Laurence Housman Quotes

I am a Quaker. And as everyone knows, Quakers, for 300 years, have, on conscientious ground, been against participating in war. I was sentenced to three years in federal prison because I could not religiously and conscientiously accept killing my fellow man.

No one wanted me to be a conscientious objector. My parents certainly didn't want it. My teacher and mentor, Joe Brearley, didn't want it. My friends didn't want it. I was alone.

I had hoped to go to law school, but the war started, and because of the strong feeling that I did not want to kill anybody, I joined the Merchant Marine when I graduated from Berkeley.

The surest way to become a pacifist is to join the infantry.

It was difficult being a conscientious objector in the 1940's, but I felt I had to stick to my guns.

As a woman I can't go to war, and I refuse to send anyone else.

My father, who had lost a brother, fighting on the Austrian side in World War I, was a committed pacifist.

My father is American and deserted the Vietnam War.

I am prepared to die but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.

War is the mass murder of workers. When workers refuse to obey the calls of their governments, there will be no more war.

American GIs don't fight this unjust immoral and illegal war of Johnson's.

I can't find a reason to be for this war. I've looked, and I can't, so I'm not.

Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come.

We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war.

And on the war, I think my numbers would be a lot higher if I were out there beating the drum for this war. In fact, I don't think it, I know it. But I can't be for the war.

I'm a writer. I don't support any war. That's my principle.

I come from a family of pacifists, so it's not like I was going to join the war. Sweden is not like the States or England where you might get sent to Afghanistan next month.

People take sides on political things, such as the Vietnam War. War is immoral and war is wrong, but I don't think the clergy ought to bring it before the Church.

I was the guy who was constantly speaking out against the Vietnam War. I have no regrets about that.

I had a very strong feeling about the Vietnam War, and I had a strong feeling about participating in it. The military draft was in place, I was summoned for a physical exam, and I was either going to be classified as fit for military service or make my objection to it. So I made my objection to it.

I'm still a soldier, fighting with my pen and paper for peace till the day I cease.

Rich people never go to war. You ask a college kid to go to war, and he's like, 'Umm, I'm taking this sociology class, and I think war is, like, really stupid, and my roommate's, like, half Afghani, so it's going to cause some static.'

It's a tough thing, to know what to do about a war that deep in your gut you feel is wrong and yet watch your peers going off to fight in that war.

I find war detestable but those who praise it without participating in it even more so.

It is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the Magistrate, to wear weapons and serve in wars.