Peace Quotes updated May 2013

7/30/2019 Peace Quotes updated May 2013

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~WORDS FOR PEACE, INSPIRATION & CONTEMPLATION~

I have always found inspiration in words of peace and compassion. These quotes and

poems I have collected up over a number of years. They span centuries, but the message

remains the same. Peace, forgiveness, goodwill and compassion are perennial wisdoms.

When I need strength, clarity or comfort I reflect on them and know it is good.I hope they provide you with the same benefits.

A human being

PEACE

A dynamic process filled with physical, mental and spiritual well being,

health, vision, imagination, wonder, capacity, growth and nourishment for

all.

Question: Why are we violent, but not illiterate?

Answer: Were taught to read!A student of Colman McCarthy


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The Blind Man

One day, there was a blind man sitting on the steps of

a building with a hat by his feet and a sign that

read: "I am blind, please help."

A poet was walking by and stopped toobserve. He saw that the blind man had only a few

coins in his hat. He dropped in more coins and,

without asking for permission, took the sign and

rewrote it.

He returned the sign to the blind man and left. That

afternoon the poet returned to the blind man and

noticed that his hat was full of bills and coins!

The blind man recognized his footsteps and asked if it

was he who had rewritten his sign and wanted to know

what he had written on it.

The poet responded: "Nothing that was not true. I

just wrote the message a little differently." He

smiled and went on his way.

The new sign read: "Today is Spring and I cannot seeit."

__________________________________________________

Sometimes we need to change our strategy. If we always

do what we've always done, we'll always get what we'vealways gotten.

And remember too, sometimes it's not WHAT we say, it's

HOW we say it!!

Email fr om a Fri end

LOVE

When love beckons to you, follow him,

Though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you, yield to him.

Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you, believe him.


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Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.

Even as he is for your growth so he is for your pruning.

Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the

sun, so shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.

He threshes you to make you naked

He sifts you to free you from your husks.

He grinds you to whiteness.

He kneads you until you are pliant;

And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for Gods

sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in

that knowledge become a fragment of lifes heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only loves peace and loves pleasure.

Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of loves threshing

floor.

Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, butnot all of your tears.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.

To know the pain of too much tenderness;

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;

To rest at the noon hour and meditate loves ecstasy;To return home at eventide with gratitude;

And then to sleep with a prayer for the Beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon

your lips.

Love one another,

but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Khalil Gibran (The Prophet)*If you havent treated yourself to The Prophet by Khalil Gibran do so. It is wonderful.

The illusion is that you are a Human Being having some spiritualexperiences.

The reality is that you are a Spiritual Being having some human experiences.Reali ty and I ll usion, St. Germain


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RELIGIONS & PEACE

Better than a thousand hol low words, is one word that br ings peace.--- Buddhism (Buddha)

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but onl y by love; this is the eternal r ul e.--- Buddhism (Buddha)

Holding on to anger is li ke grasping a hot coal wi th the in tent of thr owing it at someone else;

you are the one who gets burned.--- Buddhism (Buddha)

Peace comes from with in . Do not seek i t wi thout.--- Buddhism (Buddha)

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about

the futur e, but to li ve the present moment wisely and earnestly.--- Buddhism (Buddha)

Those who are free of resentful thoughts sur ely f ind peace.--- Buddhism (Buddha)

We are what we think. Al l that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make

the world.--- Buddhism (Buddha)

You wil l not be puni shed for your anger, you wil l be puni shed by your anger.--- Buddhism (Buddha)

Bl essed are the peacemakers for they shal l be called God's chi ldren.--- Christianity

The fru it of the spir it is love, joy and peace.--- Galatians 5:22

There is no fear i n l ove; for perf ect love casteth out fear.--- I John 4:18

Love is patient, l ove is kind,Love does not insist on its own way.Love bears all things, beli eves all things,Hopes all thi ngs, endur es all thi ngs.Love never fai ls.--- I Corinthians 13:4-8

Seek peace, and pursue it.- Psalms 34:14

Now abide, faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest ofthese is Love.--- I Corinthians 13:13

Follow the way of love.--- Corinthians 14:1

The Lord li ves in the heart of every creature.He turns them round and round upon the wheel of Maya.Take refuge utterl y in H im.By his grace you wil l f ind supreme peace,and the state which is beyond all change.--- Hinduism


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While I slam means establ ishment of peace,Muslim means one who establ ishes peace through hi s actions and conduct.--- Islam

The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace.--- Judaism

Al l th ings exist for world peace.--- Kyodan or the Church ofPerfect L iberty, is a Japanese Shinshky (new religiousmovement) founded in 1924

A M uslim is one who sur renders to the wil l of Al lah,and i s an establ isher of peace." I f a man sings of God and hears of H im,and lets the love of God sprout with in him,then all his sorr ows shal l vanish,and in h is mind, God will bestow abiding peace.--- Sikhism

Peace...it comes to our souls when we reali ze our relationship,our openness, with the universe and al l i ts powers,and when we realize that at the center of the un iverse dwellsthe Great Spir it , and that th is center i s reall y everywhere,it is within each of us.--- From The Sacred Pipe, Lakota Sioux Medicine Man

If there is to be peace in the world,

there must be peace in the nations.

If there is to be peace in the nations,

there must be peace in the cities.

If there is to be peace in the cities,

there must be peace between neighbors.

If there is to be peace between neighbors,

there must be peace in the home.

If there is to be peace in the home,

there must be peace in the heart.

(from Tao Te Ching)

by Lao-Tse

[Circa 500-600 BC]


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QUOTES

Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.

Edward Abbey

Do not despair! Work steadily. Sincerity and love will conquer hate. How many seemingly

impossible events are coming to pass in these days! Set your faces steadily towards the

Light of the World. Show love to all; 'Love is the breath of the Holy Spirit in the heart of

Man'.

Abdu' l-Baha, Pari s Talks p. 30

Peace comes from being able to contribute the best that we have, and all that we are,toward creating a world that supports everyone. But it is also securing the space for others

to contribute the best that they have and all that they are.

Hafsat Abiola

Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice.

Lord Acton

We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.

Abigail Adams (1744 - 1818), letter to John Adams, 1774

Peace is not the absence of war but the unfolding of world-wide processes making for the

nurture of human life.

Jane Addams, Nobel Peace Laureate

The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of

us and incorporated into our common life.


Nothing could be worse than the fear that one had given up too soon, and left one

unexpended effort that might have saved the world.


Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among people.

John Adams (August 1765)


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In war, truth is the first casualty.Aeschylus

It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.

Al fr ed Adler

War is not the continuation of politics with different means, it is the greatest mass-crime

perpetrated on the community of man.

Al fr ed Adler

To all those who walk the path of human cooperation war must appear loathsome and

inhuman.

Al fr ed Adler

None of the abstract concepts comes closer to fulfilled utopia than that of eternal peace.

Theodor Adorno

Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunters.

Af ri can Proverb

In every child who is born, no matter what circumstances, and of no matter what parents,

the potentiality of the human race is born again: and in him, too, once more, and of each of

us, our terrific responsibility toward human life; toward the utmost idea of goodness, of the

horror of terror, and of God.

James Agee

When you can whip any man in the world, you never know peace.

Muhammad Ali

Snowflakes, leaves, humans, plants, raindrops, stars, molecules, microscopic entities all

come in communities. The singular cannot in reality exist.

Paula Gunn All en

Whoever knocks persistently ends by entering.

Al i (600-661) Arabian caliph


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Bullets cannot be recalled. They cannot be uninvented. But they can be taken out of the

gun.

Martin Amis

How can one not speak about war, poverty, and inequality when people who suffer from

these afflictions don't have a voice to speak?

I sabel Al lende

Let us plant dates even though those who plant them will never eat them. We must live by

the love of what we will never see. This is the secret discipline. It is a refusal to let the

creative act be dissolved away in immediate sense experience, and a stubborn commitment

to the future of our grandchildren. Such disciplined love is what has given prophets,

revolutionaries, and saints the courage to die for the future they envisaged. They make

their own bodies the seed of their highest hope.

Ruben Alves, Tomorrows Child

If these feelings of disgust all over the world could be united into common action,

something effective could be done.

Amnesty International, Nobel Peace Laureate

Fear is a disease that eats away at logic and makes man inhuman.

Marian Anderson

No matter how big a nation is, it is no stronger that its weakest people, and as long as you

keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it meansyou cannot soar as you might otherwise.

Marian Anderson

War is not inevitable. Human conflicts are inevitable but war is not. War is a social

institution. Institutions were created by people; therefore they can be changed.

Michael Andregg, JPST program University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, M innesota, USA

We must walk in balance on the earth

a foot in the spirit and a foot in the physical.

Lynn Andrews, 20th

century Amer ican wr iter and shaman

We cannot change the past, but we can change our attitude toward it. Uproot guilt and

plant forgiveness. Tear out arrogance and seed humility. Exchange love for hate ---

thereby, making the present comfortable and the future promising.

Maya Angelou


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People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never

forget how you made them feel.

Maya Angelou

There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure truth.

Maya Angelou

Amazing Peace Maya Angelou

In our joy, we think we hear a whisper.

At first it is too soft. Then only half heard.

We listen carefully as it gathers strength.

We hear a sweetness.

The word is Peace.

It is loud now.

Louder than the explosion of bombs.We tremble at the sound.

We are thrilled by its presence.

It is what we have hungered for.

Not just the absence of war. But true Peace.

A harmony of spirit, and comfort of courtesies.

Security for our beloveds and their beloveds.

We, Angels and Mortals, Believers and Nonbelievers,

Look heavenward and speak the word aloud.

Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves,

And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation:

Peace, My Brother.Peace, My Sister.

Peace, My Soul.

There is no trust more sacred than the one the world holds with children. There is no duty

more important than ensuring that their rights are respected, that their welfare is

protected, that their lives are free from fear and want and that they grow up in peace.

Kof i A. Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations

If through the U.N the world can create a stronger, more just, more benevolent and more

genuine international community across all lines of religion and race, then terrorism will

have failed.

Kof i A. Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations

If you see good in people, you radiate a harmonious loving energy which uplifts those who

are around you. If you can maintain this habit, this energy will turn into a steady flow of

love.

Annamalai Swami


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Peace begins when the hungry are fed.

Anonymous

If you educate a man you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman you educate

a family (nation).AnonymousAf ri can ProverbProbably a Fanti ( Ghana )

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it stands than to anything

on which it is poured.

Anonymous

In the struggle rewards are few. In the fact, I know of only two, loving friends and living

dreams. These rewards are not so few it seems.

Anonymous

All the arms we need are for hugging.

Anonymous

Draft beer; not people.

Anonymous

What this planet needs is more mistletoe and less missile-talk.

Anonymous

Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.

Anonymous

To those who speak of the need for security I respond:

Let us bomb our enemies with food.

Let us shell them with medicine.

Let us attack them with schools and houses.

And we shall move closer to peace.

Anonymous

God is on everyone's side? And in the last analysis, he is on the side with plenty of money

and large armies.

Jean Anouilh


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Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social

standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing

to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season

and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and

bear the consequences.

Susan B. Anthony

War is not an adventure. It is a disease. It is like typhus.Antoine de Sain t-Exupery

The universe is change;

our life is what our thoughts make it.

Marcus Aurelius AntoninusRoman Emperor

The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the wrong-doer.Marcus Aurelius AntoninusRoman Emperor

Peace is the work of justice indirectly, in so far as justice removes the obstacles to peace;

but it is the work of charity (love) directly, since charity, according to its very notion,

causes peace.

Thomas Aquinas

It is true you cannot eat freedom and you cannot power machinery with democracy. Butthen neither can political prisoners turn on the light in the cells of a dictatorship.

Corazon Aquino

Al -Harb binniddarat hayyinSeen through spectacles, war is easy

Arab ProverbCharles MalikPresident, General Assembly, Uni ted Nations 12/15/1958

Do good to people and you'll enslave their hearts.

Arab Proverb

The best answer comes from the man who isn't angry.

Arab Proverb


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Seek education from the cradle to the grave.

Arab Proverb

Trust in Allah, but tether your camel.

Arab Proverb

When evil is allowed to compete with good, evil has an emotional populist appeal that

wins out unless good men and women stand as a vanguard against abuse.

Hannah Arendt, 20th-centur y German politi cal phil osopher and author

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be

good or evil.

Hannah Arendt, 20th-centur y German politi cal phil osopher and author

Peace is not the product of a victory or a command. It has no finishing line, no finaldeadline, no fixed definition of achievement. Peace is a never-ending process, the work of

many decisions.

Oscar Ar ias, Former President of Costa Rica and 1987 Nobel Peace Laureate

The great empires, manned by vast armies of soldiers, have all crumbled, but the

community ofhhikkus(Buddhist practitioners) has lasted more than 2500 years. The message seems to be that it is not by protecting and defending yourself that you

survive, but by giving yourself away.

Buddha, Karen Armstrong

[John] Dalton's records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the

World War II bombing of Manchester. It is not only the living who are killed in war.I saac Asimov

After each war there is less democracy to save.

Brooks Atk inson (1951)

In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?

St. Augustine

People say "I want peace." If you remove I (ego), and your want (desire), you are left with

peace.

Satya Sai Baba


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We should take care, in inculcating patriotism into our boys and girls, that is patriotism

above the narrow sentiment which usually stops at one's country, and thus inspires

jealousy and enmity in dealing with others... Our patriotism should be of the wider, nobler

kind which recognises justice and reasonableness in the claims of others and which lead

our country into comradeship with...the other nations of the world. The first step to this

end is to develop peace and goodwill within our borders, by training our youth of both

sexes to its practice as their habit of life, so that the jealousies of town against town, class

against class and sect against sect no longer exist; and then to extend this good feeling

beyond our frontiers towards our neighbours.

Lord Baden-Powell

That's all nonviolence is - organized love.

Joan Baez

The only thing that's been a worse flop than the organization of nonviolence has been the

organization of violence.

Joan Baez

If it's natural to kill, how come men have to go into training to learn how?

Joan Baez

The point of nonviolence is to build a floor, a strong new floor, beneath which we can no

longer sink. A platform which stands a few feet above napalm, torture, exploitation, poison

gas, A and H bombs, the works. Give man a decent place to stand.

Joan Baez

The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.

Bahaullah

There have been periods of history in which episodes of terrible violence occurred but for

which the word violence was never used...Violence is shrouded in justifying myths that lend

it moral legitimacy, and these myths for the most part kept people from recognizing the

violence for what it was. The people who burned witches at the stake never for one moment

thought of their act as violence; rather they though of it as an act of divinely mandated

righteousness. The same can be said of most of the violence we humans have evercommitted.

Gil Bailie

It is love that allows us to give up our power to control. It is love that allows us to treat

each person in our organization with respect and dignity. Love sends people around the

world to serve others. Love inspires people to work with greater purpose.Dennis Bakke


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We ought to be resolved beforehand that no provocation, no temptation shall induce us to

resort to the last dreadful alternative of war.

May no young man ever again be faced with the choice between violating his conscience

by cooperating in mass slaughter or those...who can find no better way than to conscript

young men to kill.

Emi ly Greene Balch, Nobel Peace Laureate

Spiritual energy brings compassion into the world.

Chri stina Baldwin

War would end if the dead could return.

Stanl ey Baldwin

For those Who Love Me

I live for those who love me,

For those who know me true,

For the Heaven that smiles above me,

And awaits my coming too;

For the cause that lacks assistance,

For the wrong that needs resistance,

For the future in the distance,

And the good that I can do.

G. Linnaeus Banks

Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but television's message

has always been that the need for truth, wisdom and world peace pales by comparison with

the need for a toothpaste that offers whiter teeth and fresher breath.

Dave Barr y

Let us not deceive ourself: we must elect world peace or world destruction.

Bernard Mannes Baruch

When someone steals another's clothes, we call them a thief. Should we not give the same

name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard

belongs to the hungry; the coat unused in your closet belongs to the one who needs it; the

shoes rotting in your closet belong to the one who has no shoes; the money which you hoard

up belongs to the poor.

Basil the Great


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If you live alone, whose feet will you wash?

St. Basi l

Youth is the first victim of war; the first fruit of peace. It takes 20 years or more of peace

to make a man; it takes only 20 seconds of war to destroy him.

King Baudouin I , King of Belgium

The problems of this world are so gigantic that some are paralysed by their own

uncertainty. Courage and wisdom are needed to reach out above this sense of helplessness.

Desire for vengeance against deeds of hatred offers no solution. An eye for an eye makes

the world blind. If we wish to choose the other path, we will have to search for ways to

break the spiral of animosity. To fight evil one must also recognize one's own

responsibility. The values for which we stand must be expressed in the way we think of,

and how we deal with, our fellow humans.

From the Chr istmas Message 2001 of HM Queen Beatri x of the Netherlands

The fragrance always remains in the hand that gives the rose.

Heda Bejar

Peace can be achieved through nonviolent means.

Carlos Feli pe Ximenes Belo, Nobel Peace Laureate

The God of life summons us to life; more, to be lifegivers, especially toward those who lie

under the heel of the powers.

Daniel Berri gan

One is called to live nonviolently, even if the change one works for seems impossible. It

may or may not be possible to turn the US around through nonviolent revolution. But one

thing favors such an attempt: the total inability of violence to change anything for the

better.

Daniel Berri gan

Sometime in your life, hope that you might see one starved man, the look on his face when

the bread finally arrives. Hope that you might have baked it or bought or even kneaded ityourself. For that look on his face, for your meeting his eyes across a piece of bread, you

might be willing to lose a lot, or suffer a lot, or die a little, even.Daniel Berri gan, SJ


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Because we want the peace with half a heart and half a life and will, the war, of course,

continues, because the waging of war, by its nature, is total - but the waging of peace, by

our own cowardice, is partial.

Daniel Berri gan

The human mind likes a strange idea as little as the body likes a strange protein and

resists it with a similar energy.W.H . Bever idge, Br iti sh Economist

If you see God within every man and woman,

then you can never do harm to any man or woman.

If you see God in yourself, then you attain perfection.The Bhagavad Gita

*I always had the feeling I was perfect. Im just having trouble manifesting my perfection.editor

The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.

Steve Bi ko

Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will

think hard before starting a war.Otto Von Bi smark

Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death.

Otto Von Bi smark

Can I see another's woe, and not be in sorrow too?

Can I see another's grief, and not seek for kind relief?

Willi am Blake

To see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm

of your hand and eternity in an hour.

Willi am Blake

Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.Leon Bloy

If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.

Napoleon Bonaparte
http://www.betterworldheroes.com/berrigan.htmhttp://www.betterworldheroes.com/berrigan.htm


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Do you know what astonished me most in the world?

The inability of force to create anything.

In the long run the sword is always beaten by the spirit.

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness,

and pride of power, and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to makethese points clear rather than too much.Pacif ist theologian D ietri ch Bonhoeffer hanged by the Nazis in 1945.

One cannot subdue a man by holding back his hands. Lasting peace comes not from

force.

David Borenstein

When you're finally up on the moon, looking back at the earth, all these differences and

nationalistic traits are pretty well going to blend and you're going to get a concept thatmaybe this is really one world and why the hell can't we learn to live together like decent

people?

Fr ank Borman

Without peace of mind, life is just a shadow of its possibilities.

Jean Borysenko

There is no time left for anything but to make peace work a dimension of our every

waking activity.

El ise Boulding

Democracy is an objective. Democratization is a process. Democratization serves the cause

of peace because it offers the possibility of justice and of progressive change without force.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali

We do not inherit the earth from our fathers. We borrow it from our children.

David Bower

Violence in the voice is often only the death rattle of reason in the throat.

John Boyes


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We have men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom

and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without

conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war

than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. If we continue to

develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our

executioner.

Armistice Day speech (11 November 1948), published in Omar Bradley's CollectedWri tings, Volume 1(1967)General Omar Bradley

The way to win an atomic war is to make certain it never starts.

GeneralOmar Br adley

The pens which write against disarmament are made with the same steel from which guns

are made.

Ar istide Br iand, French statesman, Nobel Peace Prize, 1926

The pacifist's task today is to find a method of helping and healing which provides a

revolutionary constructive substitute for war.

Vera Bri ttain, 1964

Peace is that state in which fear of any kind is unknown.

John Buchan

The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.

Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha)

In separateness lies the world's great misery; in compassion lies the world's true strength.


Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone

else; you are the one getting burned.


Better than a thousand hollow words,

Is one word that brings peace.



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Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and

compassion are the things which renew humanity.


He who can control his rising anger as a coachman controls his carriage at full speed, this

man I call a good driver; others merely hold the reins.


We are what we think.

All that we are arises with our thoughts.

With our thoughts, we make the world.


Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is

peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To

see reality--not as we expect it to be but as it is--is to see that unless we live for each otherand in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can

really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love.

(Carl) Frederi ck Buechner

. . . [T]o live not with hands clenched to grasp, to strike, to hold tight to a life that is

always slipping away the more tightly we hold it, but . . . to live with the hands stretched

out both to give and receive with gladness.

(Carl) Frederi ck Buechner

Beneath the rule of men entirely great

the pen is mightier than the sword.

Edward George Bu lwer-L ytton

Don't believe everything you think.

bumpersticker

There will be no security in our world, no release from agonizing tension, no genuine

progress, no enduring peace, until, in Shelley's fine words, "reason's voice, loud as thevoice of nature, shall have waked the nations".

Ralph Bunche, Nobel Peace Laureate 1950

There are no warlike people, just warlike leaders.

Ralph Bunche, Nobel Peace Laureate


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Peace, to have meaning for many who have only known suffering in both peace and war,

must be translated into bread or rice, shelter, health and education,

as well as freedom and human dignity.

Ralph Johnson Bunche (1904-1971)

The hottest fires in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral

crisis.Edmund Bur ke

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one

international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the

losses in lives.

Major General Smedley Butler USMC

I would like it if men had to partake in the same hormonal cycles to which we're subjectedmonthly. Maybe that's why men declare war - because they have a need to bleed on a

regular basis.

Brett Butl er

No matter what someone else has done, it still matters how we treat people. It matters to

our humanity that we treat offenders according to standards that we recognize as just.

Justice is not revenge - it's deciding for a solution that is oriented towards peace, peace

being the harder but more human way of reacting to injury. That is the very basis of the

idea of rights.

Judith Butler, I nterview The Believer Magazine - I ssue 2

To engage in war is always to pick a wild card. And war must always be the last resort,

not a first choice. I truly must question the judgment of any president who can say that a

massive, unprovoked military attack on a nation which is over fifty percent children is 'in

the highest moral traditions of our country.

U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd

The common people of all nations want peace. In the presence of great impersonal forces

they feel individually helpless to promote it common folk, not statesmen, nor generals,nor great men of affairs, but just simple plain men and women like the few thousand

Quakers and their friends, if they devote themselves to resolute insistence on goodwill in

place of force, even in the face of great disaster past or threatened, can do something to

build a better, peaceful world. The future hope of peace lies with such personal sacrificial

service. To this ideal humble persons everywhere may contribute.

Henry J. Cadbury
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When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no

food, they call you a communist.

Archbishop Helder Camara, Brazil ian li beration theologist

God looks unjust but is not. God asks more from those who more is given. They are not

greater or better; they have greater responsibility. They must give more service. Live to

serve.Archbishop Helder Camara, Brazil ian li beration theologist

The heart of the wise man lies quiet like limpid water.Cameroonian saying

It is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners.

Albert Camus

We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize

that we know where it lives, that it is inside ourselves.

Albert Camus

Peace is the only battle worth waging.

Al ber t Camus (1913-1960)

The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants.

Al ber t Camus (1913-1960)

In contrast to the mystic, the physicist begins his enquiry into the essential nature of

things by studying the material world. Penetrating into ever deeper realms of matter, he

has become aware of the essential unity of all things and events. More than that, he has

learnt that he himself and his consciousness are an integral part of this unity. Thus the

mystic and the physicist arrive at the same conclusion; one starting from the inner realm,

the other from the outer world.

Fr itjof CapraThe Tao Of Physics

Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is--whether its victim is human

or animal--we cannot expect things to be much better in this world... We cannot have peace

among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or

even tolerates such moronic delight in killing we set back the progress of humanity.

Rachel Carson


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It would be nave to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or

study of history will automatically resolve the problems However, with faith and

perseverance, complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice

and peace.

Jimmy Carter

It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our

children to honor nature's gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever.

Jimmy Carter

We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.

Jimmy Carter

Everyone has a right to peaceful coexistence, the basic personal freedoms, the alleviation

of suffering, and the opportunity to lead a productive life...

Jimmy Carter

The spirit of human brotherhood must under-gird any political or social structure of

peace if it is to last.

Jimmy Carter

The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?

Pablo Casals

Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is

giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not complicated but it takes

courage. It takes courage for a person to listen to his own goodness and act on it.

Pablo Casals

In all of his suffering, as in all of his life and ministry, Jesus refused to defend himself

with force or with violence. He endured violence and cruelty so that God's love might be

fully manifest and the world might be reconciled to the One from whom it had become

estranged. Even at his death, Jesus cried for forgiveness for those who were executioners:

"Father, forgive them"The Chal lenge of Peace U.S. Cathol ic Bishops, 1983

Looking for peace is like looking for a turtle with a mustache: you won't be able to find it.

But when your heart is ready, peace will come looking for you.

Ajahn Chah
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According to the philosophy of waging peace, our opponents are not people. Our

opponents are the ignorance and misunderstandings that hold people hostage. Our

opponents are hatred, greed, fear, apathy, oppression, and injustice. To defeat hatred, we

cannot use hatred. We must use love. To defeat ignorance and misunderstandings, we

cannot use guns and bombs. We must use reason, truth, and understanding.

Waging peace is a philosophy and strategy that sees every so-called "enemy" as a friend

being held hostage by ignorance, misunderstandings, hatred, greed, fear, etc. According to

the philosophy of waging peace, all human beings are on the same team, but some of our

comrades have been captured by ignorance and hatred, and we must try to free them. I

explain this in more detail in my book, "The End of War: How Waging Peace Can Save

Humanity, Our Planet, and Our Future."http://paulkchappell.com/other-writings/

Paul Chappell

Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall

harness for God the energies of love. Then for the second time in the history of the world,

we will have discovered fire.

Teil hard de Chardin

The whole of life lies in the verb seeing.Teil hard de Chardin

Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.

Cesar Chavez

The first principle of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything

humiliating.Cesar Chavez

The non-violent technique does not depend for its success on the goodwill of the

oppressor, but rather on the unfailing assistance of God.

Cesar Chavez

There is no such thing as defeat in non-violence.

Cesar Chavez

You know, if people are not pacifists, it's not their fault. It's because society puts them in

that spot. You've got to change it. You don't just change a man - you've got to change his

environment as you do it.

Cesar Chavez
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Through Gandhi and my own life experience, I have learned about nonviolence. I believe

that human life is a very special gift from God, and that no one has a right to take that

away in any cause, however just. I am convinced that nonviolence is more powerful than

violence.

Cesar Chavez

Non-violence exacts a very high price from one who practices it. But once you are able to

meet that demand then you can do most things.

Cesar Chavez

Non-violence is a very powerful weapon. Most people don't understand the power of non-

violence and tend to be amazed by the whole idea. Those who have been involved in

bringing about change and see the difference between violence and non-violence are firmly

committed to a lifetime of non-violence, not because it is easy or because it is cowardly, but

because it is an effective and very powerful way.

Cesar Chavez

Non-violence is not inaction. It is not discussion. It is not for the timid or weak...Non-

violence is hard work. It is the willingness to sacrifice. It is the patience to win.

Cesar Chavez

Violence just hurts those who are already hurt...Instead of exposing the brutality of the

oppressor, it justifies it.

Cesar Chavez

We are convinced that non-violence is more powerful than violence. We are convinced

that non-violence supports you if you have a just and moral cause...If you use violence, you

have to sell part of yourself for that violence. Then you are no longer a master of your own

struggle.

Cesar Chavez

We look forward to the time when the power to love will replace the love of power. Then

will our world know the blessings of peace.

Wil li am Ellery Channing also attri buted to Jimmy Hendr ix

Angels can fly because they take themselves so lightly.

G.K. Chesterton

One sees great things from the valley, only small things from the peak.

G.K. Chesterton


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Then all that has divided us will merge

And then compassion will be wedded to power

And then softness will come to a world that is harsh and unkind

And then both men and women will be gentle

And then both women and men will be strong

And then no person will be subject to another's will

And then all will be rich and free and varied

And then the greed of some will give way to the needs of many

And then all will share equally in the earth's abundance

And then all will care for the sick and the weak and the old

And then all will nourish the young

And then all will cherish life's creatures

And then all will live in harmony with each other and with the earth

And everywhere will be called Eden, once again.

Judy Chicago

If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed for.Chinese Proverb

There are three truths: my truth, your truth and the truth.

Chinese Proverb

Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.Chinese Proverb

Women hold up half the sky.Chinese Proverb

The question is not, do we go to church; the question is, have we been converted. The crux

of Christianity is not whether or not we give donations to popular charities but whether or

not we are really committed to the poor.

Joan Chittester, OSB

Sports play a societal role in engendering jingoist and chauvinist attitudes. They're

designed to organize a community to be committed to their gladiators.

Noam Chomsky

One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as

disastrous as to lose one.

Agatha Chr istie


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If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity,

they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another.

Winston Churchil l

The miracle of the wicked is reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous.

Winston Churchil l

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down

and listen.

Winston Churchil l

Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks

on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The

statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer

the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.

Winston Churchil l

To be content with what we possess is the greatest and most secure of riches.Marcus Tul li us Cicero

Are bombs the only way of setting fire to the spirit of a people? Is the human will as inert

as the past two world-wide wars would indicate?

Gregory Clark

I have great belief in the fact that whenever there is chaos, it creates wonderful thinking. I

consider chaos a gift.

Septima Poinsette Clark

The spiral of responding to violence with violence is like a whirlpool in a river. As the

water pours in, it whirls faster and faster.

The only way to stop the whirlpool is to place a solid rock in the middle. Peacemakers are

the called to be rocks in the whirlpool of violence.

Susan Classen and Vernard E ll er

War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost limits.

Major General Car l von Clausewitz, 1832


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The real differences around the world today are not between Jews and Arabs; Protestants

and Catholics; Muslims, Croats, and Serbs. The real differences are between those who

embrace peace and those who would destroy it; between those who look to the future and

those who cling to the past; between those who open their arms and those who are

determined to clench their fists.

President Wil li am J. Clinton, 1997

We do not want riches, we want peace and love.

Red Cloud

The progress of freedom depends more upon the maintenance of peace, the spread of

commerce, and the diffusion of education, than upon the labours of cabinets and foreign

offices.

Richard Cobden

A "just war" is hospitable to every self-deception on the part of those waging it, nonemore than the certainty of virtue, under whose shelter every abomination can be committed

with a clear conscience.Alexander Cockburn , I ri sh-born American Journali st (b.1941)

The cause of violence is not ignorance. It is self-interest. ... Only reverence can restrain

violence - reverence for human life and the environment.

Rev. Wil li am Sloan Coffi n, Jr.

A spiritual person tries less to be godly than to be deeply human.Rev. Wil li am Sloan Coffi n, Jr.

Peace rules the day, where reason rules the mind.

Wilki e Colli ns

Peace is the evening star of the soul, as virtue is its sun, and the two are never far apart.

Char les Caleb Colton 1780-1832)English cleri c

To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice.

Confucius

If we have harmony in our beliefs and actions, there will be love in our homes and if there

is love in our homes, there will be order in the nation and if there is order in the nation,

there will be peace on earth.Confucius


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Let your words be sincere and truthful and your actions honorable and careful; with such

conduct you can get along even among barbarian peoples.Confucius

What all men are really after is some form, or perhaps only some formula, of peace.Joseph Conr ad

I believe we are on the edge of a quantum leap into a whole new way of organizing and

living as a human family.

Mairead Corr igan Maguire

The ability to be insulted without retaliation creates peace in all sorts of human

interactions.

Gabriel Cousens, M.D.

War is an invention of the human mind. The human mind can invent peace with justice.

Norman Cousins

We will not have peace by afterthought.

Norman Cousins

A church which cannot take a firm stand against war is a church which does not deserve

to be believed.

Harvey Cox, Amer ican Baptist theologian at Harvard Divinity School

The idea of absolute freedom is fiction. It's based on the idea of an independent self. But,

in fact, there's no such thing. There's no self without other people. There's no self without

sunlight. There's no self without dew. And water. And bees to pollinate the food we eat....So

the idea of behaving in a way that doesn't acknowledge those reciprocal relationships is not

really freedom, its indulgence.

Peter Coyote

When the hungry can feed themselves, peace happens.

F lorence Crago

We are, each of us angels with only one wing; and we can only fly by embracing one

another.

Luciano de Crescenzo


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No one is so foolish as to prefer to peace, war, in which, instead of sons burying their

fathers, fathers bury their sons.

Croesus, King of Lydia, in Herodotus' The Persian Wars

Peace - the word evokes the simplest and most cherished dream of humanity. Peace is, andhas always been, the ultimate human aspiration. And yet our history overwhelmingly

shows that while we speak incessantly of peace, our actions tell a very different story.

Javier Perez de Cuell ar

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you

everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and

never stop fighting.

e.e.cummings

He who has a good neighbors will sell his house for more.

A good well gives water in drought, indeed, a good friend you know when you are in need.

Even a good war suffers from want of bread.

War is easy to go in but hard to get out of.

War is not a wet nurse.

Power without sense gets spoiled.

He who blows into fire gets sparkles and smoke in his eyes.

Czech proverbsKarel Kur ka

Permanent Representative of CzechoslovakiaUnited Nations, 12 June 1959

Because violence can only breed more violence and suffering, our struggle must remain

nonviolent and free of hatred.

14th Dalai Lama

Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and

where individuals and nations are free.

14th Dalai Lama

Brute force, no matter how strongly applied, can never subdue the basic human desire for

freedom.

14th Dalai Lama


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The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis,

maintain their neutrality.

Dante

When you can be calm in the midst of activity, this is the true state of nature When you

can be happy in the midst of hardship, then you see the true potential of the mind.

Huachu Daoren

The ability and inclination to use physical strength is no indication of bravery or tenacity

to life. The greatest cowards are often the greatest bullies. Nothing is cheaper and more

common than physical bravery.

Clarence Darrow, Resist Not Evil

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom.

You can only be free if I am free.

Clarence Dar row

In India when we meet and part we often say, "Namaste," which means: I honor the place

in you where the entire universe resides; I honor the place in you where the entire universe

resides; I honor the place in you of love, of light, of truth, of peace. I honor the place within

you where if you are in that place in you and I am in that place in me, there is only one of

us.. "Namaste."

Ram Dass

Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the death of

others. We are burial places! I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and thetime will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look

on the murder of men.

Leonardo Da Vinci

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

Leonardo Da Vinci

Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.

Dorothy Day

It is penance to work, to give oneself to others, to endure the pinpricks of community

living.

Dorothy Day


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An act of love, a voluntary taking on oneself of some of the pain of the world, increases the

courage and love and hope of all.

Dorothy Day

No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do.

Dorothy Day

We plant seeds that will flower as results in our lives, so best to remove the weeds of

anger, avarice, envy and doubt, that peace and abundance may manifest for all.

Dorothy Day

Young people say, What is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay

one brick at at time, take one step at a time; we can be responsible only for the one action

in the present moment. But we can beg for an increase of love in our hearts that will

vitalize and transform all our individual actions, and know that God will take them and

multiply them, as Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes.Dorothy Day

Freedom is the oxygen of the soul.

Moshe Dayan

If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.

Moshe Dayan

War stirs in men's hearts the mud of their worst instincts. It puts a premium on violence,

nourishes hatred, and gives free rein to cupidity. It crushes the weak, exalts the unworthy,

and bolsters tyranny .. .Time and time again it has destroyed all ordered living, devastated

hope, and put the prophets to death.

Char les DeGaul le

Very few people chose war. They chose selfishness and the result was war. Each of us,

individually and nationally, must choose: total love or total war.

Dave Dell inger

Nobody was born nonviolent. No one was born charitable. None of us comes to these

things by nature but only by conversion. The first duty of the nonviolent community is

helping its members work upon themselves and come to conversion.

Lanza del Vasto
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The longer we listen to one another - with real attention - the more commonality we will

find in all our lives. That is, if we are careful to exchange with one another life stories and

not simply opinions.

Barbara Deming

Gandhi once declared that it was his wife who unwittingly taught him the effectiveness of

nonviolence. Who better than women should know that battles can be won without resort

to physical strength? Who better than we should know all the power that resides in

noncooperation?

Barbara Deming

What is the revolution that we need? We need to dissolve the lie that some people have a

right to think of other people as their property. And we need at last to form a circle that

includes us all, in which all of us are seen as equal... We do not belong to the other, but our

lives are linked; we belong in a circle of others.

Barbara Deming

To resort to power one need not be violent, and to speak to conscience one need not be

meek. The most effective action both resorts to power and engages conscience. Nonviolent

actions does not have to get others to be nice. It can in effect force them to consult their

consciences. Nor does it have to petition those in power to do something about a situation.

It can face the authorities with a new fact and say: Accept this new situation which we have

created.

Barbara Deming

Abba Poeman said about Abba Prior that every single day he made a fresh beginning.Desert Fathers and Mothers

Like water which can clearly mirror the sky and the trees only so long as its surface is

undisturbed, the mind can only reflect the true image of the Self when it is tranquil and

wholly relaxed.

I ndra Devi

Awaken the mind without fixing it anywhere.

Diamond Sutra

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. It is founded on our thoughts; it is

made up of our thoughts.

Dhammapada


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A solid rock is not disturbed by the wind; even so, a wise person is not agitated by praise

or blame.

Dhammapada

Love the fellow of the resurrection, scooping up the dust and chanting "Live!"

Emi ly Dickinson

Justice is truth in action.

Benjamin D israeli

I'm not a pacifist. I'm not that brave.

Phil Donahue

No man is an island entire of itself ... any man's death diminishes me because I am

involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls forthee.

John Donne

At some ideas you stand perplexed, especially at the sight of human sins, uncertain

whether to combat it by force or by human love. Always decide, "I will combat it with

human love." If you make up your mind about that once and for all, you can conquer the

whole world. Loving humility is a terrible force; it is the strongest of all things and there is

nothing like it.

Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Kar amazov

The first thing to be disrupted by our commitment to nonviolence will be not the system

but our own lives.

James Douglass

A happy person is not a person in a set of circumstances, but rather a person with a

certain set of attitudes.

Hugh DownsAmerican Journali st

You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have truly lived

are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.

Henry Drummond
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Mankind will never win lasting peace so long as men use their full resources only in tasks

of war. While we are yet at peace, let us mobilize the potentialities, particularly the moral

and spiritual potentialities, which we usually reserve for war.

John Foster Dull es, War or Peace 1950.

Those for whom peace is no more than a dream are asleep to the future.

Jack DuVall

History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other

alternatives.

Abba Eban

What good is it to me that Mary gave birth to the son of God fourteen hundred years ago,

and I do not also give birth to the Son of God in my time and in my culture? We are all

meant to be mothers of God. God is always needing to be born.

Meister Eckhart

Learn to be quiet enough to hear the sound of the genuine within yourself so that you can

hear it in others.

Marian Wri ght Edelman (b.1939)American wri ter

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop

harming all other living beings, we are still savages.

Thomas Edison

There will one day spring from the brain of science a machine or force so fearful in its

potentialities, so absolutely terrifying, that even man, the fighter, who will dare torture and

death in order to inflict torture and death, will be appalled, and so abandon war forever.

Thomas Edison

Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.

Albert Einstein

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Albert Einstein

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be

fought with sticks and stones.

Albert Einstein


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Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the

name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!

Albert Einstein

The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking.... Thesolution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have

become a watchmaker.

Albert Einstein

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the

labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the

same measure as I have received.

Albert EinsteinQuoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).

He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has

been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This

disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how

violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds

than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is

nothing but an act of murder.

Albert Einstein

We must inoculate our children against militarism, by educating them in the spirit ofpacifism.... Our schoolbooks glorify war and conceal its horrors. They indoctrinate

children with hatred. I would teach peace rather than war, love rather than hate.

Albert Einstein

Concern for man himself and his fate must always be the chief interest of all technical

endeavors.... In order that the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to

mankind. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.

Albert Einstein

We must be prepared to make heroic sacrifices for the cause of peace that we make

ungrudgingly for the cause of war. There is no task that is more important or closer to my

heart.

Albert Einstein

Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty, lies

opportunity.

Albert Einstein


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Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a

touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction.

Albert Einstein

A human being is part of the whole called by us "universe," a part limited in time andspace. We experience ourselves, our thoughts, and feelings as something separate from the

rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us,

restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.

Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to

embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in all of its beauty...

We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humankind is to survive.

Albert Einstein

The pioneers of a warless world are the young men (and women) who refuse military

service.Albert Einstein

Force always attracts men of low morality.

Albert Einstein

We must not conceal from ourselves that no improvement in the present depressing

situation is possible without a severe struggle; for the handful of those that are really

determined to do something is minute in comparison with the mass of the lukewarm and

mis-guided. And those that have an interest in keeping the machinery of war going are avery powerful body; they will stop at nothing to make public opinion subservient to their

murderous ends.

Albert Einstein

I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will

end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.

Albert Einstein

Through the release of atomic energy, our generation has brought into the world the mostrevolutionary force since prehistoric man's discovery of fire. This basic force of the

universe cannot be fitted into the outmoded concept of narrow nationalisms.

For there is no secret and there is no defense; there is no possibility of control except

through the aroused understanding and insistence of the peoples of the world. We scientists

recognise our inescapable responsibility to carry to our fellow citizens an understanding of

atomic energy and its implication for society. In this lies our only security and our only

hope - we believe that an informed citizenry will act for life and not for death.

Albert Einstein


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Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

Albert Einstein

Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the

future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both thenatural and spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all

things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity.

Albert Einstein

I like to believe that people, in the long run, are going to do more to promote peace than

our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days

government had better get out of their way and let them have it.

General & President Dwight D. Eisenhower

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its

futility, its stupidity.


In the council of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted

influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential

for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.


If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war

include almost a sentence for suicide, you would think that man's intelligence and his

comprehension... would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution.


The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you

are trying to defend from without.


In the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the

binding force of mutual respect and love.



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Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final

sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the

genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true

sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

General & President Dwight D. Ei senhower,From a speech before the American Society ofNewspaper Edi tors, Apr il 16, 1953

When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of,

but our severity.

George Eliot

There is nothing that war has ever achieved that we could not better achieve without it.

Havelock Ell is

We have failed to grasp the fact that mankind is becoming a single unit, and that for a

unit to fight against itself is suicide.

Havelock Ell is

Men like war: they do not hold much sway over birth, so they make up for it with death.

Unlike women, men menstruate by shedding other people's blood.

Lucy Ellman

The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of

people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its

powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and

that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.

Black Elk (1863-1950)

There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which

is within the souls of men.

Black Elk

War is on its last legs; and a universal peace is as sure as is the prevalence of civilization

over barbarism, of liberal governments over feudal forms. The question for us is only, How

soon!Ralph Waldo Emerson


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Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always

someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you

to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end

requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes

brave men and women to win them.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Peace cannot be achieved through violence; it can only be attained through

understanding.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself; nothing, but the triumph of principles.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The world's biggest arms suppliers are the U.S., U.K., Russia, France and China...

They are also the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

epitomeofirony.org

Sweet is war to those who do not know it.

Desiderius Er asmusDutch scholar

The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.

Desiderius Er asmusDutch scholar

The highest form of bliss is living with a certain degree of folly.Desiderius Er asmusDutch scholar

As we work for justice and peace, we plant seeds of hope. Our hope is reflected in our

faith. As we plant the seed, we see the whole tree in the seed. We not only see it, we feel it

growing. We not only feel it,we taste its fruit.

Ricardo Esquivia, JustaPaz, Colombia Mennoni te Church


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We must apply our humble efforts to the construction of a more just and humane world.

And I want to declare emphatically: Such a world is possible. To create this new society, we

must present outstretched and friendly hands, without hatred and rancor, even as we show

great determination and never waver in the defense of truth and justice. Because we know

that we cannot sow seeds with clenched fists. To sow we must open our hands.

Adol fo Perez Esquivel

When the great lord passes the wise peasant bows deeply and silently farts.

Ethi opian proverb (example of passive resistance?)

There really can be no peace without justice. There can be no justice without truth. And

there can be no truth, unless someone rises up to tell you the truth.

Louis Farrakhan

Some things you must always be unable to bear. Some things you must never stop refusing

to bear. Injustice and outrage and dishonor and shame. No matter how young you are or

how old you have got. Not for kudos and not for cash, your picture in the paper nor money

in the bank, neither. Just refuse to bear them.

Will iam Faulkner

All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers.

Franoi s Fnelon

Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed

largely for education. Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and

civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both.

Abraham F lexner, Ameri can Author (1866-1959)

The taller the bamboo grows the lower it bends.

F il ipino proverbCarlos P. Romulo, President4th General Assembly, Uni ted Nations 10/24/1949

All men love peace in their armchairs after dinner; but they disbelieve the other nations's

professions, rightly measuring its sincerity by their own.

Oscar W. F ir kins

The refuge of the morally, intellectually, artistically and economically bankrupt is war.

Martin H . Fischer
http://www.betterworldheroes.com/esquivel.htmhttp://www.betterworldheroes.com/esquivel.htmhttp://www.betterworldheroes.com/esquivel.htm


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Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make

our choice; we cannot have both.

Abraham F lexner

The tragedy of war is that it uses man's best to do man's worst.Henry Fosdick, Amer ican Teacher

We have thought of peace as the passive and war as the active way of living. The opposite

is true. War is not the most strenuous life. It is a kind of rest-cure compared to the task of

reconciling our differences.

M. P. Follett

The absence of risk is a sure sign of mediocrity.

Char les de Foucauld

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids both rich and poor to sleep under bridges, to beg

in the streets, and to steal bread.

Anatole France

While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in

your heart.

St. Fr ancis of Assisi

Not to hurt our humble brethren (the animals) is our first duty to them, but to stop thereis not enough. We have a higher mission--to be of service to them whenever they require

it... If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of

compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.

St. Fr ancis of Assisi

Nothing is so strong as gentleness; nothing so gentle as real strength.

St. Francis de Sales

I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery and death... I think...peace and tranquility will return again.

Anne Frank

I resolve to speak ill of no man whatever, not even in a matter of truth; but rather by

some means excuse the faults I hear charged upon others, and upon proper occasions speak

all the good I know of everybody.

Benjamin F ranklin


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We daily make great improvements in natural philosophy there is one I wish to see in

moral philosophy; the discovery of a plan that would induce and oblige nations to settle

their disputes without first cutting one anothers throats. When will human reason be

sufficiently improved to see the advantage of this.

Benjamin F ranklin

from The War System of the Commonwealth of Nations an Address Before the American Peace Society, at itsAnn iversary in Boston, May 28, 1849 by Hon. Char les Sumner.

Al so quoted as:I hope...that mankind will at length, as they call themselves reasonable creatures, have

reason and sense enough to settle their differences without cutting throats; for in my

opinion there never was a good war, or a bad peace.

Benjamin F ranklin

Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and

evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish

misery from their future and crimes from society.Benjamin F ranklin

He that blows the coals in quarrels that he has nothing to do with, has no right to

complain if the sparks fly in his face.

Benjamin F ranklin

He that would live in peace and at ease, must not speak all he knows nor judge all he

sees.

Benjamin F ranklin

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither

liberty nor safety.

Benjamin F ranklin

You can bomb the world to pieces

you cant bomb it into peace.

Michael Franti

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed

only by small children and large nations.

Thomas F ri edman


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I t i s mei sizzen net to dwaen.(Saying it is not enough.)

Fri sian proverb, Fri sian is aGermanicgroup

The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other

lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

Bill F rist

Productive work, love and thought are possible only if a person can be, when necessary,

quiet and alone. To be able to listen to oneself is the necessary condition for relating oneself

to others.

Erich Fr omm

The making of peace is a continuing process that must go on from day to day, from year to

year, so long as our civilization shall last.

J. William Fulbright

Peace is not something you wish for; It's something you make, Something you do,

Something you are, And something you give away.

Robert F ulghum

We are going to have to find ways of organizing ourselves cooperatively, sanely,

scientifically, harmonically and in regenerative spontaneity with the rest of humanity

around the earth.... We are not going to be able to operate our spaceship earth successfully

nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common.Buckminster Ful ler

Either war is obsolete or men are.

Buckminster Ful lerChange comes not from men and women changing their minds, but from the change from

one generation to the next.

J. K. Galbraith

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.

I ndira Gandhi , 1966
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_language


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Peace we want because there is another war to fight against poverty, disease and

ignorance.

I ndira Gandhi , 1966

Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent

blood.

Gandhi , Non-violence in Peace and War , 1948

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always

won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the

end, they always fall -- think of it, ALWAYS!(From the movie, but no attribution to Gandhi can be found)

Mohandas Gandhi

Nonviolence which is a quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.

Mohandas Gandhi

We must be the change we wish to see.Mohandas GandhiParaphrased from a longer paragraph. We have never been able to find that wording, although we use it also,

in M.K.Gandhi's works of 98 VOLs. This is the paragraph and the source:

We but mir ror the worl d. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the worl d of our body. I fwe could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, sodoes the attitude of the worl d change towards him. Thi s is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thi ng it i s andthe source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.

VOL 13, Ch 153, General Knowledge About Health; Page 241, Printed in the Indian Opinion on 9/8/1913

From The Collected Works of M.K.Gandhi; published by The Publications Division, New Delhi, India."

(response from Arun Gandhis office on inquiry about quote)

Buddha taught us to defy appearances and trust in the final triumph of Truth and Love. .

. He taught us how to do it, because he lived what he taught. The best propaganda is not

pamphleteering, but for each one of us to try to live the life we would have the world to

live.

Mohandas GandhiGandhi speaking at the Buddha Jayanti on May 18, 1924

We may never be strong enough to be entirely nonviolent in thought, word and deed. But

we must keep nonviolence as our goal and make strong progress towards it. The

Attainment of freedom, whether for a person, a nation or a world, must be in exact

proportion to the attainment of nonviolence for each.

Mohandas Gandhi


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An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.

Mohandas Gandhi

Nonviolence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it

must be an inseparable part of our being.

Mohandas Gandhi

Whenever you are in doubt or when the self becomes too much with you, try the following

experiment: Recall the face of the poorest and most helpless person you have ever seen and

ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be for any use to him or to her . . . Then

you will find your doubts and your self melting away.

Mohandas Gandhi

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the

evil it does is permanent.

Mohandas Gandhi

I claim to be no more than an average person with less than average ability. I have not the

shadow of doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she would make

the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith.

Mohandas Gandhi

I am part and parcel of the whole and cannot find God apart from the rest of humanity.

Mohandas Gandhi

Poverty is the worst form of violence.

Mohandas Gandhi

Nonviolence, when it becomes active, travels with extraordinary velocity, and then it

becomes a miracle.

MohandasGandhi

Nonviolence should never be used as a shield for cowardice. It is a weapon for the brave.MohandasGandhi

Religion is but one tree with many branches.

If you look only upon the branches, then you are tempted to say that there are many

religions;

But if you look at the whole tree, you understand that there is but one religion.

MohandasGandhi


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The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms.

It requires change of heart.

MohandasGandhi

Economic equality is the master key to nonviolent independence.MohandasGandhi

I must confess that I do not draw a sharp line or any distinction between economics and

ethics.

MohandasGandhi

Strength doesnt come from physical capacity. It comes from indomitable will.

MohandasGandhi

The earth provides enough to satisfy every mans needs, but not every mans greed.

MohandasGandhi

God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism after the manner of the West. ... If

[our nation] took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like

locusts.

MohandasGandhi

This little globe of ours is not a toy of yesterday.

MohandasGandhi

We may utilize the gifts of Nature just as we choose, but in Her books, the debits are

always equal to the credits.

MohandasGandhi

If we are to have real peace, we must begin with the children.

MohandasGandhi

You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system

never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person

will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul.

MohandasGandhi


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Our country is the worldour countrymen are mankind.

also quoted as My country is the world; my countrymen are mankind.

Will iam L loyd Garr isonAmeri can aboliti onist (18051879)

Are right and wrong convertible terms, dependant upon popular opinion?


Enslave the liberty of but one human being and the liberties of the world are put in peril.


I will be as harsh as truth, and uncompromising as justice... I am in earnest, I will not

equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard. Will iam L loyd Garr isonAmeri can aboliti onist (18051879)

That which is not just is not law.


The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten

the resurrection of the dead.Will iam L loyd Garr isonAmeri can aboliti onist (18051879)

The success of any great moral enterprise does not depend upon numbers.


We may be personally defeated, but our principles never!


Wherever there is a human being, I see God-given rights inherent in that being, whatever

may be the sex or complexion.



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With reasonable men, I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will

give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.


Peace Quotes updated May 2013

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Transcript of Peace Quotes updated May 2013