Norman Angell Quotations

Every nation sincerely desires peace; and all nations pursue courses which if persisted in, must make peace impossible.

The greatest service we can do the common man is to abolish him and make all men uncommon.

God has made Canada one of those nations which cannot be conquered and cannot be destroyed, except by itself.

Everywhere I go I see increasing evidence of people swirling about in a human cesspit of their own making.

The vested interests-if we explain the situation by their influence-can only get the public to act as they wish by manipulating public opinion, by playing either upon the public's indifference, confusions, prejudices, pugnacities or fears. And the only way in which the power of the interests can be undermined and their maneuvers defeated is by bringing home to the public the danger of its indifference, the absurdity of its prejudices, or the hollowness of its fears; by showing that it is indifferent to danger where real danger exists; frightened by dangers which are nonexistent.

The obstacles to peace are in the minds and hearts of men. In the study of matter we can be honest, impartial, true. That is why we succeed in dealing with it. But about the things we care for — which are ourselves, our desires and lusts, our patriotisms and hates — we find a harder test of thinking straight and truly. Yet there is the greater need. Only by intellectual rectitude and in that field shall we be saved. There is no refuge but in truth, in human intelligence, in the unconquerable mind of man.

It is part of the moral tragedy with which we are dealing that words like 'democracy,' 'freedom,' 'rights,' 'justice,' which have so often inspired heroism and have led men to give their lives for things which make life worthwhile, can also become a trap, the means of destroying the very things men desire to uphold.

I joined the Labour Party not because it was Left Wing, but because it was definitely internationalists and would seem to be the group in the Labour Party which would serve my purpose best for propaganda along internationalist lines.

The Council of the Union of Democratic Control re-affirms its unshaken conviction that a lasting settlement cannot be secured by a peace based upon the right of conquest and followed by commercial war, but only by a peace which gives just consideration to the claims of nationality, and which lays the foundation of a real European partnership.

Let us face squarely the paradox that the world which goes to war is a world, usually genuinely desiring peace. War is the outcome, not mainly of evil intentions, but on the whole of good intentions which miscarry or are frustrated. It is made not usually by evil men knowing themselves to be wrong, but is the outcome of policies pursued by good men usually passionately convinced that they are right.

The capitalist can only make a whole people go to war . . . by capturing the popular will. The only prophylactic against that situation is to make the public aware of the way in which it is being misled.

What is needed is the development in men of that particular type of skill which will enable them to make social use of knowledge already in their possession; enable them to apply simple, sometimes self-evident, truths to the guidance of their common life.

The evil was not in either ideal; the evil was in the attempt to impose that ideal by force upon others.

What could be a more Canadian way to indulge in the national preoccupation with perceptions - honest, hilarious, huffy or high-minded - of this country and its inhabitants?

It is not the facts which guide the conduct of men, but their opinions about facts; which may be entirely wrong. We can only make them right by discussion.