Bertha von Suttner

“ One party must begin; he is free to begin who is most sensibly conscious of his strength; he is bound to begin who can say with the best conscience: “Not from fear of war do I put aside my weapons, but from love for peace.” The manliness of the nation should assuredly not be lost; but for its exercise the handiwork of war is no longer necessary, nor for its preservation the battlefield.
It was a time when in the German Empire the combating of the so-called revolutionary parties was part of the order of the day. ”

“ A cousin of the princess, who had been visiting at Gordi with us and whose home was in Kutais, promised to get pupils for us in her circles. These were certainly not exhilarating prospects, but our inner exhilaration was invulnerable. The whole life, the whole country seemed to us so interesting that the intensified sense of travel and adventure with which we had started out remained ever vivid; and, moreover, we were so unspeakably happy in each other that really (just as there are conditions in which one envies all people) we pitied all people who were not ourselves. ”

“ I do not believe that arbitration is an efficient means of abolishing war. I am just about finishing a treatise on this subject, in which I discuss the only means which in my opinion can render wars impossible. Nevertheless, all efforts dictated by a sincere love for humanity will bear fruit; and the congress at Rome, I am certain, will contribute much, just as that at London last year did, to popularize the idea of the flagrant contradiction in which Europe finds itself between the military status of the nations and the Christian and humanitarian principles which they profess. ”

“ So I am with you against war; but do you really believe that we can do anything in behalf of peace except wave our arms and utter sounds? To me war is a thing fated, and the apple side of my nature—mankind is divided into pears and apples, idealists and others—the terrible apple side of me, then, takes from me all hope of success in the campaign which I am ready to undertake with you. ”

“ If I look back into my childhood and youth, I do not see myself as the same person, as having altered, but see standing side by side the most diverse girl forms, each with a different horizon of ideas and filled with different hopes, interests, and sensations. And if I set beside them the forms from my maturer womanhood, or my present age, what have I (beyond the mere recollection, as faint as the recollection of pictures long since seen, or books long since read) in common with those phantoms, or they with me? Dissolving mists, flying shadows, a passing breath, is what life is. ”

“ It is certain that we have before us a lofty ideal; and those that ridicule the ideal and its adherents are like men who should maintain that it were idle to take a torch when one had to go through a dark passageway.
Every nation should contribute its quota to the general good of humanity. In this way the human race would move toward an increasing perfection, which, sustained by intelligence and philanthropy, will awaken the energy for greater and greater performances.
At this Congress it was determined to found a central bureau at Bern. ”

“ To lay one’s self out to be of assistance, to procure a better existence for our fellow-men now and in the future, is all very fine. Yet the best and first of duties is to give as much joy as possible to one’s partner in life, and at the same time to be joyful one’s self. To what end do we want to free mankind from persecution, from disease, from oppression, from violent killing, if not to provide mankind with the possibility of enjoying life? ”

“ All on this side or that side of the Rhine, this side or that side of the ocean, this side or that side of every other boundary of country or class—I could wish that these fellow-citizens of ours might learn how in the circle of the most intellectual men of the capital of the German Empire a simple woman, hitherto unknown to them, has been so brilliantly honored, merely on account of the will which she has manifested in the cause of peace. ”

“ Yours, Alphonse Daudet 415And to me a famous German poet wrote:
Honored Baroness: Is there need of an express assurance of my warmest approbation of the ends and aims of the Peace League? And yet, as I am convinced that mankind, ruled as they are more by passions and instincts than by reason and love, will approach these ends only by the civilizing labors of centuries if they ever do at all, it goes against my grain to express in solemn protests, from which I am unable to hope for any practical result, pious wishes which for a nobler humane minority are self-evident. ”

“ Nothing had come of the royal crown of Georgia; that had faded into air together with the dream of love; in its place glory should now crown me, and instead of love should be Art! One can burn as passionately for Art as for a beloved. Whoever loves Art and is loved by Art—that is, whoever loves it with the power of achievement—may find life perfectly satisfying. ”

“ Highly honored Baroness: Your friendly lines of the twenty-sixth instant cause me some embarrassment, as does any disproportionately great reward which one yet neither can nor would decline. I am much surprised to find any value attached to the fact when a politician who as such plays so unimportant a part joins himself to those who declare for an idea the justification of which cannot be gainsaid by any one. I made my avowal to the last Peace Congress held in London; what does that signify in comparison with your brilliant literary propaganda?!!! ”

“ We had in Vienna a dear and interesting friend, Count Rudolf Hoyos, a handsome old gentleman, every inch an aristocrat, but a democrat in his views. I perceive that this is the third time I have laid stress on external beauty in describing the persons of notable men. I cannot help it—in the first place they really were handsome, these three, and in the second place, I like handsome people better than homely people. One must forgive homeliness; but one ought not to neglect beauty.—Count Hoyos was a free and brilliant intellect. ”

“ Whoever stands on the highest pinnacle of Art belongs henceforth and forever to its temple service.
Such were my thoughts and intentions as I practiced solfeggios or wrote out my harmony exercises; and I was happy in it.
We lived in absolute retirement; my guardian visited us only once or twice a month, and nothing of these musical plans was divulged to him. The first that he should learn was to be the fait accompli, when I had made my appearance in a great theater with overwhelming success. We had no intercourse with the families that wintered in Baden, and we never went to Vienna. ”

“ When to-day in certain circles I meet with case-hardened misconception of the peace movement, when they try to show me the obvious naturalness and historical necessity of the scourge of war by arguments at which wrath and discouragement threaten to take possession of me, all I need to do, that my wrath may subside and my courage rise, is to think back to my own past. ”

“ I should immediately present myself for reinstatement in the army, yet I am in no sense fond of war; on the contrary, I regard war as a terrible calamity, even for the victor. I have taken part in two campaigns, not as one of a large staff but with the troops, and have thus had enough—more than enough—of opportunity to know from my own observation and experience the whole unnamable wretchedness which every war brings in its train. ”

“ Ego, personality, soul, its activity, spirit, idea, consciousness, and so on, keep changing their places with great agility—but there is always one of them that gets nothing.
It does no good to give all ideas new names or to foist new meanings upon old words—there is always one left in the air; that is, he no more finds the ultimate cause than do the rest of us, only he does not acknowledge it as we do. ”

“ The shouts of martial comradeship which are uttered here and there on the occasion of various welcomes to fleets, and which may so easily be interpreted as the expression of a desire for war on the part of the peoples, ought no longer to be so misunderstood: have we really not yet learned that there is nothing more epidemic than hurrahs and vivas? that these shouts must always, on behalf of every cause, rend the air as soon as the first signal is given—by a natural necessity, like the rolling of thunder after the flash of lightning? ”

“ A year is such a small period of time in the lives of nations, and the most blustering minister will tell himself that it is not worth while to break by force a convention of such short duration. And at the expiration of that period all the states will make haste to renew their peace compact for another year. Thus, without a shock and almost without realizing the fact, they will come to a period of prolonged peace.
Then only will it be of any use to think of proceeding little by little to that disarmament which all good men and almost all governments desire. ”

“ In treatises one can only lay down abstract appeals to the reason, can philosophize, argue, and dissertate; but I wanted something else: I wanted to be able to put into my book not only what I thought but what I felt, felt passionately; I wanted to give expression to the pain which the image of war burned into my soul; I wanted to present life, palpitating life, reality, historical reality; and all this could be done only in a novel, and best in a novel 295written in the form of an autobiography. And so I went ahead and wrote Die Waffen nieder, “Away with Weapons.” ”

“ Truly it would be nothing to deplore if the purpose of these congresses and conferences—the international reign of law—received valid realization by their pronouncements; rather, it is to be deplored that doubters and scoffers exert themselves to retard such realizations, and that those who have the power of decision are not already coming together for united work, but are contenting themselves—each in isolation—with avowing their own peace purposes in words—words—meanwhile augmenting the preparation for war by their uninterrupted action. ”

“ Just because I believe so fearlessly in the victory of good in the world as a whole, just because I believe rock-firmly in peace, I must also conscientiously hear the others. If the representative comes to-day to a decision that binds him, then he relinquishes the right to approach the champions of the measure with questions, desires, proposals, and discussions. What more intelligence does any one need who is tagged beforehand? ”

“ The fact is, to accept subordination, to submit, is what individual men cannot do, much less peoples and nations; and just as we stand for the idea of peace and are carrying on a propaganda for it—of course only with very slight progress against the existing hostility to it—so others are fanning the hatred and discord of the nations, are egging on the nations to senseless national hatred, and use this to serve their own foul purposes, to attain their own despicable ends. ”

“ I read up in big-volumed histories, I rummaged in old newspapers and archives, to find reports of war correspondents and military surgeons; I got such acquaintances of mine as had been in the field to relate episodes of battles; and during this period of study my horror of war waxed to the most agonizing intensity. I can certify that the sufferings through which I led my heroine were actually experienced by me while I was working on it. ”

“ Prague, then, was the city where they set up my cradle, over which, as over all cradles, so much was unprophesied. But my mother, who at my birth was already a widow, soon moved to Brünn, and what I remember of childhood is events that took place in the Moravian capital.
There I see myself standing by the window—five years old—and looking down into the “great square,” where a noisy throng is in wild commotion. A new word strikes upon my ear,—Revolution. Every one is looking out; every one is repeating the new word and is greatly excited. ”

“ The goal which Egidy saw before him was,
for every individual an intellectual independence limited by nothing, and an existence secured against all material oppression, for these are the conditions of inner freedom. There is no such thing as a welfare outside of freedom, at least for any one who feels himself a man. Until all are free, none is free. The ruling portion of the people is just as little free as the ruled. The continual fear of losing the rule paralyzes the sense of welfare—makes unfree. ”

“ At the entrance of the assembly hall, from which comes the loud buzz of hundreds of voices speaking at once, stands the host, that is to say, the President of the Congress, to receive the guests. That is Hermann Heiberg,—tall, fair, elegant, with nobly formed features.
The hall is packed; only with difficulty can one make one’s way from place to place. A large number of those present have already taken their seats at two or three long tables which run from one end of the hall to the other. With difficulty are places secured for us. ”

“ I spent a few weeks in deep, genuine grief; then the tears began gradually to dry up, and life again made its rights prevail—and all the more powerfully as the necessity was upon me to earn my own livelihood. Our property was quite used up; I was obliged to leave home. My mother could live on her widow’s portion, but I did not want to be a burden upon her, although she entreated me to stay with her and once more attempt to take up my artistic career. Of that I would hear positively nothing more. Thirty years old—that is no time to begin an artistic career ”

“ He had an enthusiasm for Field Marshal Radetzky, whom he had known well personally. The glory of the Austrian army was in his eyes one of the most admirable constituents of the universe. Society (by this name he distinguished the circle in which he was born and in which he moved) was to him the only class of human beings whose lives and fates interested him; and he always attended all the great functions given at the houses of the Schwarzenbergs, the Pallavacinis, etc. In the Adelskasino he had his regular rubbers of whist with sundry friends of his own rank. ”

“ I am persuaded that we are not on the immediate verge of a war; nor is a war between civilized nations any longer thinkable. We are on the verge of peace. A war of battles is a phenomenon which the consciousness of civilized nations has got beyond. ”