The statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.
I have been known as a crank, faddist, madman. Evidently the reputation is well deserved. For wherever I go, I draw to myself cranks, faddists, and madmen.
We must begin to inculcate our children against militarism by educating them in the spirit of pacifism. Our schoolbooks glorify war and conceal it's horror. I would teach peace rather than war.
War is a curtain of dense black fabric across all the hopes and kindliness of mankind. Yet always it has let through some gleams of light, and not--I am not dreaming--it grows threadbare, and here and there and at a thousand points the light is breaking through.