw the tragic consequences of their own short sighted anger. They knew that he had been right."

"I am a person who applies the United Nations to community life and daily living. It is not enough to hope that the United Nations succeeds. To make it work, people must do something about it."

"The charter of the U.N. is in reality an amplification of the admonition mankind was given centuries ago, 'Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.'"

"Holbrook has a theory that if children hear the best of literature from the beginning of their education they will never wish for any other."

"Florence Holbrook is a woman who is not interested in educational work alone; she is strong enough to be interested in all that affects humanity."

"There is a multitude of men and women doing delightful work in literature and language from Brookline to San Jose, from Kansas City to Toronto, from Birmingham to Seattle, but Florence Holbrook is as distinct in her leadership as are Luther Burbank, Julia Richman, and Jane Addams in their distinctive fields."

"The pupils should retell the stories, thus enriching their vocabulary and learning to express thought clearly, easily, consecutively, and confidently,– a power so much needed and so valuable to citizens of a republic."

"Before this war it was difficult to see that fair play was done to the people. I believe hearts have been softened. There is a greater sense of community. The people have gone through a fiery furnace together."

"From the horror of dead and wounded that I saw in just my little corner of war work, my mind is constantly seeking to escape. Again I see the sad, appealing eyes of the terribly disfigured men in the face and jaw hospital in Paris. Again I hear the call: 'Clear the way for the blind!' and see our sightless boys slowly making their way down the gangplank to their homeward-bound ships at Brest. And the armless ones and legless ones! And the insane! How many thousands of such has this war made!"

"Museums, theatres, and concert halls are all around us, but what use are they unless you can get the child into the way of having sympathy for the art and the artist, of seeing and hearing the thing itself and talking about it?"

"She never struck anyone that I can recall; she just made you feel very small. That was enough for discipline. We feared but loved her."

"Hundreds of babies are fed and washed and wrapped in warm, new baby flannels and placed back again into grateful mothers' arms. All day and all night they come, one constant stream from evacuated towns, with tales too pitiful to listen to, and yet always with courtesy and graciousness that almost shames."

"Our time will be remembered as one of reconciliation for the great European enemies during the World War. Statesmen of France, Germany, Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Italy, and Great Britain realized that nations were interdependent and that what was disastrous to one would be disastrous to all."

"Pfc. Desmond Doss is perhaps one of the most unlikely recipients of the Medal of Honor. Born in Lynchburg, Virginia, on Feb. 7, 1919, Doss was raised in a strict Seventh-day Adventist family. Entering the Army on April 1, 1942, Doss was classified 1AO, meaning conscientious objector (CO) available for noncombatant military service, as Seventh-day Adventists are prohibited from working on the Sabbath. The Army did not have a separate category for a noncombatant other than CO, so Doss became a medic with the 1st Battalion, 307th Infantry Regiment, 77th Infantry Division. Following basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, Doss’ company shipped to the Pacific in mid-1944. Doss’ support of his fellow soldiers on Guam and subsequently on the island of Leyte in the Philippines, Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s initial landfall on the Philippine Islands, was exceptional, and he received a Bronze Star with V device. The 77th Division relieved the 96th Infantry Division on the island of Okinawa on April 28, 1945. It was on Okinawa that Doss encountered his rendezvous with destiny. Stretching across the island was a 400-foot cliff called the Maeda Escarpment. Doss’ company’s mission was to scale the ridge and eliminate the enemy on the reverse slope of the escarpment. The climb was exceedingly difficult, with the last 30–40 feet nearly vertical. On May 2, 1945, Doss reached the summit with 155 soldiers from Company B. At the top of the escarpment, Company B encountered heavy resistance. When the commander ordered his men to retreat on May 5, Doss refused to abandon his wounded comrades. Over the next five hours, Doss dragged wounded soldiers individually and lowered them over the ledge to the safety of their comrades below. All the time, he kept praying, “Lord, help me get one more.”"

"He demonstrated that unconditional love, compassion, acceptance, and forgiveness, are possible even in the most adverse circumstances."