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"Nicholson Baker can't seem to get enough of the wisdom of Gandhi and cites at length an open letter he wrote to the British people on 3 July 1940. "Your soldiers are doing the same work of destruction as the Germans," wrote the Mahatma. "I want you to fight Nazism without arms." He went on to say: "Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these, but neither your souls, nor your minds. If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them." I must say that everything in me declines to be addressed in that tone of voice."
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"Actual violence has no attraction for me at all."
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Personal Development
"Never has an angry word spoken ever made this world better."
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Personal Development
"If we want to fight people in the world, we should fight them with pillows - pillows stuffed with food, medicine, music... That would be so much cheaper than bombs."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Nicholson Baker can't seem to get enough of the wisdom of Gandhi and cites at length an open letter he wrote to the British people on 3 July 1940. "Your soldiers are doing the same work of destruction as the Germans," wrote the Mahatma. "I want you to fight Nazism without arms." He went on to say: "Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these, but neither your souls, nor your minds. If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them." I must say that everything in me declines to be addressed in that tone of voice."
Author Name
Personal Development
"I have never been attracted to any kind of violence."
Author Name
Personal Development
"If German boys had learned to be contemptuous of violence, Hitler would have had to take up knitting to keep his ego warm."
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Personal Development
"Men have been pacifists for every reason under the sun except to avoid danger and fighting."
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Personal Development
"Peace hath her victories No less renowned than war."
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Personal Development
"Ez for war I call it murder - There you hev it plain and flat I don't want to go no furder Than my Testyment for that."
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Personal Development
"But strength doesn't always mean brute force. You don't have to kick ass to be a fighter. Violence doesn't equal strength. Lead your army by example. There's a better answer to all this. War isn't going to solve anything, but it will tear our two worlds apart, and there will be casualties, including humans. There's nothing heroic about this war. It will lead to a destruction unlike anything you or I have ever seen."
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"Nothing could make me forget what the Reagan years had actually been like."
Politics
"One of the juiciest pleasures of life is to be able to salute and embrace, as elected leaders and honored representatives, people whom you first met when they were on the run or in exile or (like Adam) in and out of jail. I was to have this experience again, and I hope to have it many more times in the future: it sometimes allows me to feel that life is full of point."
Inspirational
"I've always regarded it as a test of character to dislike the Kennedys. I don't really respect anyone who falls for Camelot."
Opinion
"I don't envy or much respect people who are completely politicised."
Politics
"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks."
Philosophy
"Scientists have an expression for hypotheses that are utterly useless even for learning from mistakes. They refer to them as being "not even wrong." Most so-called spiritual discourse is of this type."
Science
"And how easy it is to recognize the revenant shapes that the old unchanging enemies-racism, leader worship, superstition-assume when they reappear amongst us (often bodyguarded by their new apologists)."
Awareness
"Here we are then, I was thinking, in a war to the finish between everything I love and everything I hate. Fine. We will win and they will lose. A pity that we let them pick the time and place of the challenge, but we can and we will make up for that."
Conflict
"A melancholy lesson of advancing years is the realisation that you can't make old friends."
Friendship
"Those who say that I am being punished are saying that god can't think of anything more vengeful than cancer for a heavy smoker."
Critique
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