Jessie Wallace Hughan
Founder of the War Resisters League
(1876-1955)

"War, rather than any foreign state, is the supreme enemy of country and mankind. One day citizens will covet for this nation the prestige of being the first to escape the shackles of war."

Muriel Lester
Social Activist, Gandhian Pacifist
(1883-1968) 

"The job of the peacemaker is to stop war, to purify the world, to get it saved from poverty and riches, to heal the sick, to comfort the sad, to wake up those who have not yet found God."

Mother Ann Lee
Founder of the Shakers
(1736 -1784)

"O Holy Father, I will be a child of peace and purity. For well I know thy hand will bless the seeker after righteousness."

St. Catherine of Siena
Political and Religious Peacemaker
(1347-1380) 

"In mercy you have seen fit today to show me, poor as I am, how we can in no way pass judgment on other people's intentions. Indeed, by sending people in an endless variety of paths, you give an example for myself, and for this I thank you."

Dorothy Day
Founder of the Catholic Worker Movement
(1897-1980)

"Martyrdom is not gallantly standing before a firing squad. Usually it is losing a job because of not taking a loyalty oath or buying a war bond, or paying a tax. Martyrdom is small, hidden, misunderstood."

Mother Jones
Advocate for Social Justice,
Union Organizer
(1830-1930) 

"I am in favor of the ballot, and in all my career I have never advocated violence. I want to give the nation a more highly developed citizenship."

Sojourner Truth
Pacifist abolitionist, feminist
(1797-1883) 

"No more scars and stripes, just stars and stripes for all God's children."

Samantha Smith
Ambassador of Peace and Goodwill
(1972-1985) 

"If we could be friends just by getting to know each other better, then what are our two countries really arguing about? Nothing could be more important than not having a war if war would kill everything."

Anne Frank
Diarist, Holocaust Victim
(1929-1945) 

"I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death....If I look up to the heavens, I think it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquillity will return again."

Baroness Bertha von Suttner
Author, Activist, First Woman Recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
(1843-1914) 

"The question of whether violence or law shall prevail between states is the most vital of the problems of our eventful era. Inconceivable would be the consequence of the threatening world war which many misguided people are prepared to precipitate."

Abigail Kelley Foster
Pacifist Abolitionist
(1811-1877)

"Go where you are least wanted, for there you are most needed."

St. Claire of Assisi
Spiritual Teacher and Guide, Political and Religious Peacemaker
(1193-1223) 

"Go forth in peace, for you have followed the good road. Go forth without fear, for He that created you has sanctified you, has always protected you, and loves you as a mother."

Lucretia Mott
Quaker, Pacifist Abolitionist, Feminist
(1793-1880) 

"Let it be called the Great Spirit of the Indian, the Quaker ‘Inward Light' of George Fox, the ‘Blessed Mary,' Mother of Jesus of the Catholics, or Brahman, the Hindu's God - they will be one, and there will come to be such a faith and liberty as shall redeem the world."

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Pacifist Abolitionist, Feminist, Poet
(1825-1911) 

"I ask no monument, proud and high, to arrest the gaze of passersby. All that my yearning spirit craves, is bury me not in a land of slaves."

Jane Addams
Advocate for the Poor and Homeless
Recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
(1860-1935) 

"The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain... until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life."

Emily Greene Balch
Leader of The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
(1867-1961) 

"We have a long way to go. So let us hasten along the road, the road of human tenderness and generosity. Groping, we may find one another's hands in the dark."

Susan B. Anthony
Quaker, Pacifist Abolitionist, Feminist
(1820-1906) 

"If only the women of the North had educated themselves and their sons concerning the laws of justice to the black man, they would not have had to send those sons to war."

Muriel Rukeyser
Poet, Activist
(1913-1980) 

"To construct peace, to make love, to reconcile waking with sleeping, ourselves with each other, ourselves with ourselves. We would try by any means to reach the limit of ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves, to let go the means, to wake."

Hannah Arendt
Philosopher, Activist
(1907-1980) 

"One must remember that in choosing the lesser of two evils, one still chooses evil."

Maura Clarke (1931-1980)
Jean Donovan (1953-1980)
Ida Ford (1940-1980)
Dorothy Kazel (1939-1980) 
Catholic Missionaries Killed in El Salvador 

"Beginning to walk on the waves has a sense of adventure, ease, but then thinking and darkness and grasping for Christ's hand is the reality of suffering, doubt, struggle. But the courage and suffering of these people never ceases to call me." Maura Clarke

Peace Pilgrim
Philosopher, Activist, Ethical Vegetarian, Vegan
(1908-1981) 

"Many people know the simple spiritual law that evil can only be overcome by good. Pacifists not only know it, they also attempt to live it."

Frances Kent (Sister Corita)
Artist, Poet, Author, Nun
(1916 - 1985) 

"To create is to relate. We trust in the artist in everybody to make their own connections, their own juxtapositions. It seems that perhaps there is nothing unholy, nothing unrelated and that as we fit things together, synthesize rather than analyze, we might be coming closer to God's view from which all must somehow fit together."

Carrie Chapman Catt
Leader of the Committee on the Cause and Cure of War
(1859-1947) 

"There goes the true symbol of our million years of evolution: a university graduated statesman, wearing a gas mask and scurrying into a hole in the ground trying to escape a war he hasn't got brains enough to stop."

Rosika Schwimmer
Cofounder of the Campaign for World Government
(1877-1948) 

"Women's rights, men's rights - human rights - all are threatened by the ever present specter of war so destructive now of human material and moral values as to render victory indistinguishable from defeat."

Margaret Mead
Anthropologist, Author
(1901-1978) 

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

Annabel Wolfson
Advocate for Social Justice, Anti-Conscription Activist
(1915-1983) 

"It seems that it would be apparent to anyone who gave the matter a thought that money spent for cooperative peacekeeping is a better investment than money spent for deterrence by mutual and ever-increasing terror, yet the great powers of the world continue to lavish their resources on the latter."

George Fox
Quaker, Pacifist
(1624-1691) 

"We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretense whatsoever. And this is our testimony to the whole world." 

Mulford Sibley
Teacher, Activist
(1912-1989) 

"In attempting to make ends and means compatible, the pacifist is both a revolutionary and a political realist."

Franz Jagerstatter
Conscientious Objector under the Third Reich
(1907-1943) 

"For what purpose, then, did God endow all men with reason and free will if, in spite of this, we are obliged to render blind obedience?" 

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Leader in the Struggle for Civil Rights,
Recipient of Nobel Peace Prize.
(1929-1968) 

"True pacifism is not unrealistic submission to an evil power . . . It is rather a courageous confrontation with evil by the power of love, in the faith that it is better to be the recipient of violence than the inflicter of it, since the latter only multiplies the existence of violence and bitterness in the universe, while the former may develop a sense of shame in the opponent, and thereby bring about a transformation and change of heart." 

A.J. Muste
Activist, Author
(1885-1967) 

"Peacefulness does not mean trying to disturb nothing or glossing over realities. It is the most profound kind of disturbance we seek to achieve. Non-violence is not apathy or cowardice or passivity. And the fact that we want peace does not mean that there will not be opposition, suffering, or social disorder."

Mohandas K. Gandhi
Spiritual Teacher, Father of Indian Independence, Ethical Vegetarian
(1869 -1948) 

"Non-violence is a power which can be wielded equally by all - children, young men and women or grown-up people, provided they have a living faith in the God of Love and have therefore equal love for all mankind. When non-violence is accepted as the law of life it must pervade the whole being and not be applied to isolated acts."

Stephen Biko
Leader in the Anti-Apartheid Movement South Africa
(1946-1977) 

"The most powerful weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed." 

Glenn Smiley
Teacher, Activist
(1910-1993) 

"Non-violence is sort of moral jujitsu, the gentle persuader."

David Darst
Anti-war Activitist
(1942-1969) 

"We have not been able to let sacred life and total death live quietly within us."

Jesus of Nazareth
(the Christ) 

Spiritual Teacher and Prince of Peace

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
Blessed are the patient, they shall inherit the land.
Blessed are those who mourn, they shall be comforted.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for Holiness,
they shall have their fill.
Blessed are the merciful, they shall receive mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart, they shall see God.
Blessed are the Peacemakers, they shall be counted the children of God.
Blessed are those who suffer persecution in the cause of right,
the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs." 

Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha)
Spiritual Teacher, Mendicant, Ethical Vegetarian
(563-483 BC) 

"Look within. Thou art the Buddha. Believe nothing just because you have been told it, or it is commonly believed, or because it is traditional or because you yourselves have imagined it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings - that doctrine believe and cling to, and take as your guide." 

Thomas Merton
Trappist Monk, Spiritual Teacher, Author
(1915-1968) 

"All the good that you will do will come not from you but from the fact that you have allowed yourself to be used by God’s love. Think of this more and gradually you will be free from the need to prove yourself."

Albert Schweitzer
Physician, Missionary, Author, Activist, Ethical Vegetarian
(1875-1965) 

"The power of ideals is incalculable. We see no power in a drop of water. But let it get into a crack in the rock and be turned into ice ... it splits the rock."

Albert Einstein
Physician, Activist, Author, Ethical Vegetarian
(1879-1965) 

"Where belief in the omnipotence of physical force gets the upper hand in political life, this force takes on a life of its own, and proves stronger than the men who think to use force as a tool." 

Stephen Symonds Foster
Pacifist Abolitionist
(1809-1881) 

"My heart yearned almost with agony for a bloodless victory."

Adin Ballou
Writer, Philosopher, Activist
(1830-1890) 

"The earth, so long a slaughter field, shall yet an Eden bloom, the tiger to the lamb shall yield, and war descend the tomb."

---

Elihu Burritt
(1819-1879)

Pacifist Abolitionist, Blacksmith

"We hope the day will come when the working men of Christendom will form one vast Trade Union, and make a universal and simultaneous strike against the whole war system."

Oscar Romero
Archbishop of San Salvador, Advocate of the Oppressed
(1917-1980) 

"As a shepherd, I am obliged by divine law to give my life for those I love, for all Salvadorans, including those who threaten to assassinate me. If they should go so far as to carry out their threats, I want you to know that I offer my blood to God for justice and the resurrection of El Salvador." 

Scott Nearing(1883-1983)
Helen Nearing (1904-1995)

Social Activist, Teachers, Authors, Homesteaders, Ethical Vegetarians

"We desired to liberate and dissociate ourselves, as much as possible, from the cruder forms of exploitation: the plunder of the men in war, and of animals for food." 

Paul Goodman
Poet, Activist, Conscientious Objector
(1911-1972) 

"I have very modest goals for society and myself, things like clean air and water, green grass, children with bright eyes, not being pushed around, useful work that suits one’s abilities, plain tasty food..."

St. Francis of Assisi
Spiritual Teacher, Founder of the Order of Friars Minor
(1182-1246) 

"(We) are to be reconciled with (our) 
neighbors and are to restore what belongs to them. (We) 
are not to take up lethal weapons or bear them about against anybody..."

Herman Hesse
Author, Social Critic, Advocate of Prisoners of War
(1877-1962) 

"We must begin not with political methods and forms of government, but at the beginning, with the building of the personality, if we wish again to have minds and persons capable of securing our future."

Michael Harrington
Socialist Leader, Author, Conscientious Objector
(1928-1989) 

"I should be dejected, but I am not. There is a revolution that proceeds apace at this very moment. It is not that linear progression of confrontations and battles at the barricades. It is not a vogue, like long hair and rock music. It is transforming our psyches and our spirits and even the way our eyes see, as well as our politics and economics." 

Cesar Chavez
Co-Founder of the United Farm Workers of America, Union Activist, Ethical Vegetarian
(1927-1993) 

"Once people understand the strength of non-violence - the force it generates, the love it creates, the response it brings from the total community - they will not easily abandon it."

William Stafford
Poet, Activist, Conscientious Objector
(1914-1993) 

Chief Seattle
Native American Leader
(1786-1866) 

"Humankind did not weave the web of life. We are but strands within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves."

 

Lao Tzu
Spiritual Teacher, Mystic and Guide
(Sixth Century B.C.) 

"Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub;
It is the center hole that makes it useful.
Shape clay into a vessel;
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room;
It is the hole which makes it useful.
Therefore profit comes from what is there;
Usefulness from what is not there." 

Count Leo Tolstoy
Spiritual Teacher, Author and Activist
(1828-1910) 

"I sit on a man’s back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all means possible - except by getting off his back." 

Toyohiko Kagawa
Advocate of the Poor, Conscientious Objector
(1888-1960) 

"I speak English very badly. When I say ‘denomination’ some people think I am saying ‘damnation.’ I am not surprised. To me, they are very much the same thing." 

Jalai-din Rumi
Spiritual Leader, Mystic, Poet
(1207-1273) 

"Thou art become my greater self; small bounds no more can me confine. Thou hast my being taken on. And shall I not now take on thine."

Vardhamana Nataputta
24th Jain Sage, Mendicant, Ethical Vegetarian
(Six Century BC) 

"Whom thou intendest to strike is, in truth, none other than thyself. Whom thou intendest to govern is, in truth, none other than thyself. Whom thou intendest to torture is, in truth, none other than thyself. Whom thou intendest to enslave is, in truth, none other than thyself. Whom thou intendest to kill is, in truth, none other than thyself." 

John Lennon
(1940-1980) 

Musician, Songwriter, Revolutionary, Peace Activist, Walrus

"WAR IS OVER IF YOU WANT IT"
From John & Yoko
(From the 1969 Christmas Billboard Campaign) 

Krishnamurti
Spiritual Teacher, Philosopher, Author, Example
(1895 - 1986) 

"In oneself lies the whole world, and if you know how to look and learn, then the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either that key or the door to open, except yourself."

Bertrand Russell
Mathematician, Philosopher
(1872 - 1970) 

"Remember your humanity and forget the rest.
We must build up - and we must do it quickly - a great world-wide mass movement of people demanding the abandonment of nuclear weapons, the abandonment of war as a means of settling disputes. Although the time may be short, our movement is gaining strength day by day." 

The following quotes surround the 9' bronze statue of Gandhi:

Mohandas K. Gandhi
1869 -1948

"My Life is My Message."

"Like the bee gathering honey from the different flowers, the wise person accepts the essence of the different scriptures and sees only the good in all religions."

"I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good it does is only temporary --- and the evil it does is permanent."

"Religions are different roads converging at the same point. What does it matter that we take different roads, so long as we reach the same goal? In reality, there are as many religions as there are individuals."

Pat Farren
Activist, Conscientious Objector, Impowerment Journalist
(1944-1998)

"The thought of just being 'an American citizen' without being a radical, feels empty, lacking, hallow, and mechanistic.  For there is a higher duty, I believe, that many of our active sisters and brothers embrace: the duty to stand up for, to stand with, to be present in accompaniment with those being ground down by this system.  In doing that, in acting that way, even when our numbers are painfully small and when our protests are ignored by the so-called mainstream media,' we are present with the inconceivably vast, cosmic community of liberation."