Pierre Ceresole
Quotes of: Pierre Ceresole
For those who know of his life, Pierre Ceresole stands out among his contemporaries like the jagged, majestic Matterhorn of his native land. He was a seeker for Truth, a practicing Christian, an active pacifist, a convinced Quaker, a joyous worker, a keen thinker, a citizen of the world.
He was born in 1879 into a distinguished Swiss family and passed his student days in Lausanne, Goettingen and Zurich. In 1910 he resigned his post as a professor of mathematics to travel across the United States, earning his way as a day laborer. From there he journeyed to Hawaii and Japan, where he worked for two years as an engineer.
He returned to Switzerland with his horizon extended by travel, his sympathies deepened by contact with many kinds of people, and his thinking stimulated by the discovery of Emerson's writings. Renouncing militarism, he became a conscientious objector, refused to pay his military taxes and to serve in the Swiss army. He turned over his family inheritance to the government because he felt this was the right course for him. Frequent imprisonments were part of the price he paid for his convictions.
Contact with like-minded pacifists quickened his search for the "moral equivalent for war," resulting in his creation of "Service Civil" with its emphasis upon constructive, voluntary service for peace through international work camps in devastated and conflict areas. To this positive pacifist program he devoted most of his energy until his death in 1945.
Pierre Ceresole was a dreamer, but a dreamer with a spade.