Violence: "Action that injures or destroys that to which it is applied" (Blackburn 2010).
"Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind." John Kennedy (1917-1963), 35th President of the United States.
"Up to now, aggression has been an attribute with definite survival advantages. Now, however, it may destroy us all by nuclear or biological war if we cannot control our instinct by our reason." Stephen Hawking, (1942- ), theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author.
"The history of the world is like: he kills me, I kill him. Only with different cosmetics and different castings: so in 2001 some fanatics killed some Americans, and now some Americans are killing some Iraqis. And in my childhood, some Nazis killed Jews. And now, some Jewish people and some Palestinians are killing each other. Political questions, if you go back thousands of years, are ephemeral, not important. History is the same thing over and over again." Der Spiegel Interview with filmmaker Woody Allen (Zuber 2005).
"Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock." Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), neurologist and founder the psychoanalytic school of psychiatry.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey has been taken aback by the scope and variety of potential terrorism threats facing the United States. "I'm surprised by how surprised I am," said Mukasey, who as a federal judge presided over terrorism-related trials in New York. "It's surprising how varied [the threat] is, how many directions it comes from, how geographically spread out it is," he said (Frieden 2008).
"The cause of violence is not ignorance. It is self-interest. Only reverence can restrain violence - reverence for human life and the environment." William Sloan Coffin, Jr. (1924-2006), American Christian clergyman.
"In our evolution we have gone though a phase that has been very male and predatory. And that has beaten now because you can see what is happing in the world right now. It?s the male predatory impulse that was necessary for survival. Fight or flight. But the next phase of human evolution has to be not survival of the fittest but the survival of the wisest." Deepak Chopra (1946- ) Indian-American physician and writer.
"Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence. Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle." Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008), a Soviet and Russian novelist, dramatist, and historian. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970.
"You never need an argument against the use of violence, you need an argument for it." Noam Chomsky (1928- ), American linguist, philosopher and cognitive scientist.
"Beware of those who would use violence, too often it is violence they want and neither truth nor freedom." Louis Lamour (1908-1988), American author. Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1984.
"Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac." George Orwell (1903-1950), English author and journalist.
"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?" Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948), political and spiritual leader of India.
"Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing." Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), five-star general in the United States Army and the 34th President of the United States.
"God hates violence." Euripides (480 BC-406 BC), Ancient Greek playwright.
"The God of peace is never glorified by human violence." Thomas Merton (1915-1968), American Catholic writer and a Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky.
I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those world views. As the director of the Human Genome Project, I have led a consortium of scientists to read out the 3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. I have found there is a wonderful harmony in the complementary truths of science and faith. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., is the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (Collins 2007).
"In a world threatened by sinister and indiscriminate forms of violence, the unified voice of religious people urges nations and communities to resolve conflicts through peaceful means and with full regard for human dignity." Pope Benedict XVI (1927- ).
"Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!" Albert Einstein (1879-1955), theoretical physicist, philosopher and author. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.
"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people." Howard Zinn (1922-2010), American historian, author and activist.
"Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom." Patrick Henry (1736-1799), the first and sixth post-colonial Governor of Virginia and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
"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." Frederick Moore Vinson (1890-1953), the thirteenth Chief Justice of the United States.
"If God is just, I tremble for my country." Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), third President of the United States and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence.
"Opinions founded on prejudice are always sustained with the greatest of violence." Francis Jeffrey (1773-1850), Scottish judge and literary critic.
"Fraud is the homage that force pays to reason." Charles Curtis (1860-1936), 31st Vice President of the United States.
"Claiming that you have got the truth wrapped up does breed violence and intolerance." Timothy Radcliffe (1945- ), Catholic priest and Dominican friar of the English Province.
"In war, truth is the first casualty." Aeschylus (456 BC-455 BC), Ancient Greek playwright.
"War does not determine who is right - only who is left." Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), British philosopher, mathematician, and historian. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950.
"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it." Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Irish writer and poet.
"Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it." Andre Gide (1869-1951), French author. Awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947.
"The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it." H. L. Mencken (1880-1956), American journalist, essayist and magazine editor.
"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One who believes himself the master of others is nonetheless a greater slave than they." Jean Jaques Rousseau (1712-1778), Genevois philosopher, writer and composer.
"Freedom is the recognition that no single person, no single authority of government has a monopoly on the truth, but that every individual life is infinitely precious, that every one of us put on this world has been put there for a reason and has something to offer." Ronald Reagan (1911-2004), 40th President of the United States.
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." James Madison (1751-1836), fourth President of the United States and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
"Peace hath higher tests of manhood than battle ever knew." John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), American Quaker poet.
Hollywood star Clint Eastwood said his acclaimed picture "Letters from Iwo Jima" aimed to show the futility of war, after its European premiere at the 57th Berlin Film Festival. "I think every war has a certain parallel in the futility of it and that's one of the reasons for telling these stories -- they are not pro-war stories." "The emotions of the mothers who lose their sons and the emotions of the women who lose their husbands in war, it's the same regardless of any nationality. And that's what I was just trying to show" (AFP 2005).
"Violence is my last option." Chuck Norris (1940- ), American martial artist and actor.
"Peace is more precious than a piece of land." Anwar Sadat (1918-1981), third President of Egypt. Awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 1978.
"We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force." Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), American clergyman, civil rights activist.
"How can anyone prevail against such pervasive social subjugation? The answer's been here all along. You simply ... disobey. Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Nonviolently, absolutely. But when told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don't. We disobey social protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom. I learned the awesome power of disobedience from Dr.King ... who learned it from Gandhi, and Thoreau, and Jesus, and every other great man who led those in the right against those with the might." Charlton Heston (1923- 2008), American actor, president of the National Rifle Association.
"Five enemies of peace inhabit us - avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride; if these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace." Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374), Italian scholar and poet.
"Nonviolence doesn't always work - but violence never does." Madge Micheels-Cyrus, author and activist.
"The violence done us by others is often less painful than that which we do to ourselves." Fran's de la Rochefoucauld (1613-1680), French author.
"Conquest is not in our principles." Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), third President of the United States and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence.
"Men are so accustomed to maintaining external order by violence that they cannot conceive of life being possible without violence." Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), Russian writer.
"All violence is the result of people tricking themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently those people deserve to be punished." Marshall Rosenberg (1934- ), American psychologist.
"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." George Orwell (1903-1950), English author and journalist.
"It is by no means self-evident that human beings are most real when most violently excited; violent physical passions do not in themselves differentiate men from each other, but rather tend to reduce them to the same state." T.S. Elliot (1888 -1965), American-born English poet, playwright. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.
"In violence we forget who we are." Mary McCarthy (1912-1989), American author and critic.
"All violence, all that is dreary and repels, is not power, but the absence of power." Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American philosopher, lecturer and poet.
"Well, there were sixty-eight people there, and sixty-two of them had no more desire to throw a stone than you had." Mark Twain (1835-1910), American author and humorist.
"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 (1901-1981), Italian philosopher, poet.
"We must also be careful to avoid ingesting toxins in the form of violent TV programs, video games, movies, magazines, and books. When we watch that kind of violence, we water our own negative seeds, or tendencies, and eventually we will think and act out of those seeds." Thich Nhat Hanh (1926- ), Buddhist monk, author and poet.
"War begins with one man's lack of soul, intellect and reasoning." William Cameron (1842-1927), soldier, lawyer and politician. Served as the 39th Governor of Virginia.
"War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace." Thomas Mann (1875-1955), German novelist, short story writer and essayist, 1929 Nobel Prize laureate.
"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity." Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), five-star general in the United States Army and the 34th President of the United States.
"Fondly do we hope, ferverently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away." Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th President of the United States.
"I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind." Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), third President of the United States and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence.
"All wars are civil wars because all men are brothers." Fran's Fenelon (1651-1715), French Roman Catholic theologian, poet and writer.
"The Civil War is not ended: I question whether any serious civil war ever does end." T.S. Elliot (1888 -1965), American-born English poet, playwright. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.
"It is unfortunate, that the efforts of mankind to recover the freedom of which they have been so long deprived, will be accompanied with violence, with errors, & even with crimes. But while we weep over the means, we must pray for the end." Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), third President of the United States and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence.
"But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations...This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution." John Adams (1735-1826), second President of the United States. One of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
"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." Robert E. Lee (1807-1870), commanding general of the Confederate army in the American Civil War.
"It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood...War is hell." William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891), General in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." George Orwell (1903-1950), English author and journalist.
"An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot." Thomas Paine (1737-1809), author, inventor and journalist. One of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
"He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster." Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher.
"Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a Freeman, contending for liberty on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth." George Washington (1732-1799), led America's Continental Army to victory in the American Revolutionary War, first President of the United States.
"In some respects, what this illustrates is the incredible amount of trust we place in even our most junior men and women in the uniform. And I would be loath to change that because of a few examples, because there are a few bad apples. We have over 2 million men and women in uniform, and I believe we should always err on the side of trusting them because virtually all of them -- not 100 percent, but nearly 100 percent -- give us reasons every single day to continue trusting them" (Gates 2010).
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." Thomas Paine (1737-1809), author, inventor and journalist. One of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny." Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), American clergyman, civil rights activist.
Dalai Lama cautioned Americans not to be preoccupied with the economic downturn and to continue working for liberty, freedom and democracy. He suggested international aid for health and education could ward off terrorism. "Too much demoralized, too much sad is not good," said the 75-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner (Sedensky 2010).
The global "war on terror" can't be won if people are living in "desperate" conditions, Archbishop Desmond Tutu told CNN."You can never win a war against terror as long as there are conditions in the world that make people desperate -- poverty, disease, ignorance, et cetera," he said. Archbishop Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 (Lloyd 2007).
"Force is not a remedy." John Bright (1811-1889), Quaker, statesman and orator.
"I know guns don't kill people, but I suspect that they have something to do with it. If you point your finger at someone and say, "Bang, bang, you're dead," not much actually happens." Molly Ivins (1944-2007), American newspaper columnist, political commentator and author.
"The right of self-defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals." James Monroe (1758-1831), fifth President of the United States and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
"Of all the tasks of government, the most basic is to protect its citizens from violence." John Foster Dulles (1888-1959), Served as U.S. Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Received Presidential Medal of Freedom.
"On every question of construction let us carry ourselves back to a time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifest in the debates and instead of trying what meaning many be squeezed out of the text, or invent against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), third President of the United States and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence.
"A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite." George Washington (1732-1799), led America's Continental Army to victory in the American Revolutionary War, first President of the United States.
"This nation was founded on a set of fundamental freedoms. Our Constitution does not give us those freedoms -- it guarantees and protects them. The right to defend ourselves and our loved ones is one of those." Wayne LaPierre (1948- ), Executive Vice President, National Rifle Association.
"Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man." Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), third President of the United States and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence.
"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government." Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), third President of the United States and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence.
"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men." Samuel Adams (1722-1803), statesman, political philosopher. One of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
"Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it." John Adams (1735-1826), second President of the United States. One of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home." James Madison (1751-1836), fourth President of the United States and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th President of the United States.
U.S. says homegrown attack poses biggest risk. The United States faces a heightened threat of terrorist attack "for the foreseeable future" but any attack will likely be homegrown, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Wednesday. Chertoff, who is in charge of ensuring that the country does not face another attack like that of September 11, 2001, said the heightened risk was not based on any intelligence predicting a specific, imminent attack. "I said we were beginning to enter into a period like this. And that didn't mean it was going to be a week, it meant it's for the foreseeable future," he said. "There's probably a greater risk in terms of likelihood from a homegrown attack than from a massive international attack," he added (Charles 2007).
The U.S. is "running out of time" to win the war in Afghanistan, and sending in more troops will not guarantee victory, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, warned Congress. "We can't kill our way to victory, and no armed force anywhere -- no matter how good -- can deliver these keys alone. It requires teamwork and cooperation," Mullen said (CNN 2008).
"A wise man in times of peace prepares for war." Horace (65 BC-8 BC), Roman lyric poet.
"I went into the Army believing that if you want peace you must prepare for war. I now believe that if you prepare thoroughly for war you will get it." John Frederick Maurice (1841-1912), Major-General in the English Army.
This week, the latest counterinsurgency guidance for the American and international units fighting the Afghan war was released by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who commands the International Security Assistance Force. The seven-page document contains little new to anyone who has followed the rise of counterinsurgency thinking within the American military after fighting intensified in post-invasion Iraq. The mission, the commander says, is to protect the Afghans. "The war will be won not by destroying the enemy, but by persuading the people. The international forces will have succeeded when the government of Afghanistan is supported by the population" said McChrystal (Chivers 2009).
"European merchants supply the best weaponry, contributing to their own defeat." Saladin (1138-1193), a Kurdish Muslim, who became the first Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt and Syria.
"We have met the enemy, and he is us." Walt Kelly (1913-1973), American animator and cartoonist.
The U.S. military's top general acknowledged that he made mistakes in his early Iraq war strategy. Marine Gen. Peter Pace, retiring chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and one of the war's military architects, said it's clear he made "errors in assumption." "One of the mistakes I made in my assumptions going in was that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi army would welcome liberation, that the Iraqi army, given the opportunity, would stand together for the Iraqi people and be available to them to help serve the new nation," said Pace (Baldor 2007).
"Respect for the rights of others means peace." Benito Juarez (1806-1872), a Zapotec indian who served five terms as the President of Mexico.
"Conflict is inevitable, but combat is optional." Max Lucado (1955- ), Christian author and minister.
"God must love the common man, he made so many of them." Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th President of the United States.
"We discovered that peace at any price is no peace at all. We discovered that life at any price has no value whatever; that life is nothing without the privileges, the prides, the rights, the joys which make it worth living, and also worth giving. And we also discovered that there is something more hideous, more atrocious than war or than death; and that is to live in fear." Eve Curie (1904-2007), French-American writer.
"Who overcomes by force hath overcome but half his foe." John Milton (1608-1674), English poet.
"No man survives when freedom fails, the best men rot in filthy jails, And those who cry 'appease, appease' Are hanged by those they tried to please." Hiram E. Mann (1921- ), member of "Tuskegee Airmen" during World War II. Awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2008.
"What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step." C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), British novelist, academic, and essayist.
"Violence is the last word of the illiterate. Also the first." Solomon Short, a character conceived by David Gerrold for interstitial aphorisms in his Chtorr novels.
"Peace is the only battle worth waging." Albert Camus (1913-1960), French Algerian author, philosopher and journalist. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957.
"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." E. F. Schumacher (1911-1977), British economist and statistician.
"The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself." Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British Prime Minister. Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature.
"Revenge only engenders violence, not clarity and true peace. I think liberation must come from within." Sandra Cisneros (1954- ), American Author.
"While seeking revenge, dig two graves - one for yourself." Douglas Horton (1891-1968), American Protestant clergyman and academic.
"The degree of civilization in a society is revealed by entering its prisons." Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881), Russian writer and essayist.
"Men who want to support women in our struggle for freedom and justice should understand that it is not terrifically important to us that they learn to cry; it is important to us that they stop the crimes of violence against us." Andrea Dworkin (1946-2005), American feminist and writer.
"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 (1879-1955), theoretical physicist, philosopher and author. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.
"Our future on this planet, exposed as it is to nuclear annihilation, depends on one single factor: humanity must make a moral about-face." Pope John Paul II (1920-2005).
"I decided to devote my life to telling the story because I felt that having survived I owe something to the dead and anyone who does not remember betrays them again." Elie Wiesel (1928- ), Romanian-born Jewish writer, political activist and Holocaust survivor. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.
"Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure; Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure." George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), English Poet.
"It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways." Buddha.
"Those who hate most fervently must have once loved deeply; those who want to deny the world must have once embraced what they now set on fire." Kurt Tucholsky (1890-1935), German-Jewish journalist, satirist and writer.
"The most destructive element in the human mind is fear. Fear creates aggressiveness." Dorothy Thompson (1893-1961), American journalist and radio broadcaster.
"Extreme fear can neither fight nor fly." William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English poet and playwright.
"Why of course the people don't want war. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." Hermann Goering (1893-1946), German military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party.
"The task of this front, therefore, no longer is the protection of single countries, but the safeguarding of Europe and thereby the salvation of all. I therefore decided today again to lay the fate and future of the German Reich and our people in the hands of our soldiers. May God help us especially in this fight!" Adolph Hitler (1889-1945), Austrian-born German politician and Chancellor of Germany. Leader of the Nazi Party.
"Today, we have overwhelming and authentic proof that Russia intended to attack; I can only thank God that He enlightened me at the proper time and that He gave me the strength to do what had to be done! To this, not only millions of German soldiers owe their lives, but Europe its very existence?...With no attempt at an official denial there has now been revealed in America President Roosevelt's plan by which, at the latest in 1943, Germany and Italy were to be attacked in Europe by military means. Germany and Italy have been finally compelled, in view of this, and in loyalty to the Tri-Partite act, to carry on the struggle against the U.S.A. and England jointly and side by side with Japan for the defence and thus for the maintenance of the liberty and independence of their nations and empires." Adolph Hitler (1889-1945), Austrian-born German politician and Chancellor of Germany. Leader of the Nazi Party.
"Nothing is worth more than this day." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), German writer.
"The difference between preventing and destroying life is enormous." Jeanne Monahan, Director of the Center for Human Dignity at the Family Research Council (FRC).
When Does Life Begin? The life of a baby begins long before he or she is born. A new individual human being begins at fertilization, when the sperm and ovum meet to form a single cell. If the baby's life is not interrupted, he or she will someday become an adult man or woman (NRLC 2010).
"Poverty is the worst form of violence." Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948), political and spiritual leader of India.
"If we are going to stop wars on this earth, we are going to have to make war on hunger our number one priority." David W. Brooks (1901-1999), American farmer and businessman.
"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." Vatican statement to the U.N., 1976.
"So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private citizens will occasionally kill theirs." Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915), American writer, artist and philosopher.
"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 governments had better get out of the way and let them have it." Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), five-star general in the United States Army and the 34th President of the United States.
"History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap." Ronald Reagan (1911-2004), 40th President of the United States.
"What We Learned in Oklahoma City. Civic virtue can include harsh criticism, protest, even civil disobedience. But not violence or its advocacy." Bill Clinton (1946- ), 42nd President of the United States.
"Power should not be concentrated in the hands of so few, and powerlessness in the hands of so many." Maggie Kuhn (1905-1995), American activist and founder of the Gray Panthers.
"You can't lead anyone else further than you have gone yourself." Gene Mauch (1925- 2005), American player and manager in Major League Baseball.
"To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine, but to kill a man." Michael Servetus (1511-1553), Spanish theologian, physician and humanist.
"People do not make wars, governments do, and no mother would ever willingly sacrifice her sons for territorial gain, for economic advantage, for ideology. A people free to choose will always choose peace." Ronald Reagan (1911-2004), 40th President of the United States.
"No power but Congress can declare war, but what is the value of this constitutional provision, if the President of his own authority may make such military movements as must bring on war?" Daniel Webster (1782-1852), 14th United States Secretary of State.
"War should be made a crime, and those who instigate it should be punished as criminals." Charles Evans Hughes Sr. (1862-1948) 44th United States Secretary of State and 11th Chief Justice of the United States.
"The democracy process provides for political and social change without violence." Aung San Suu Kyi (1945- ), Burmese opposition politician and a former General Secretary of the National League for Democracy. Awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.
"The survival of democracy depends on the renunciation of violence and the development of nonviolent means to combat evil and advance the good." A. J. Muste (1885-1967), active in the pacifist movement, the labor movement, and the US civil rights movement.
"A people free to choose will always choose peace." Bernice Johnson Reagon (1942), singer, composer, scholar.
"Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us." Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), Russian writer.
"Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it." Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), third President of the United States and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence.
"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 Franklin (1706-1790), author, scientist, political theorist and diplomat. One of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
"Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all." George Washington (1732-1799), led America's Continental Army to victory in the American Revolutionary War, first President of the United States.
"We the People are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts--not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution." Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th President of the United States.
"America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America." Jimmy Carter (1924- ), 39th President of The United States of America. Winner of the Nobel Peace Price.
"Lawlessness is lawlessness. Anarchy is anarchy is anarchy. Neither race nor color nor frustration is an excuse for either lawlessness or anarchy." Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993), first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
"In peace, sons bury their fathers; in war, fathers bury their sons." Herodotus (484 BC-425 BC), Ancient Greek historian.
"A society that presumes a norm of violence and celebrates aggression, whether in the subway, on the football field, or in the conduct of its business, cannot help making celebrities of the people who would destroy it." Lewis H. Lapham (1935- ), American writer and editor.
"I am convinced that the universe is under the control of a loving purpose, and that in the struggle for righteousness man has cosmic companionship." Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), American clergyman, civil rights activist.
"The true and solid peace of nations consists not in equality of arms, but in mutual trust alone." Pope John XXIII (1881-1963).
"What we call Man's power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with nature as its instrument." C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), British novelist, academic, and essayist.
"You can have all the advanced war methods you want, but, after all, nobody has ever invented a war that you don't have to have somebody in the guise of soldiers to stop the bullets." Will Rogers (1879-1935) American actor, humorist and social commentator.
"No society that feeds its children on tales of successful violence can expect them not to believe that violence in the end is rewarded." Margaret Mead (1901-1978), American cultural anthropologist.
"Until he extends the circle of compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace." Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), Franco-German theologian, philosopher and physician. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952.
Rudy Giuliani called Tuesday for less federal control and more regional training to prepare U.S. communities for terrorist attacks and other disasters. Visiting Mississippi, portions of which were devastated in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina, Giuliani pledged to prepare every community for such a disaster. And for those caused by man, as well. "When you're preparing for a natural disaster, you're preparing for a terrorist attack," "We are vulnerable in our smallest community (and) in our largest city," Giuliani said (Pettus 2007).
"The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom." William Orville Douglas (1898-1980), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
"Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good." Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948), political and spiritual leader of India.
"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." John Donne (1572-1631), English poet.
"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 (1847-1931), American inventor, scientist, and businessman.
"I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there's purpose and worth to each and every life." Ronald Reagan (1911-2004), 40th President of the United States.
"All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do." Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), Russian writer.
"From pacifist to terrorist, each person condemns violence - and then adds one cherished case in which it may be justified." Gloria Steinem (1934- ), American journalist and feminist and social activist.
"What the matter, don't you want to win this war?" John Birch (1918-1945), American military intellegence officer, and Baptist Misssionary during WWII.
"I am willing to accept that there might be rare circumstances where applications of force might be effective." Howard Zinn (1922-2010), American historian, author and activist.
"I first learned the concepts of non-violence in my marriage." Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948), political and spiritual leader of India.
"To the wicked, everything serves as pretext." Voltaire (1694-1778), French writer and philosopher.
"There is no truth sure enough to justify persecution." John Milton (1608-1674), English poet.
"The more we sweat in peace the less we bleed in war." Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (1900-1990), Indian diplomat and politician. First woman President of the United Nations General Assembly.
"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." Daniel Webster (1782-1852), 14th United States Secretary of State.
"The most formidable weapons against errors of every kind is reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall." Thomas Paine (1737-1809), author, inventor and journalist. One of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
"Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it." William Penn (1644-1718), English entrepreneur, philosopher and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania.
"They are not following dharma who resort to violence to achieve their purpose. But those who lead others through nonviolent means, knowing right and wrong, may be called guardians of the dharma." Buddha.
"And make not Allah by your swearing (by him) an obstacle to your doing good and guarding (against evil) and making peace between men, and Allah is hearing and knowing." Islam, Qur'an 2.224.
"Through what can the Empire be settled? Through unity. Who can unite it? One who is not fond of killing." Confucianism, Mencius 1.A.6.
"The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace." Judaism, Talmud, Gittin 59b.
"As rivers flow into the ocean but cannot make the vast ocean overflow, so flow the streams of the sense world into the sea of peace that is the sage." Hinduism, Bhagavad Gita 2.70.
"To save one life, it is as if you had saved the world." The Talmud.
"Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God." Christianity, Matthew 5:9 King James Version.
"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." Linus Pauling (1901-1994), American chemist, author, and educator. Awarded two Nobel Prizes, one for Peace and one for Chemistry.
"The world has to be very careful that they don't go after the wrong people. Because if you go after the wrong people, you convert moderates into extremists. It happens every time, and retribution against innocent people just because they have the same religion actually aggravates and perpetuates the problem. You know, terrorists call mechanized death from 35,000 feet above sea level with a press of a button also terror. We don't call it that, because our soldiers are wearing uniforms. They don't see what is happening, and innocent people are being killed. So, you know, terror is a term that you apply to the other." Deepak Chopra (1946- ) Indian-American physician and writer.
"Aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged, ultimately leads to war." John Kennedy (1917-1963), 35th President of the United States.
"People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes." Abigail Van Buren (Pauline Phillips) (1918- ) Author of the advice column Dear Abby.
"Winston could not definitely remember a time when his country had not been at war...war had literally been continuous, though strictly speaking it had not always been the same war. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil." George Orwell (1903-1950), English author and journalist.
"Either war is obsolete or men are." R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983), American architect, author, and futurist.
"In war important events result from trivial causes." Gaius Julius Caesar (100 BC-44 BC), dictator of the Roman Empire.
"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." William Gladstone (1809-1898), four time British Prime Minister.
"War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it." William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891), General in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Voltaire (1694-1778), French writer and philosopher.
"It's not enough to rage against the lie... you've got to replace it with the truth." Bono (1960- ), Irish singer, musician and Human Rights activist.
"Here sir, the people govern." Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804), first United States Secretary of the Treasury. One of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
"We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom." Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), five-star general in the United States Army and the 34th President of the United States.
"Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people." Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964), first Prime Minister of India.
"Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means." Ronald Reagan (1911-2004), 40th President of the United States.
"The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." Albert Einstein (1879-1955), theoretical physicist, philosopher and author. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.
"Nobody is as powerful as we make them out to be." Alice Walker (1944- ), American author and poet. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
"It is certain that the two World Wars in which I have participated would not have occurred had we been prepared. It is my belief that adequate preparation on our part would have prevented or materially shortened all our other wars beginning with that of 1812. Yet, after each of our wars, there has always been a great hue and cry to the effect that there will be no more wars, that disarmament is the sure road to health, happiness, and peace; and that by removing the fire department, we will remove fires. These ideas spring from wishful thinking and from the erroneous belief that wars result from logical processes. There is no logic in wars. They are produced by madmen. No man can say when future madmen will reappear. I do not say that there will be no more wars; I devoutly hope that there will not, but I do say that the chances of avoiding future wars will be greatly enhanced if we are ready." George S. Patton, Jr. (1885-1945), General in the United States Army. Best known for his leadership while commanding corps during World War II.
"If... the machine of government... is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law." Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American author, poet and philosopher.
"We cannot, by total reliance on law, escape the duty to judge right and wrong.... There are good laws and there are occasionally bad laws, and it conforms to the highest traditions of a free society to offer resistance to bad laws, and to disobey them." Alexander Bickel (1924-1974), law professor and commentator on the United States Constitution.
"We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), American clergyman, civil rights activist.
"There are some who've forgotten why we have a military. It's not to promote war; it's to be prepared for peace." Ronald Reagan (1911-2004), 40th President of the United States.
"A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two." Seneca (3 BC-65 AD), Roman philosopher, statesman and dramatist.
"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it." George Orwell (1903-1950), English author and journalist.
"Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it." Albert Einstein (1879-1955), theoretical physicist, philosopher and author. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), third President of the United States and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence.
"An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law." Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), American clergyman, civil rights activist.
"The right to swing my fist ends when the other man's nose begins." Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
"Patriotism varies, from a noble devotion to a moral lunacy." William Ralph Inge (1860-1954), Angelican preist, professor of divinity at Cambridge, Dean of St. Pauls' Cathedral.
"Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious." Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Irish writer and poet.
"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), English poet, writer and critic.
"One of the things that history teaches is that some of the worst things imaginable have been done with the best intentions." Gregory. A Petsko (1948- ), American biohemist and member of the National Academy of Sciences.
"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." Laozi (6th Century BC), philosopher of Ancient China, and is a central figure in Taoism.
"I don't even call it violence when it's in self defense; I call it intelligence." Malcolm X (1925-1965), African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist.
"A little caution outflanks a large cavalry." Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), Minister-President, of Prussia/Germany.
"It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier." Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988), American science fiction writer.
"When you're finished changing, you're finished." Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), author, scientist, political theorist and diplomat. One of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948), political and spiritual leader of India.
"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), Russian writer.
"You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), Russian revolutionary and Marxist theorist.
"Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person." Mother Teresa, Catholic nun of Albanian ethnicity and Indian citizenship, founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India. Beatified by Pope John Paul II.
"Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them more." Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Irish writer and poet.
"Always do right--this will gratify some and astonish the rest." Mark Twain (1835-1910), American author and humorist.
"Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding." Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American philosopher, lecturer and poet.
"You save your soul by saving someone else's body." Arthur Hertzberg (1921- 2006), Jewish-American rabbi and scholar.
"To reach peace, teach peace." Pope John Paul II (1920-2005).
"Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking." Albert Einstein (1879-1955), theoretical physicist, philosopher and author. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.
"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." Alvin Toffler (1928- ), American writer, editor and futurist.
"To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society." Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), 26th President of the United States.
"Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil." C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), British novelist, academic, and essayist.
"Everyone's a pacifist between wars. It's like being a vegetarian between meals." Colman McCarthy (1939- ), American journalist, teacher and activist.
"We are effectively destroying ourselves by violence masquerading as love." R. D. Laing (1927-1989), Scottish psychiatrist and author.
"When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon." Thomas Paine (1737-1809), uthor, inventor and journalist. One of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
"It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners." Albert Camus (1913-1960), French Algerian author, philosopher and journalist. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957.
"There is time for everything." Thomas Edison (1847-1931), American inventor, scientist, and businessman.
"Historically, the most terrible things -- war, genocide, and slavery -- have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience." Howard Zinn (1922-2010), American historian, author and activist.
"War would end if the dead could return." Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947), three time Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
"There is a great streak of violence in every human being. If it is not channeled and understood, it will break out in war or in madness." Sam Peckinpah (1925-1984), American filmmaker and screenwriter.
"There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people." Muhammad Ali (1942 - ), three-time World Heavyweight Boxing Champion.
"A man performs but one duty -- the duty of contenting his spirit, the duty of making himself agreeable to himself." Mark Twain (1835-1910), American author and humorist.
"There is no reason to repeat bad history." Eleanor Holmes Norton (1937- ), US Congressional Delegate.
"Men are at war with each other because each man is at war with himself." Francis X. Meehan (1921- ), Pastor and author.
"But thus I do counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!" Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German Philosopher.
"Women prevent the threads of life from being broken. The finest minds have always understood the peacemaking role of women." Mikhail Gorbachev (1931- ), seventh General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.
"The connection between women's human rights, gender equality, socioeconomic development and peace is increasingly apparent." Mahnaz Afkhami (1941- ), Iranian Human Rights activist. Founder of the Women's Learning Partnership.
"Let us thank God that we live in an age when something has influence besides the bayonet." Daniel Webster (1782-1852), 14th United States Secretary of State.
"Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived." Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th President of the United States.
"Individuals have rights and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights)." Robert Nozick (1938-2002), American political philosopher.
"No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expedience." Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), 26th President of the United States.
"I was once asked why I don't participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I'll be there." Mother Teresa, Catholic nun of Albanian ethnicity and Indian citizenship, founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India. Beatified by Pope John Paul II.
"Peace has its victories no less than war, but it doesn't have as many monuments to unveil." Kin Hubbard (1868-1930), American cartoonist, humorist, and journalist.
"We know how to organize warfare, but do we know how to act when confronted with peace?" Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910-1997), French explorer, filmmaker, scientist and author.
"Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come." Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967), American writer and editor. Winner of three Pulitzer Prizes.
"Last year was "All you need is Love." This year, it's "All you need is Love and peace, baby." The only hope for us is peace. Violence begets violence. You can have peace as soon as you like if we all pull together. You're all geniuses, and you're all beautiful. You don't need anyone to tell you who you are. You are what you are. Get out there and get peace, think peace, and live peace and breathe peace, and you'll get it as soon as you like." John Lennon (1940 - 1980), English singer-songwriter. One of the founding members of The Beatles and peace activist.
"Nothing can bring you peace but yourself; nothing, but the triumph of principles." Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American philosopher, lecturer and poet.
"Today we may say aloud before an awe-struck world: 'We are still masters of our fate. We are still captain of our souls." Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British Prime Minister. Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature.
"Labour to keep alive in your breast the little celestial fire called conscience." George Washington (1732-1799), led America's Continental Army to victory in the American Revolutionary War, first President of the United States.
"If half a century of living has taught me anything at all, it has taught me that nothing can bring you peace but yourself." Dale Breckenridge Carnegie (1888-1955), American writer and lecturer.
"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God." Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), third President of the United States and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence.
"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 (1879-1955), theoretical physicist, philosopher and author. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.
"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 (1803-1882), American philosopher, lecturer and poet.
"A man of character in peace is a man of courage in war." James Glover (1929-2000), General and Commander in Chief, UK Land Forces.
"When good people in any country cease their vigilance and struggle, then evil men prevail." Pearl S Buck (1892-1973) American writer. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 and became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938.
"We cannot change the past, but we can change our attitude toward it." Maya Angelou (1928- ), American autobiographer and poet.
"Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures." John Kennedy (1917-1963), 35th President of the United States.
"We may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin, but we all belong to one human race." Kofi Annan (1938- ), 7th Secretary General of the United Nations. Co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001.
"Peace of mind is attained not by ignoring problems, but by solving them." Raymond Hull (1919-1985), Canadian author, playwright and lecturer.
"We shall never be able to remove suspicion and fear as potential causes of war until communication is permitted to flow, free and open, across international boundaries." Harry S. Truman (1884-1972), 33rd President of the United States.
"We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers." Bayard Rustin (1912-1987), American civil rights activist.
"In all things it is better to hope than to despair." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), German writer.
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that" Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), American clergyman, civil rights activist.
"Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficent policeman." Louis Brandeis (1956-1941), Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States.
"It has perhaps always been the case that the waging of peace is the hardest form of leadership of all. I know of no single formula for success, but over the years I have observed that some attributes of leadership are universal, and are often about finding ways of encouraging people to combine their efforts, their talents, their insights, their enthusiasm and their inspiration, to work together." Queen Elizabeth II.
"Nothing is more precious than peace. Peace is the most basic starting point for the advancement of humankind." Daisaku Ikeda (1928- ), President of Soka Gakkai International , a Buddhist association.
"It is possible to live in peace." Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948), political and spiritual leader of India.
"Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed" (UNESCO 1945).
"We are tethered to our kind, and may as well join hands in the struggle." Agnes Repplier (1855-1950), American essayist.
"The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man or one party or one nation. It must be a peace which rests on the cooperative effort of the whole world". Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945), 32nd President of the United States.
"We must learn to live together as brothers, or we are going to perish together as fools." Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), American clergyman, civil rights activist
"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." Mother Teresa, Catholic nun of Albanian ethnicity and Indian citizenship, founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India. Beatified by Pope John Paul II.
"Peace will be victorious." Yitzhak Rabin (1922-1995), fifth Prime Minister of Israel. Co-recipient of Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." Anne Frank (1929-1945), Jewish victim of the Holocaust who wrote of her experiences in a diary.
"The time is always right to do what is right." Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), American clergyman, civil rights activist.
"And so, to the end of history, murder shall breed murder, always in the name of right and honor and peace, until the gods are tired of blood and create a race that can understand." George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925.
In the recent past, humankind's survival has been nothing short of "a question of touch and go" he says, citing the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963 as just one example of how man has narrowly escaped extinction. In fact, "the frequency of such occasions is likely to increase in the future," says theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, "We shall need great care and judgment to negotiate them all successfully" (Dermont 2010).
"The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men." George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819-1880), English novelist.
"It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good." Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), third President of the United States and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence.
"You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victims." Harriet Woods (1927-2007), American politician, activist and first female Lieutenant Governor of Missouri.
"The main goal of the future is to stop violence. The world is addicted to it." Bill Cosby (1937- ), American comedian, actor and author.
"Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice." Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), Dutch/Portuguese philosopher.
"Peace is always beautiful." Walt Whitman (1819-1892), American poet, essayist and humanist.
