Vera Brittain
Vera Brittain
Vera Mary Brittainwas an English nurse, writer, feminist, and pacifist. Her best-selling 1933 memoir Testament of Youth recounted her experiences during the First World War and the beginning of her journey towards pacifism...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth29 December 1893
war writing mean
I wish those people who write so glibly about this being a holy war and the orators who talk so much about going on, no matter how long the war lasts and what it may mean, could see a case of musterd gas - the poor things burnt and blistered all over with great musterd coloured suppurating blisters, with blind eyes, all sticky and stuck together, and always fighting for breath, with voices a mere whisper, saying their throats are closing and they know they will choke.
mercy providence should
We should never be at the mercy of Providence if only we understood that we ourselves are Providence.
peace hate order
All that a pacifist can undertake -- but it is a very great deal -- is to refuse to kill, injure or otherwise cause suffering to another human creature, and untiringly to order his life by the rule of love though others may be captured by hate.
break-up husband reading
I know one husband and wife who, whatever the official reasons given to the court for the break up of their marriage, were really divorced because the husband believed that nobody ought to read while he was talking and the wife that nobody ought to talk while she was reading.
children devotion
few things are more rewarding than a child's open uncalculating devotion.
war modern civilisation
Modern war and modern civilisation are utterly incompatible...one or the other must go.
may rewards abiding
There is an abiding beauty which may be appreciated by those who will see things as they are and who will ask for no reward except to see.
expression political immaturity
Politics are usually the executive expression of human immaturity.
peace war healing
The pacifist's task today is to find a method of helping and healing which provides a revolutionary constructive substitute for war.