Quote(s)

Lying as truth-telling in the context of the Holocaust

Author: Peter Rollins
Book: How (not) To Speak of God, Page #61

"...let us imagine that we are hiding some Jews in our house in Germany during the Second World War. Early one morning some soldiers come to our door as part of a routine check and ask if we are housing any Jews. In response to this question we have three options:

  1. we regretfully say 'yes', acknowledging that we are held under a higher moral law which requires that we do not deceive
  2. we say 'no', judging that it is the lesser of two evils
  3. we say 'no' and feel happy we told the truth

The Animal Eloquence of Night

Author: Thomas Merton
Book: The Sign of Jonas, Page #350

"The world of this night resounds from heaven to hell with animal eloquence, with the savage innocence of a million unknown creatures. While the earth eases and cools off like a huge wet living thing, the enormous vitality of their music pounds and rings and throbs and echoes until it gets into everything, and swamps the whole world in its neutral madness which never becomes an orgy because all things are innocent, all things are pure.

if evil were not profitable why would we do it?

Author: Cormac McCarthy
Book: The Crossing, Page #288

"He said that while one would like to say that God will punish those who do such things and that people often speak in just this way it was his experience that God could not be spoken for and that men with wicked histories often enjoyed lives of comfort and that they died in peace and were buried with honor. He said that it was a mistake to expect too much of justice in this world. He said that the notion that evil is seldom rewarded was greatly overspoken for if there were no advantage in it then men would shun it and how could virtue then be attached to its repudiation?"

First they came for the Jews...

Author: Pastor Martin Niemöller

"First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me."

Nonviolence is for the strong

Author: Ghandi

Nonviolence is for the strong. I will not preach nonviolence to a mouse to the point of being devoured by a cat. The weak have no option but violence or passive resistance. I am preaching nonviolence in India because I don’t see why 300 million people should be afraid of 150,000 British troops. They are the strong. They should thus use nonviolence to achieve their political goals.

The Ultimate Aim of Tyranny is the Subordination of the Will, Not Death

Author: Rabendra Prasad
Book: The Way to Disarmament

The employment of nuclear weapons is only part of the technique of terror. The idea behind it is that if the tyrant can demonstrate his undoubted capacity to exterminate the adversary, the latter is bound to submit. But if the adversary learns the art of dying without submission or a sense of defeat, if he develops the awareness that here is in us something which the armaments cannot destroy and which survives even the destruction of our physical body, the power of armaments, nuclear or other, will be sterilized.

Men Do Not Want Peace

Author: Thomas Merton
Book: The Root of Fear is War

If men really wanted peace they would sincerely ask God for it and He would give it to them. But why should He give the world a peace which it does not really desire? The peace the world pretends to desire is really no peace at all.

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