Kirby Page Quotes

222 Sourced Quotes

The premise is debatable that the perpetration of atrocities is sometimes a patriot's duty; that the poisoning of the public mind with distortion and falsehood designed to inflame passions is sometimes a patriot's duty; that the banishment of a loving Father of all men and the bowing down before a god of war is sometimes a patriot's duty. But if these be obligations resting upon patriots, let them be claimed as such in plain unvarnished language.

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World government must progressively be established, common problems must be solved by common action, economic and racial justice and fellowship must be achieved... empires must be transformed into commonwealths, the race of armaments must be stopped and the system of balance-of-armed-power must be brought to an end, the churches must take Jesus seriously by trusting goodwill and pacific means and by disentangling themselves from the war system, a mighty movement of peoples must be created so that governments will maintain friendly and cooperative relations and will refrain from hostile and provocative actions.... Now is the time to prevent a third world war.

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Plato and Aristotle were both convinced that democratic government could not function successfully in an area larger than a city-state.

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A powerful consumers cooperative movement helps to maintain an equitable balance between prices and profits, and thereby decreases the power of owners and investors.

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If we trust organized and aggressive goodwill we will transform the present war-producing system into a peace system which removes the causes of war and maintains the agencies of pacific settlement of international dispute.

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The tragedy of tragedies is that man continues to live in poverty when he might have riches, in weakness when he might have strength, in sorrow when he might have joy, in despair when he might have hope.

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Then came the political campaign of 1920 with its bitter personal feuds, as a result of which the real underlying issues were obscured by passion, misrepresentation and downright falsehood.

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We Christians should urge our government to destroy all its atomic bombs, stop making any additional ones, and stop all preparations to wage war with biological weapons. Such actions would... place our government in an advantageous position to plead with all other nations to join with us in an international treaty of disarmament by as rapid stages as possible.

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Pacific revolution in America will not be wrought by men who are afraid of losing influence, position, and income. Building a new world is the most perilous form of pioneering, and the most glorious victories of religion have ever been won in hours of fiercest danger. And so it will be in our day.

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The bareness and cruelty and misery of this generation now cry aloud for God-saturated and Jesus-challenged deliverers.

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There may be occasions when "to do unto others as you would have them do unto you" requires coercion.

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Religious people must be brought to a vivid realization of their awful guilt in sanctioning and supporting an economic system that is the direct antithesis of their religious ideals.

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So great has been man's progress that today all civilized nations have their great universities, with highly trained specialists, who devote a lifetime to the study of some minute detail of a particular department. His ideas have become so extended and complex that hundreds of thousands of words are necessary to give expression to his thoughts, and libraries with millions of volumes contain only a fraction of his written convictions.... the knowledge of the average man on the street is incomparably higher than that of the eminent scholar of a few centuries ago.

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The Christian in Belgium or in England in 1914 should not have gone to war, in my opinion, since war is violently unchristian. He should have been Christian, that is, he should have lived in the spirit of Jesus Christ, returning good for evil, love for hatred, mercy for cruelty, kindness for atrocity. Even if his country had been conquered by Germany, he would have confronted the same situation which Jesus faced, and like Jesus he should have sought to get rid of the oppressor by other means than the sword.

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Preparedness to use the weapons of war creates the tempers, the quarrels and the crises which lead to the outbreak of war.

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In spite of vast numbers of people and the different races involved and the great distances separating the various parts, the British Commonwealth is functioning sufficiently well to offer hope for effective international agencies.

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That the navy is maintained at its present level for the purpose of protecting our sea-borne traffic and safeguarding our property in foreign lands, far more than for the purpose of keeping our shores from being invaded and our fellow citizens from being murdered, is an argument that runs like a crimson thread through the literature of armed preparedness.

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Non-conformity has always been dangerous, and men were subjected to all manner of persecution

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The imminence of the threat hovering over civilization requires Christians to disentangle themselves from the war system as completely and as rapidly as they can.... Every Christian has the power to support or to oppose preparedness to wage atomic war.... He can support or oppose the delegating of wider jurisdiction and greater authority to the United Nations Organization through limitations upon national sovereignty. He can support or oppose the policy of settling every conceivable controversy with another nation by pacific means only. He can support or oppose the effort to create the international mind and heart in place of extreme nationalism and narrow patriotism.... He can choose between the way of war and the way of Jesus.

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A deep fog of obscurity is thrown about war by the use of misleading and confusing terms.

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We must not expect too much from legislation, social service with the masses, or even preaching of the Gospel to large congregations. All of these have their advantages, but they also have their limitations. Nothing can adequately take the place of personal effort with individuals.

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War is not high ideals. War is not noble objectives. War is not gallant heroism. War is not sacrificial devotion.

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The truth must be driven home that it is sinful to prepare to annihilate millions of God's children in other lands.

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Taxation must be used as an instrument of social policy, but if carried too far under the profit system, it may be an instrument of destruction rather than construction.

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It is significant that the Great Teacher does not draw up a code of laws or list or sins. Nowhere does Jesus say explicitly that human slavery is a sin, or that the employment of little children for fourteen hours a day in a factory is a sin. He deals in general principles concerning the great fundamentals of life. So clear is his teaching, however, that there can be no doubt as to what he thinks of human slavery or the oppression of little children. In the teaching of Jesus, life is relationship, dwelling on friendly and affectionate terms with God, with ourselves, and with our fellowmen. Anything which destroys this relationship is sin. By this standard any thought or act may safely be judged.

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When we are reminded that modern men find it difficult to believe in the divinity of Jesus, we urge a search for realities that are far greater than words. If Jesus gives us our clearest vision of the nature of God; if he reveals the godlike qualities in man; if he secures penitence, restitution, joyous allegiance, and heroic sacrifice; if he leads to deliverance for individuals and groups—he becomes a symbol for all that is noblest in the universe, whatever may be the title by which he is characterized.

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The collectivism of fascism subordinates the individual to the totalitarian state and subjects him to ruthless dictatorship.

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The incident in the temple when Jesus used the scourge of small cords (John 2:13-17) is often cited as indicating Jesus sanction of war. The very most that can be said in this regard is that Jesus' sanctions the use of force. To say this is not proof that Jesus sanctions war War.... If Jesus had used force in such a way as to give supremacy to military necessity, to destroy human life, to break down reverence for personality, to retaliate with evil for evil, to compel the surrender of his moral freedom, we might then well believe that he sanctions war. The use of force is one problem, the morality of war as a means to an end involves so many additional factors as to be quite a different problem. Each should be judged on its own merits.

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To the degree that a man possesses a vivid ideal of the good life, submerges himself in the sea of human misery and endeavors to alleviate suffering, kindles imagination in hours of silence and by visions of beauty, and follows the noblest personality into the presence of a loving, suffering Father—to the extent that he lives meaningfully, he will be convinced of sin and cry aloud for deliverance.

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The police function as neutral third parties for the purpose of restraining criminals and bringing them before a judicial body for trial and judgement. In war, force is used by the belligerents themselves, no effort being made to bring evildoers before a judicial body, each army acting as judge, jury and executioner.

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