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Kirby Page Quotes
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Kirby Page was an American Disciples of Christ minister, an author, and a peace activist.

✵ 1890 – 1957
Kirby Page: 248 quotes5 likes

Kirby Page Quotes

“Mussolini and Hitler and Stalin all take it for granted that the faithful will if necessary lay down life itself in the holy cause.”

Kirby Page

Individualism and Socialism (1933)

“Is compulsion necessarily a violation of the law of love? To offer an affirmative answer is to deny the validity of all existing governments. This is the position of Tolstoy and other absolute non-resistants. Few readers of these words, however, will agree that anarchy alone is consistent with love.”

Kirby Page

Individualism and Socialism (1933)

“Cooperation and mutuality produce goodwill and harmony, whereas competition for special privilege divides men into warring camps.”

Kirby Page

Property (1935)

“One of the most dangerous phases of self-interest in industry has been the part it has played in bringing about wars between nations.”

Kirby Page

"The Commercial Motive" ibid.

“Perhaps the greatest delicacy on the table of many primitive men consisted of certain choice morsels from the roasted body of a slain enemy.”

Kirby Page

Source: Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920), p. 26

“Non-conformity has always been dangerous, and men were subjected to all manner of persecution”

Kirby Page

Individualism and Socialism (1933)

“Verily, civilized patriots strain gnats and swallow camels!”

Kirby Page

Must We Go to War? (1937)

“The loyal follower of Jesus will stand in opposition to war as a means of settling differences between nations. He will be unalterably opposed to the ruthless competition and merciless rivalry of our present autocratic and capitalistic system. He will condemn vigorously the enslaving of the poor by the rich, the oppression of the weak by the strong. He will seek to replace the present Kingdom of Competition and Profits by the ideal Kingdom of Cooperation and Service.”

Kirby Page

Source: Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920), p. 72

“Non-warlike revolutionists fall into a tragic blunder when they enter into a united front with communists or near-communists.”

Kirby Page

Property (1935)

“For a powerful nation like the United States to continue its insistence upon absolute sovereignty and to refuse to cooperate in creating effective international agencies of justice, is to obstruct the pathway that leads away from international chaos and destruction.”

Kirby Page

An American Peace Policy (1925)

“Jesus Christ is personally unknown to the vast masses of men on all continents. His influence is limited by the failure and indifference of his professed followers.”

Kirby Page

Source: Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920), p. 58

“Prominent American jurists have long advocated the granting of compulsory jurisdiction over justiciable questions to an international court.”

Kirby Page

An American Peace Policy (1925)

“The case against defensive killing is cumulative and overwhelming.”

Kirby Page

Individualism and Socialism (1933)

“A Christian is never justified in following a course of action that is utterly opposed to the principles of the Kingdom, not even to serve the temporal well being of family or nation.”

Kirby Page

Source: The Sword or the Cross, Which Should be the Weapon of the Christian Militant? (1921), Ch.6 p. 97

“The competitive struggle forces men and women to spend an excessive amount of time in the kitchen of life and thereby denies them maximum opportunity of appropriating the values of library, conservatory, chapel and living room.”

Kirby Page

Property (1935)

“In spite of vast numbers of people and the different races involved and the great distances separating the various parts, the British Commonwealth is functioning sufficiently well to offer hope for effective international agencies.”

Kirby Page

An American Peace Policy (1925)

“In the first century and in the twentieth, the individual Christian must determine his own course of action in the light of the spirit and teaching of Jesus. He gave Peter, James and John no definite program or mechanism by which they could overcome slavery, idolatry, licentiousness, and militarism, and he gives the Christian of today no scheme of overcoming militarism and oppression. It is by lives lived in the spirit of human brotherhood and worship toward God that he seeks to overcome slavery and idolatry, and it is by lives of aggressive good-will and love at all times and under all circumstances that he seeks to overcome militarism and oppression.”

Kirby Page

Source: The Sword or the Cross, Which Should be the Weapon of the Christian Militant? (1921), Ch.6 p. 103

“No man has yet appreciated all that is involved in Jesus' teaching regarding God.”

Kirby Page

Source: Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920), p. 43

“The premise is debatable that the perpetration of atrocities is sometimes a patriot's duty; that the poisoning of the public mind with distortion and falsehood designed to inflame passions is sometimes a patriot's duty; that the banishment of a loving Father of all men and the bowing down before a god of war is sometimes a patriot's duty. But if these be obligations resting upon patriots, let them be claimed as such in plain unvarnished language.”

Kirby Page

Must We Go to War? (1937)

“An infant crying in the crib can better appreciate the character of its mother than we can fathom the full nature of God.”

Kirby Page

What Does God Want Us to Do About Russia? (1948)

“Should a patriot, in an endeavor to defend his country and to preserve high values, be willing to perpetrate atrocities upon women and children of other lands, accept the doctrine that the end justifies the means, follow the practice of military necessity, inflame passions through distortion and falsehood, bow down before a god of war, and forsake the way of Jesus?”

Kirby Page

Must We Go to War? (1937)

“Strife in industry is increasingly becoming a struggle between groups or classes.”

Kirby Page

"The Commercial Motive" ibid.

“Thou shalt be—what? You cannot fill it in. You cannot tear asunder the cloud that separates you from tomorrow. You do not know what is in store for you. Thou shalt be—let him fill it in for you. Thou shalt be—pure, honest, true, reverent, unselfish, loving, loyal, victorious, filled with divine discontent with mere material and physical pleasures, eager to be of service to thy fellows, willing to deny thyself, take up the cross and follow me. …Thou art—yes. …You shall be—but only as you turn to Jesus Christ. …And when you find him you will discover that he is the key to vaults of hidden treasures in your own life.”

Kirby Page

Source: Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920), p. 38

“The use of force is non-moral, that is to say, it is good or bad depending on the motive behind its use and the effects of it application. To reason by analogy from the justification of the use of force to a justification of war is to endanger sound decisions and may lead to disastrous consequences.”

Kirby Page

"What is War?" (1924)

“If an international treaty outlawing war is negotiated, there is every reason to believe that the United States would join the League of Nations without further delay.”

Kirby Page

An American Peace Policy (1925)

“The collectivism of fascism subordinates the individual to the totalitarian state and subjects him to ruthless dictatorship.”

Kirby Page

Property (1935)

“So great has been man's progress that today all civilized nations have their great universities, with highly trained specialists, who devote a lifetime to the study of some minute detail of a particular department. His ideas have become so extended and complex that hundreds of thousands of words are necessary to give expression to his thoughts, and libraries with millions of volumes contain only a fraction of his written convictions. …the knowledge of the average man on the street is incomparably higher than that of the eminent scholar of a few centuries ago.”

Kirby Page

Source: Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920), p. 28

“The foreign policy of the United States in the decades ahead may prove to be the deciding factor in determining whether or not militant nationalism, aggressive imperialism and international anarchy, are to lead to further wars, or whether an era of international peace shall be ushered in by outlawing war and by creating effective social machinery through which a new and higher conception of nationalism may find expression.”

Kirby Page

An American Peace Policy (1925)

“The worshiping of other things, the showing of disrespect by thought, word, or deed, and the refusal to acknowledge our obligation to him—these things shut God out from our lives.”

Kirby Page

Source: Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920), p. 85

“The more popular a religion becomes, the less likely its adherents are to practise its highest precepts.”

Kirby Page

Source: Jesus or Christianity: A Study in Contrasts (1929), p. 80

“The wastage from economic conflict is so titanic under individualism that even if gross productivity should be reduced somewhat under socialization of the basic industries, the mass of people would nevertheless be better off because of the diminished conflict and resultant devastation.”

Kirby Page

Property (1935)

“Through every legitimate educational procedure the truth must be driven home to the masses of people that the race of armaments is not a means of defense but a race to mutual suicide.”

Kirby Page

What Does God Want Us to Do About Russia? (1948)

“During wartime, no belligerent nation will admit any limitation of its supreme sovereignty. Each nation is a law unto itself Treaties and international laws are sometimes observed in war, if their observance does not stand in the way of winning. But tragic experience indicates that the most sacred obligations are utterly disregarded when their observance means losing the war.”

Kirby Page

"What is War?" (1924)

“The tragedy of tragedies is that man continues to live in poverty when he might have riches, in weakness when he might have strength, in sorrow when he might have joy, in despair when he might have hope.”

Kirby Page

Source: Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920), p. 75

“At every stage Jesus was confronted with the necessity of choosing. More and more clearly he saw the vast gulf between his ideal and the practices of those about him. In moments of exaltation he caught a vision of life as it ought to be and might be. …From each succeeding experience of communion with God the conviction became more intense that love alone can bring reconciliation between man and man, and between man and God.”

Kirby Page

Source: Jesus or Christianity: A Study in Contrasts (1929), p. 31

“Then came the political campaign of 1920 with its bitter personal feuds, as a result of which the real underlying issues were obscured by passion, misrepresentation and downright falsehood.”

Kirby Page

An American Peace Policy (1925)

“Asceticism may offer a way of escape from the temptations that come from association with one's fellows and bring a sense of release and contentment. But the universal family can never be built by hermits. Contact may lead to contamination, but it is essential to redemption. Love never flees from the object of its affection. Where pain is most severe and sorrow most bitter, there love is most solicitous and untiring.”

Kirby Page

Source: Jesus or Christianity: A Study in Contrasts (1929), p. 32

“Ideals as to what should be the attitude of different nations and different classes toward each other, Christian people already have. Surely it is high time that we should also have definite ideas as to the weapons we are justified in using in seeking to bring about conditions that seem to us to be desirable.”

Kirby Page

Foreword p. 9
The Sword or the Cross, Which Should be the Weapon of the Christian Militant? (1921)

“Hatred is an essential part of war. During the conflict it is regarded as treason to "love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you." In war, the enemy are regarded as targets, not as sons of God.”

Kirby Page

"What is War?" (1924)

“All of our boasted wealth, wonderful inventions and incalculable mechanical power will prove to be an unstable foundation if we continue to dwell together in strife—individual against individual, class against class, nation against nation.”

Kirby Page

"The Commercial Motive" ibid.

“The totalitarian nature of modern war renders invalid the distinction between combatants and non-combatants.”

Kirby Page

Must We Go to War? (1937)

“Jesus can aid us at three points: by helping us to avoid hatred, to repudiate violence, and to increase our willingness to accept whatever suffering comes from this combination of refusing to submit to evil and of refraining from hatred and violence.”

Kirby Page

The Personality of Jesus (1932)

“Preparedness to use atomic bombs against men and women and children is a proclamation of faith, a confession of confidence in the rightness and effectiveness of human slaughter as a means of seeking safety and of maintaining justice.”

Kirby Page

Now is the Time to Prevent a Third World War (1950)

“Not even when the political freedom of a nation is at stake should the Christian militant make use of an unchristian weapon. The following of Jesus Christ is infinitely more important than the maintenance of political liberty at the expense of his principles.”

Kirby Page

Source: The Sword or the Cross, Which Should be the Weapon of the Christian Militant? (1921), Ch.6 p. 100

“The ideals and aspirations of the American people with regard to world peace can never be fully realized until the United States is a full-fledged member of the League.”

Kirby Page

An American Peace Policy (1925)

“When the Lord's Prayer is prayed with insight it becomes a petition for the abolition of capitalism and the supplanting of the existing economic order with a society which is consistent with the religion of Jesus.”

Kirby Page

Individualism and Socialism (1933)

“When we are told that the record is scanty and unreliable, we can reply, with the support of the highest scholarship, that we know enough to be sure of his basic ideas and experiences, and that his personality looms up more brilliantly than the Morning Star.”

Kirby Page

The Personality of Jesus (1932)

“Socialized industries should be governed by boards of directors composed of representatives of engineers, workers, and consumers.”

Kirby Page

Property (1935)

“The troubles are much more deep-rooted because of the inherent difficulties confronting a man who seeks to conduct his business on an ideal basis within an unjust social order.”

Kirby Page

Individualism and Socialism (1933)