Quotes About Pacifism

The main problem with pacifism is that it doesn't work in all situations. The main problem with pacifists is that they're convinced it does.

I'm not a pacifist, but I'm not a violent person. I mean, I have a gun. I shoot guns, but I wouldn't say I love guns. It doesn't work that way for me.

Among pacifists it was above all the English who always insisted on the importance of disarmament. They said that the man in the street would not understand the kind of pacifism that neglected to demand immediate restriction of armaments.

Some people believe that war brings about peace, I believe that peace brings about peace.

I do not agree with Kurda's views on the righting ways of vampires — he is a pacifist, which runs contrary to our nature — but he is correct when he says that sometimes it is better not to fight. When a situation is hopeless, and there is nothing at stake, only a fool battles on.

I'm a peaceful creature; I'm vegetarian. I don't like wars.

But who knew what would happen once he got to Canada? Canada with its pacifism and its socialized medicine! Canada with its millions of French speakers! It was like…like…like a foreign country! Father Mike might become a fugitive over there, living it up in Quebec. He might disappear into Saskatchewan and roam with the moose. -Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides (2003), P. 507

Our civilization has moved through three world views: from paganism (no pity and no pacifism) to Christianity (pity but not pacifism) to modernity (pity and pacifism). It is now moving to postmodernity, which is a new pacifism, a pacifism without spiritual warfare, a war on the very notion of spiritual warfare, and a war without pity or mercy for its enemy

Pacifists have usually regarded the use of violence as absolutely wrong, irrespective of its consequences. This, like other 'no matter what' prohibitions, assumes the validity of the distinction between acts and omissions. Without this distinction, pacifists who refuse to use violence when it is the only means of preventing greater violence would be responsible for the greater violence they fail to prevent.

War itself is the enemy of the human race.

Pacifism is not a panacea; it asks only that people should relinquish the habit of deliberate imposition of suffering.

It's funny how most activists are pacifists.

Unfortunately, most English-language Bibles, going back to the King James translation, have translated this verse as "Thou shalt not kill." This has led to many people using this commandment to defend pacifism and to oppose capital punishment for murder. (There may be valid reasons to oppose the death penalty for murder, but the

I do not like violence.

I ain't never liked violence.

I am opposed to war, to killing people, to any kind of hatred and violence.

I myself am a very nonviolent person and only resort to violence when I absolutely have to.

We cannot afford the luxury known as conscience. The enemy we are up against certainly doesn't have one, so we are obliged to be absolutely rational. Cruel, if you like. People of good will, tolerant, liberal, whatever term you care to use, have always labored under a disadvantage. Those in power, those who want to hold on to power whatever the cost, have one ultimate recourse. If all else fails, they are prepared to kill. This is not available to pacifists.

Should an individual or a government use force at all, even in retaliation? Clearly yes; complete pacifism is self-defeating.

There is an alternative to war. It's staying in bed and growing your hair.

Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King are great examples of fantastic nonviolents who died violently. I can never work that out. We're pacifists, but I'm not sure what it means when you're such a pacifist that you get shot. I can never understand that.

Pacifism is a wonderful conviction in theory, but only in theory. Real life has a way of eventually rubbing even the most altruistic nose in a steaming pile of "F**k that".

Before World War I one of the objections commonly urged against votes for women was that women would tend to be pacifists. During the war they gave a large-scale refutation of this charge, and the vote was given to them for their share in the bloody

King abhorred slavery. But he struggled over how to fight it while remaining true to the religious pacifism he had inherited from his grandmother.