Top 30 Pacifist Quotes

We were a savage little lot, Liverpool kids, not pacifist or vegetarian or anything. But I feel I’ve gone beyond that, and that it was immature to be so prejudiced and believe in all the stereotypes.

What I really learned in the army was how to be a pacifist.

From pacifist to terrorist, each person condemns violence – and then adds one cherished case in which it may be justified.

I don’t own a gun. I’m a pacifist. I am a critic of commercial gangsta rap music. I don’t believe you change people or their flawed perspectives from a distance. You open their minds from up close, when they realize you respect and love them.

I am not a pacifist – I think that violence and self-defence are often morally justified.

Even a pacifist should admire the military virtues.

The absolute pacifist is a bad citizen; times come when force must be used to uphold right, justice and ideals.

I’m not a pacifist. I was very much for the war against Hitler and I also supported the intervention in Korea, but in this war we went in there to steal Vietnam.

My great-great-aunt was a terrorist. I’m not talking about the sense in which the pacifist Mahatma Gandhi was branded a terrorist by the British parliament in 1932: Pritilata Waddedar was an active participant in armed struggle against the British state. She supplied explosives. She fired a gun. And I’m proud of it.

I am not a pacifist in terms of turning the other cheek.

If you take guns away from legal gun owners, then the only people who would have guns would be the bad guys. Even a pacifist would get violent if someone were trying to kill him or her. You would fight for your life, whatever your beliefs.

As a Quaker, I aspire to be a pacifist.

Now, myself, I’m not a pacifist at all. I believe in just war. I would have joined the spirit of the nation to fight against apartheid.

I’m a pacifist.

I’m not a pacifist. I feel that there are situations where fighting is inescapable, but we don’t go looking for those things.

I’m basically a pacifist.

If people have to put labels on me, I’d prefer the first label to be human being, the second label to be pacifist, and the third to be folk singer.

I’m really interested in how conflicts arise and how they reach points of no return. I’m no pacifist. Sometimes force is necessary. But war is a choice.

The quietly pacifist peaceful always die to make room for men who shout.

A sane person doesn’t think war is a good idea. I’m not a pacifist. I feel that there are situations where fighting is inescapable, but we don’t go looking for those things.

I had to experience how someone beside me suddenly falls over and is dead and the bullet has hit him squarely. I had to experience that quite directly. I wanted it. I’m therefore not a pacifist at all – or am I?

I’m a pacifist by nature.

I grew up in a very urban, bohemian family where everyone was a hippie or a pacifist. It was artistically and intellectually stimulating, but they were definitely not into outdoor sports or activities.

I’m really a pacifist.

Everyone’s a pacifist between wars. It’s like being a vegetarian between meals.

Cracked was a very short warrior, whereas Marley was a pacifist warrior.

Your brain sends out vibrations all the time, and your thoughts affect your life and other people’s. They pick up these thoughts and get changed by them. That’s why, say, a pacifist gets caught up in a riot situation. It’s a field of vibrations – you can ‘feel’ someone else’s thoughts when close to them.

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

I don’t want any romantics to go into the military. I’m not a pacifist. I think we need a military, and the better one we have, the better off we are. I don’t want kids going in there thinking that it’s John Wayne on Iwo Jima. That’s not healthy.

There was a time when liberalism was identified with anti-Communism. But the Vietnam War led liberals into the arms of the Left, which had been morally confused about Communism since its inception and had become essentially pacifist following the carnage of World War I.