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VoicePeace
I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed there would be no more war.
If it's natural to kill, how come men have to go into training to learn how?
If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed for.
Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it stands than to anything on which it is poured.
Peace begins when the hungry are fed.
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.
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.
The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.
Peace is not the product of a victory or a command. It has no finishing line, no final deadline, no fixed definition of achievement. Peace is a never-ending process, the work of many decisions.
In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?
We should take care, in inculcating patriotism into our boys and girls, that is a 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.
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.
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 ever committed.
War would end if the dead could return.
The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.
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.
If you live alone, whose feet will you wash?
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.
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.
The fragrance always remains in the hand that gives the rose.
The finger pulls the trigger, but the trigger may also be pulling the finger.
The God of life summons us to life; more, to be lifegivers, especially toward those who lie under the heel of the powers.
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 it yourself. 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.
The human mind likes a strange idea as little as the body likes a strange protein and resists it with a similar energy.
The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
Can I see another's woe, and not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another's grief, and not seek for kind relief?
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.
Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.
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 that maybe this is really one world and why the hell can't we learn to live together like decent people?
There is no time left for anything but to make peace work a dimension of our every waking activity.
We do not inherit the earth from our fathers. We borrow it from our children.
Violence in the voice is often only the death rattle of reason in the throat.
We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living.
The pens which write against disarmament are made with the same steel from which guns are made.
The pacifist's task today is to find a method of helping and healing which provides a revolutionary constructive substitute for war.
Peace is that state in which fear of any kind is unknown.
In separateness lies the world's great misery; in compassion lies the world's true strength.
Better than a thousand hollow words,
Is one word that brings peace.
Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.
The pen is mightier than the sword.
The hottest fires in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis.
Edmund BurkeWhen 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.
It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.
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.
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.
The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?
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.
Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.
Cesar ChavezThe first principle of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating.
The non-violent technique does not depend for its success on the goodwill of the oppressor, but rather on the unfailing assistance of God.
There is no such thing as defeat in non-violence.
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.
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.
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.
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"
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.
Angels can fly because they take themselves so lightly.
There are three truths: my truth, your truth and the truth.
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.
Sports plays a societal role in engendering jingoist and chauvinist attitudes. They're designed to organize a community to be committed to their gladiators.
The miracle of the wicked is reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous.
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
The cause of violence is not ignorance. It is self-interest. ... Only reverence can restrain violence - reverence for human life and the environment .
A spiritual person tries less to be godly than to be deeply human.
To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice.
I believe we are on the edge of a quantum leap into a whole new way of organizing and living as a human family.
War is an invention of the human mind. The human mind can invent peace with justice.
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, it's indulgence.
We are, each of us angels with only one wing; and we can only fly by embracing one another.
No one is so foolish as to prefer to peace, war, in which, instead of sons burying their fathers, fathers bury their sons.
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.
The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.
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 the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.
No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do.
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.
If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.
Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, shall harness for God the energies of love. Then for the second time in the history of the world, we will have discovered fire.
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.
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.
rNobody 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.
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.
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.
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.
A solid rock is not disturbed by the wind; even so, a wise person is not agitated by praise or blame.
Love the fellow of the resurrection, scooping up the dust and chanting "Live!"
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 for thee.
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.
The first thing to be disrupted by our committment to nonviolence will be not the system but our own lives.
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.
Those for whom peace is no more than a dream are asleep to the future.
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.
The pioneers of a warless world are the young men (and women) who refuse military service.
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.
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.
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 are not clothed.
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
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.
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.
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.
When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.
There is nothing that war has ever achieved that we could not better achieve without it.
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.
The absence of risk is a sure sign of mediocrity.
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids both rich and poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.
Not to hurt our humble brethren (the animals) is our first duty to them, but to stop there is 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.
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.
Change comes not from men and women changing their minds, but from the change from one generation to the next.
You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.
Peace we want because there is another war to fight against poverty, disease and ignorance.
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!
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.
Nonviolence which is a quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.
We must be the change we wish to see.
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.
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.
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.
A peace that comes from fear and not from the heart is the opposite of peace.
It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace.
Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.
The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness, could we but see, and to see, we have only to look. I beseech you to look.
In the name of peace
They waged the wars
ain't they got no shame
We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace.
When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.
In all things it is better to hope than to despair.
Our friends show us what we can do; our enemies teach us what we must do.
If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution.
Peace is a gift,
It is a gift we give to ourselves,
And then to each other.
Women prevent the threads of life from being broken. The finest minds have always understood the peacemaking role of women.
The bomb that fell on Hiroshima fell on America, too.
The pursuit of peace and progress cannot end in a few years in either victory or defeat. The pursuit of peace and progress, with its trials and errors, its successes and setbacks, can never be relaxed and never abandoned.
The real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth.
Smiling is very important. If we are not able to smile, then the world will not have peace. It is not by going out for a demonstration against nuclear missiles that we can bring about peace. It is with our capacity of smiling, breathing, and being peace that we can make peace.
It belongs to the very substance of nonviolence never to destroy or damage another person's feeling of self worth, even an opponent's. We all need, constantly, an advance of trust and affirmation.
Nuclear war is inevitable, says the pessimists; Nuclear war is impossible, says the optimists; Nuclear war is inevitable unless we make it impossible, says the realists.
The peace process we all aim for will not necessarily be a result of the mere signing of a treaty or agreement. It must become a matter of our everyday lives, so that peace settles and lasts and becomes supported by everybody. We therefore have to give peace all the required care and preserve it and promote it.
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.
Being a pacifist between wars is as easy as being a vegetarian between meals.
I'm not disturbing the peace. I'm disturbing the war.
He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has a need to be forgiven.
You save your soul by saving someone else's body.
Be not lax in celebrating.
Those things of real worth in life are worth going to any length in love and respect to safeguard.
I really see no other solution than to turn inwards and to root out all the rottenness there. I no longer believe that we can change anything in the world until we first change ourselves. And that seems to me the only lesson to be learned from this war.
A large group of us were crowded into the Gestapo hall, and at that moment the circumstances of all our lives were the same. All of us occupied the same space, the men behind the desk no less than those about to be questioned. What distinguished each of us was only our inner attitude.
The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins
While seeking revenge, dig two graves - one for yourself.
It's a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than "try to be a little better."
A man may build himself a throne of bayonets, but he cannot sit on it.
It is in the shelter of each other that the people live.
I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man's pride.
It is reasonable that every one who asks justice should do justice.
Thomas JeffersonIn the twilight of life, God will not judge us on our earthly possessions and human success, but rather on how much we have loved.
The first casualty when war comes is truth.
Sensitivity to the immense needs of humanity brings with it a spontaneous rejection of the arms race, which is incompatible with the all out struggle against hunger, sickness, under-development and illiteracy.
Our future on this planet, exposed as it is to nuclear annihilation, depends one one single factor: humanity must make a moral about-face.
A Rattlesnake, if cornered, will become so angry it will bite itself. That is exactly what the harboring of hate and resentment against others is -- a biting of oneself. We think we are harming others in holding these spites and hates, but the deeper harm is to ourselves.
The Holy Prophet Mohammed came into this world and taught us: 'That man is a Muslim who never hurts anyone by word or deed, but who works for the benefit and happiness of God's creatures. Belief in God is to love one's fellow men.'
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of humans as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is not safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do.
I do not want the peace which passeth understanding,
I want the understanding which bringeth peace.
Compromise does not mean cowardice.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
Aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged, ultimately leads to war.
The evils of government are directly proportional to the tolerance of the people.
If peace . . . only had the music and pageantry of war, there'd be no wars.
The belief that we some day shall be able to prevent war is to me one with the belief in the possibility of making humanity really human.
Everything, everything in war is barbaric . . . But the worst barbarity of war is that it forces men collectively to commit acts against which individually they would revolt with their whole being.
A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world. Everyone you meet is your mirror.
Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all.
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.
If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.
I plan to stand by nonviolence, because I have found it to be a philosophy of life that regulates not only my dealings in the struggle for racial justice, but also my dealings with people, and with my own self.
If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room.
War is, at first, the hope that one will be better off; next, the expectation that the other fellow will be worse off; then, the satisfaction that he isn't any better off; and, finally, the surprise at everyone's being worse off.
Hitler and Mussolini were only the primary spokesmen for the attitude of domination and craving for power that are in the heart of almost everyone. Until the source is cleared, there will always be confusion and hate, wars and class antagonisms.
If we could raise one generation with unconditional love, there would be no Hitlers. We need to teach the next generation of children from Day One that they are responsible for their lives. Mankind's greatest gift, also its greatest curse, is that we have free choice. We can make our choices built from love or from fear..
True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.
If it were proved to me that in making war, my ideal had a chance of being realized, I would still say "No" to war. For one does not create human society on mounds of corpses.
Do your work as though you had a thousand years to live, & as if you were to die tomorrow.
What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world
Is it progress if a cannibal uses a knife and fork?
War is as outmoded as cannibalism, chattel slavery, blood-feuds, and dueling, an insult to God and humanity...a daily crucifixion of Christ.
Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.
I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.
If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.
The master's tools will never destroy the master's house.
Conflict is inevitable, but combat is optional.
Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace.
Peace is more important than all justice; and peace was not made for the sake of justice, but justice for the sake of peace.
When asked what he would do if he knew the world would end tomorrow, Martin Luther said, "I would plant a tree."
The belief in he possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.
By doing service, heart and mind are purified -- be convinced of this! To engage in service is a very powerful sadhana (spiritual discipline); do not become impatient. Rather serve your people with the utmost calm and have a kind word for everyone.
The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.
The maxim that people should not have a right till they are ready to exercise it properly, is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim.
It is clear that the way to heal society of its violence . . . and lack of love is to replace the pyramid of domination with the circle of equality and respect.
Accurst be he that first invented war.
If man does find the solution for world peace it will be the most revolutionary reversal of his record that we have ever known.
All social life is essentially practical. All mysterious which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of the practice.
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways: the point is to change it.
If we emphasize the life and works of our greatest contributors . . . people will come to realize that moral courage is bravery of the highest type, and America will be called the "Champion of Peace."
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
You can't lead anyone else further than you have gone yourself.
Warmaking doesn't stop warmaking. If it did, our problems would have stopped millennia ago.
If you love the justice of Jesus Christ more than you fear human judgment then you will seek to do compassion. Compassion means that if I see my friend and my enemy in equal need, I shall help them both equally. Justice demands that we seek and find the stranger, the broken, the prisoner and comfort them and offer them our help. Here lies the holy compassion of God that causes the devils much distress.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world: Indeed it's the only thing that ever has.
I do not believe in using women in combat, because females are too fierce.
Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience. The Christian fight for peace is not to be confused with defeatism.
Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes. If only they could see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time, there would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed . . . I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other.
Many oppressors are also oppressed. Nonviolent confrontation is the only confrontation that allows us to respond realistically to such complexity.
Nonviolence doesn't always work -- but violence never does.
If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having.
There never was a war that was not inward; I must fight till I have conquered in myself what causes war.
"Angry heart -- you have no chance against my prayers."
There is a certain kind of peace that is not merely the absence of war. It is larger than that. The peace I am thinking of is not at the mercy of history's rule, nor is it a passive surrender to the status quo. The peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one -- an activity that occurs most naturally, most often in the reading/writing world we live in. Accessible as it is, this particular kind of peace warrants vigilance.
There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.
We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war, we have to attack that way of life.
Aye, fight! But not your neighbor. Fight rather all the things that cause you and your neighbor to fight.
Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely an absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people.
If we don't stop the bomb who will take care of the flowers?
Poetry is an act of peace. Peace goes into the making of a poet as flour goes into the making of bread.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
I stand at the altar of murdered men, and, while I live, I fight their cause.
Much violence is based on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared.
The world cannot continue to wage war like physical giants and to seek peace like intellectual pygmies
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
Only when there are many people who are pools of peace, silence, understanding, will war disappear.
The more we sweat in peace the less we bleed in war.
If you want peace, work for justice.
We must have research for peace ... It would embrace the outstanding problems of morality. The time has come for man's intellect, his scientific method, to win over the immoral brutality and irrationality of war and militarism ... Now we are forced to eliminate from the world forever this vestige of prehistoric barbarism, this curse to the human race.
When you find peace within yourself, you become the kind of person who can live at peace with others.
Tradition is the living faith of dead people to which we must add our chapter while we have the gift of life. Traditionalism is the dead faith of living people who fear that if anything changes, the whole enterprise will crumble.
A good end sanctify evil means; not must we ever do evil, that good might come of it. We are ready to retaliate, rather than forgive or gain by love and information . . . Force may subdue, but love gains. And one that forgives first wins the laurel.
Let all bear in mind that a society is judged not so much by the standards attained by its more affluent and privileged members as by the quality of life which it is able to assure for its weakest members.
Five enemies of peace inhabit with us--avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride; if these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.
All we ask, God, is to be safe from the rain, just warm enough in winter to watch the snow with a smile, have enough to eat so that our hunger will not turn us to angry beasts, and sanity enough to make justice that will not kill our love of life.
Forge thy tongue on an anvil of truth and what flies up, though it be but a spark, will have light.
If you oppress poor people, you insult the God who makes them; but kindness shown to the poor is an act of worship.
With each dawn, fill us with your love that we may sing and rejoice all our days. Give us joy to balance our affliction, for the times when we know misfortune.
Do you want long life and happiness? Strive for peace with all your heart.
Truly you have formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother's womb. I give you thanks that I am fearfully, wonderfully made; wonderful are your works.
For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.
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."
You can no more win a war than win an earthquake.
In History, stagnant waters, whether they be the stagnant waters of custom or those of despotism, harbour no life; life is dependent on the ripples created by a few eccentric individuals. In homage to that life & vitality, the community has to brave certain perils and must countenance a measure of heresy. One must live dangerously if one wants to live at all.
When nothing seems to help, I go look at a stonecutter hammering away at a rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundredth blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it but all that had gone before.
Bless your persecutors; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Have the same attitude toward all. Put away ambitious thoughts and associate with those who are lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. Never repay injury with injury. See that your conduct is honorable in the eyes of all. If possible, live peacefully with everyone. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves; leave that to God's wrath, for it is written, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay," says the Lord. But "If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; by doing this you will heap burning coals upon their heads." Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good.
The Bible has a very meaningful expression: The Spirit makes all things new. We are those who grow old, and we want everything done to our aged standards. The Spirit is never old; the Spirit is always young.
For it isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.
When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?
The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
The governors of the world believe, and have always believed, that virtue can only be taught by teaching falsehood, and that any man who knew the truth would be wicked. I disbelieve this, absolutely and entirely. I believe that love of truth is the basis of all real virtue, and that virtues based upon lies can only do harm.
War does not determine who is right - only who is left
One must care about a world one will never see.
We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers.
If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
Someday they'll give a war and nobody will come.
When the rich make war, it's the poor that die.
A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished.
When men talk about defense, they always claim to be protecting women and children, but they never ask the women and children what they think.
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.
Until he extends the circle of compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.
God grant me the courage to change the things I can, the patience to accept the things I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference.
If all the Churches of Europe closed their doors until the drums ceased rolling they would act as a most powerful reminder that though the glory of war is a famous and ancient glory, it is not the final glory of God.
Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their kind. It is the deed that teaches not the name we give it.
You see things; and you say, "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?"
Instead of tug o' war, let's play hug o' war.
Since we are to be conformed to the image of Christ, how can we then fight our enemies with the sword? ... Spears and swords of iron we leave to those who, alas, consider human blood and swine's blood of well-nigh equal value ...
Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.
A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.
Past the seeker as he prayed came the crippled and the beggar and the beaten. And seeing them...he cried, "Great God, how is it that a loving creator can see such things and yet do nothing about them?"...God said, "I did do something. I made you."
To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.
Fear less, hope more,
It is folly to punish your neighbor by fire when you live next door.
A bad peace is even worse than war.
They make a desert and call it peace.
To save one life, it is as if you had saved the world.
It is not your obligation to complete your work, but you are not at liberty to quit.
There is nothing more agreeable in life than to make peace with the establishment and nothing more corrupting.
All works of love are works of peace.
I don't do great things. I do small things with great love.
The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty - it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.
When we yield to discouragement it is usually because we give too much thought to the past and to the future.
Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict -- alternatives to passive or aggressive responses, alternatives to violence.
What good is a house, if you haven't got a decent planet to put it on?
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."
Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.
Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
Why does man have reason if he can only be influenced by violence?
The law of violence is not a law, but a simple fact which can only be a law when it does not meet with protest and opposition. It is like the cold, darkness and weight, which people had to put up with until recently when warmth, illumination and leverage were discovered....
All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what the do not want to do.
Men are so accustomed to maintaining external order by violence that they cannot conceive of life being possible without violence.
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
World peace is us....We are each walking agents of the vision of peace we carry inside us.
Respectful dialogue, in the interest of searching for more complete truth, is considerably more productive than arguing for the purity of position.
We challenge the culture of violence when we ourselves act in the certainty that violence is no longer acceptable, that it's tired and outdated no matter how many cling to it in the stubborn belief that it still works and that it's still valid.
The story of the human race is characterized by efforts to get along much more than by violent disputes, although it's the latter that make the history books. Violence is actually exceptional. The human race has survived because of cooperation, not aggression.
The arms race can kill, though the weapons themselves may never be used...by their cost alone, armaments kill the poor by causing them to starve.
The soul of our country needs to be awakened . . .When leaders act contrary to conscience, we must act contrary to leaders.
It is only by feeling your love that the poor will forgive you for the gifts of bread.
Wars are not acts of God. They are caused by man, by man-made institutions, by the way in which man has organized his society. What man has made, man can change.
Activism pays the rent on being alive and being here on the planet.
Don't ever let them pull you down so low as to hate them. (also cited as: I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.)
Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.
If we work in marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal minds and instill into them just principles, we are then engraving upon tablets which no time will efface, but will brighten and brighten to all eternity.
I swore never to be silent whenever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
What is man?
In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.
A time will come when a politician who has willfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not stake their own.
Do all the good you can,
When I have money, I get rid of it quickly, lest it find a way into my heart.
The dark night is over and dawn has begun. Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun! All speech, flow to music; all hearts, beat as one.
Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them more.
In 1989, thirteen nations comprising 1,695,000 people experienced nonviolent revolutions that succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations . . . If we add all the countries touched by major nonviolent actions in our century (the Philippines, South Africa . . . the independence movement in India . . .) the figure reaches 3,337,400,000, a staggering 65% of humanity! All this in the teeth of the assertion, endlessly repeated, that nonviolence doesn't work in the 'real' world.
You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.
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