Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist. He developed the general theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics.:274 Einstein's work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science. Einstein is best known in popular culture for his mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2. He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his "services to theoretical physics", in particular his discovery of the law of the photoelectric...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth14 March 1879
CityUlm, Germany
CountryGermany
It is characteristic of the military mentality that non-human factors ... are held essential, while the human being, his desires and thoughts-in short, the psychological factors-are considered as unimportant and secondary.
Non-cooperation in military matters should be an essential moral principle for all true scientists ...
I have made no secret, either privately or publicly, of any sense of outrage over officially enforced military and war service. I regard it as a duty of conscience to fight against such barbarous enslavement of the individual with every means available.
The same thinking that has led you to where you are is not going to lead you to where you want to go.
A country cannot simultaneously prepare and prevent war.
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
Any brief military advantage the USA might gain with nuclear weapons would be offset by political and psychological losses and damage to American prestige. The United States might even touch off a worldwide armaments race.
The pioneers of a warless world are the young men (and women) who refuse military service.
This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!
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.
It may affront the military-minded person to suggest a regime that does not maintain any military secrets.
The more a country makes military weapons, the more insecure it becomes: if you have weapons, you become a target for attack.
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.
In two weeks the sheeplike masses of any country can be worked up by the newspapers into such a state of excited fury that men are prepared to put on uniforms and kill and be killed, for the sake of the sordid ends of a few interested parties. Compulsory military service seems to me the most disgraceful symptom of that deficiency in personal dignity from which civilized mankind is suffering today.