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I can think of few important movements for reform in which success was won by any method other than that of an energetic minority presenting the indifferent majority with a fait accompli, which was then accepted.

Vera Brittain

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Vera Brittain
Age: 76 †
Born: 1893
Born: December 29
Died: 1970
Died: March 29
Feminist
Journalist
Novelist
Nurse
Pacifist
Peace Activist
Poet
Suffragist
Writer
Vera Mary Brittain
Majority
Energetic
Movement
Minority
Success
Movements
Important
Indifferent
Think
Minorities
Thinking
Reform
Accompli
Accepted
Fait
Method
Presenting

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Modern war and modern civilisation are utterly incompatible...one or the other must go.
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We should never be at the mercy of Providence if only we understood that we ourselves are Providence.
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Definite gifts render their possessors capable of overcoming any obstacle this side of death they create an impetus of far more genuine value than external advantages in some other career where the impulse to make use of them remains weak or non-existent. The work that one enjoys is the greatest source of happiness and vitality in life.
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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.
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The tragedy of journalism lies in its impermanence the very topicality which gives it brilliance condemns it to an early death. Too often it is a process of flinging bright balloons in the path of the hurricane, a casting of priceless petals upon the rushing surface of a stream.
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The pacifist's task today is to find a method of helping and healing which provides a revolutionary constructive substitute for war.
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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.
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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.
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I know of no place where the wind can be as icy and the damp so penetrating as in Oxford round about Easter time.
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Politics are usually the executive expression of human immaturity.
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Why, I wonder, do people who at one time or another have all been young themselves, and who ought therefore to know better, generalize so suavely and so mendaciously about the golden hours of youth-that period of life when every sorrow seems permanent, and every setback insuperable?
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Venice is all sea and sculpture.
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I thought that spring must last forevermore, For I was young and loved, and it was May.
Vera Brittain
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It is probably true to say that the largest scope for change still lies in men's attitude to women, and in women's attitude to themselves.
Vera Brittain
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College is a secluded life of scholastic vegetation
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If the would-be writer studies people in their everyday lives and discovers how to make his characters in their quieter moods interesting to his readers, he will have learned far more than he can ever learn from the constant presentation of crises.
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belated maternity has had its compensations small children have a habit of conferring persistent youth upon their parents, and by their eager vitality postpone the unenterprising cautions and timidities of middle age.
Vera Brittain
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The idea that it is necessary to go to a university in order to become a successful writer . . . is one of those fantasies that surround authorship.
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The joys of motherhood are not excessively apparent during the first few weeks of a baby's life.
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An author who waits for the right 'mood' will soon find that 'moods' get fewer and fewer until they cease altogether.
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