A. J. Muste Quotes

• There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.

  A. J. Muste

  Peace, War, Ubuntu

  Quoted in N.Y. Times, 16 Nov. 1967

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• There is a certain indolence in us, a wish not to be disturbed, which tempts us to think that when things are quiet, all is well. Subconsciously, we tend to give the preference to 'social peace,' though it be only apparent, because our lives and possessions seem then secure. Actually, human beings acquiesce too easily in evil conditions; they rebel far too little and too seldom. There is nothing noble about acquiescence in a cramped life or mere submission to superior force.

  A. J. Muste

  Thinking, Evil, Giving

  "The Essays of A. J. Muste (Pacifism and Class War)". Book edited by Nat Hentoff, 1967.

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• The problem after a war is with the victor. He thinks he has just proved that war and violence pay. Who will now teach him a lesson?

  A. J. Muste

  War, Thinking, Lessons

  A. J. Muste's statement of 1941, as quoted in Howard Zinn "A People's History" (p. 416), 1980, and later quoted in Howard Zinn "The Twentieth Century: A People's History" (p. 159), May 9, 1984.

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• The survival of democracy depends on the renunciation of violence and the development of nonviolent means to combat evil and advance the good.

  A. J. Muste

  Mean, Evil, Survival

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• We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war, we have to attack that way of life.

  A. J. Muste

  Peace, War, Ubuntu

  "Our Generation Against Nuclear War". Book by Dimitrios I. Roussopoulos, 1983.

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• In the defense of civil liberties there can be no exceptions, or there will soon be many.

  A. J. Muste

  Liberty, Defense, Civil Liberties

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• In a world built on violence, one must be a revolutionary before one can be a pacifist.

  A. J. Muste

  World, Violence, Revolutionary

  "American Power and the New Mandarins". Book by Noam Chomsky, 1969.

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• Those who can bring themselves to renounce wealth, position and power accruing from a social system based on violence and putting a premium on acquisitiveness, and to identify themselves in some real fashion with the struggle of the masses toward the light, may help in a measure - more, doubtless, by life than by words - to devise a more excellent way, a technique of social progress less crude, brutal, costly and slow than mankind has yet evolved.

  A. J. Muste

  Fashion, Real, Struggle

  "American Power and the New Mandarins". Book by Noam Chomsky, 1969.

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• War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life.

  A. J. Muste

  War, Outcomes, Way

  "Our Generation Against Nuclear War". Book by Dimitrios I. Roussopoulos, 1983.

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• Paradoxically, life is worth living for those who have something for which they will gladly give up life.

  A. J. Muste

  Giving Up, Life Is, Quaker

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• If I can't love Hitler, I can't love at all.

  A. J. Muste

  Ifs, I Can

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• Joy and growth come from following our deepest impulses, however foolish they may seem to some, or dangerous, and even though the apparent outcome may be defeat.

  A. J. Muste

  Joy, Growth, May

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• Educational enterprises do not for any length of time remain immune from the struggle of interests for power which is the dominant feature of social life under a class system.

  A. J. Muste

  Educational, Struggle, Class

  "Some Notes on Workers' Education" by A. J. Muste, first published in "New International", Volume 2, No. 7 (pp. 225-227), www.marxists.org. December 1935.

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• Violence begets violence by whomever used. War is a dirty business and entails the use of degrading means, whoever wages it.

  A. J. Muste

  Peace, War, Dirty

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