“What we need is a program or movement based on what we believe in rather than on the things to which we are opposed… Negatives cannot cast out negatives. Fear will never rid the world of fear. We must begin to base our actions solely on what we know to be right, not on expediency.”
“The systems that we create as people, the systems of government and systems of power and the way that we distribute resources, are all inhabited by people. And at its most powerful, this prophetic work is about relationships.”
“[George] Fox, indeed, when he visited Barbados 1671, had advised Friends to deal mildly with their negroes and to make them free after thirty years’ servitude, and urged the holding of family meetings with them, while in 1688 the German Friends who had migrated to Pennsylvania addressed the Yearly Meeting there against the buying and keeping of slaves. But it was reserved, as we know, for John Woolman fully to awaken the conscience of Friends on this matter.”
“Non-conformity, Holy Disobedience, becomes a virtue and indeed a necessary and indispensable measure of spiritual self-preservation, in a day when the impulse to conform, to acquiesce, to go along, is the instrument which is used to subject men to totalitarian rule and involve them in permanent war. To create the impression at least of outward unanimity, the impression that there is no ‘real’ opposition, is something for which all dictators and military leaders strive assiduously. The more it seems that there is no opposition, the less worthwhile it seems to an ever larger number of people to cherish even the thought of opposition…”
“Love for a friend is not put to the test. There is nothing surprising in a friend loving a friend; there is no merit in it and it costs no effort. When love is bestowed on the so-called enemy, it is tested, it becomes a virtue and requires an effort, and hence it is an act of […] real bravery.”
“When a position is taken against a strong and violent adversary, it will be necessary to be firm as a rock, fully prepared to suffer any consequence rather than yield to evil… Firmness, like that displayed by the early Christians and Friends and followers of Gandhi, is impossible in the presence of fear or doubt. It comes only from faith – the deep conviction that the position for which one stands is part of the eternal truth; that being true, it will survive and can be brought into expression by those who will uphold it at all cost.”
I ask for daily bread, but not for wealth, lest I forget the poor. / I ask for strength, but not for power, lest I despise the meek.
“Concentrations of money and power in industry and in the military, the vast influence of the mass media, and seemingly insoluble nature of the problems confronting the world all combine to make us feel we are helpless victims of circumstances beyond our control.
Why, then, should we bother to try to speak out? Why should we spend precious time and energy on what appears to be a futile effort to influence the course of events? And if we do speak out, will anybody listen?”
“The duty of the Society of Friends is to be the voice of the oppressed but [also] to be conscious that we ourselves are part of that oppression. Uncomfortably we stand with one foot in the kingdom of this world and with the other in the Eternal Kingdom. Seldom can we keep the inward and outward working of love in balance, let alone the consciousness of living both in time and in eternity, in timelessness.”
“In every way and in every place, we must work to eliminate the scourge of hate that leads to violence and promote the bonds of love that establish justice and that lead to peace. To realize this, we must also hold people accountable for violating laws and hold lawmakers accountable for perpetuating lies […]”
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