Freya Stark Quotes

The only thing that's been a worse flop than the organization of non-violence has been the organization of violence.

the insight that peace is the end of war, and that therefore a war is the preparation for peace, is at least as old as Aristotle, and the pretense that the aim of an armament race is to guard the peace is even older, namely as old as the discovery of propaganda lies.

Talk of world peace is heard today only among the white peoples, and not among the much more numerous coloured races. This is a perilous state of affairs. When individual thinkers and idealists talk of peace, as they have done since time immemorial, the effect is negligible. But when whole peoples become pacifistic it is a symptom of senility. Strong and unspent races are not pacifistic. To adopt such a position is to abandon the future, for the pacifist ideal is a terminal condition that is contrary to the basic facts of existence. As long as man continues to evolve, there will be wars.

It is because peaceful agitation and passive resistance are effective that I uphold them, and it is because force strengthens tyranny that I condemn it. War and Authority are companions; Peace and Liberty are companions. It is foolish in the extreme not only to resort to force before necessity compels, but especially to madly create the conditions that will lead to this necessity.

There is such a thing as man being too proud to fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.

Peace renders nations happier and men weaker.

We love peace, as we abhor pusillanimity; but not peace at any price.

I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes... But once war is forced upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end.

A peaceful man must fight For that which peace demands,— Freedom and faith, honor and right, Defend with heart and hands.

We must begin to inculcate our children against militarism by educating them in the spirit of pacifism. Our schoolbooks glorify war and conceal it's horror. I would teach peace rather than war.

War is an ill thing, as I surely know. But 'twould be an ill world for weaponless dreamers if evil men were not now and then slain.

It is my conviction that there is no way to peace - peace is the way.

The way I'm going now is to focus on peace, to create peace. As Sister Corita said, "I don't go to anti-war rallies. I go to peace rallies."

One has renounced the great life when one renounces war.

There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.

Peace consists, very largely, in the fact of desiring it with all one's soul. The inhabitants of my small country, Costa Rica, have realized those words by Erasmus. Mine is an unarmed people, whose children have never seen a fighter or a tank or a warship.

Guns make you stupidbetter to fight your wars with duct tape. Duct tape makes you smart.

Peace, if it ever exists, will not be based on the fear of war, but on the love of peace. It will not be the abstaining from an act, but the coming of a state of mind. In this sense the most insignificant writer can serve peace, where the most powerful tribunals can do nothing.

War...seems a mere madness, a collective insanity.

If you're anti-war it doesn't mean you are 'pro' one side or the other in a conflict.

You don't believe in war, but what's that gun you're totin'.

There is no such thing as a good war or a bad peace.

We took special pride in the fact that climbing rocks and icefalls had no economic value in society...We were like a wild species living in the edges of an ecosystem - adaptable, resilient and tough.

What people really suffer from is immaturity. Among mature people war would not be a problem - it would be impossible.

For it can never be that war shall preserve life, and peace destroy it.