Refusal to Fight Quotes

Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come.

There is now all this patriotic indignation about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Japanese expansionism in Asia. Yet not a word about American and European expansionism in the same area.... We must make a start. We must renounce war as an instrument of policy.... Even as I speak to you I may be guilty of what some men call treason.... You young men should refuse to take up arms. Young women tear down the patriotic posters. And all of you — young and old — put away your flags.

It was difficult being a conscientious objector in the 1940's, but I felt I had to stick to my guns.

My father is American and deserted the Vietnam War.

The peace of the man who has forsworn the use of the bullet seems to me not quite peace.

I've challenged Cain Velasquez to a fight three times. He's a little boy who doesn't want to fight. He said no, live on TV.

Even if only 2 percent of those assigned to perform military service should announce their refusal to fight, governments would be powerless, they would not dare send such a large number of people to jail.

In January 1944 I was called up by the Forced Labor Service, but I deserted on October 10, 1944.

We in the Joint List are living proof that Arabs and Jews refuse to be enemies.

Opponents make an excuse as to why they do not want to fight someone. Who are the people you actually make a big payday fighting against? There are not too many people out there. Most people refuse to fight people that are necessary. They think winning is the only thing to do. It is not winning if you have not fought the best.

There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight.

I would like to see every single soldier on every single side, just take off your helmet, unbuckle your kit, lay down your rifle, and set down at the side of some shady lane, and say, nope, I aint a gonna kill nobody. Plenty of rich folks wants to fight. Give them the guns.

No, thank you," said Adrian. "These hands don't sully themselves with fighting.

I am prepared to die but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.

The argument that resistance to the war should remain strictly nonviolent seems to me overwhelming.

I never picked fights. I'm never going to start to pick fights. If they ask me to fight someone, I'll say yes.

Many a man will have the courage to die gallantly, but will not have the courage to say, or even to think, that the cause for which he is asked to die is an unworthy one.

War is the mass murder of workers. When workers refuse to obey the calls of their governments, there will be no more war.

No one wanted me to be a conscientious objector. My parents certainly didn't want it. My teacher and mentor, Joe Brearley, didn't want it. My friends didn't want it. I was alone.

I will not dip my hands in blood by choosing unnecessary violence.

It seems to me an utterly futile task to prescribe rules and limitations for the conduct of war. War is not a game; hence one cannot wage war by rules as one would in playing games. Our fight must be against war itself. The masses of people can most effectively fight the institution of war by establishing an organization for the absolute refusal of military service.

Some guy refuses to fight and we call that the sin, but he's standing up for what he believes in and that seems pretty damned American to me.

It's your way of fighting. You refuse to engage and then you can't lose.