Vera Brittain

“Meek wifehood is no part of my profession; / I am your friend, but never your possession.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Politics are usually the executive expression of human immaturity.”

“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.”

“We should never be at the mercy of Providence if only we understood that we ourselves are Providence.”

“How fortunate we were who still had hope I did not then realise; I could not know how soon the time would come when we should have no more hope, and yet be unable to die”