Nonviolence Quotes - Page 7

• I believe that hope for the future depends on each of us taking nonviolence into our hearts and minds and developing new and imaginative structures which are nonviolent and life-giving for all.

  Mairead Corrigan

  Future, Believe, Heart

  Mairead Corrigan Maguire (2010). “The Vision of Peace: Faith and Hope in Northern Ireland”, p.19, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• Courtesy towards opponents and eagerness to understand their view-point is the ABC of non-violence.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Views, Opponents, Violence

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• Veganism is about nonviolence:
  nonviolence to other sentient beings;
  nonviolence to yourself;
  nonviolence to the earth.

  Gary L. Francione

  Earth, Sentient Beings, Veganism

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• Nonviolence is absolute respect for each human being.

  Adolfo Perez Esquivel

  Peace, Humans, Absolutes

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• Violence sometimes may have cleared away obstructions quickly, but it never has proved itself creative.

  Albert Einstein

  Faith, Inspiration, Creative

  Albert Einstein (2015). “Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations on Just About Everything from the Greatest Mind of the Twentieth Century”, p.55, St. Martin's Press

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• [nonviolence] seeks to secure moral ends through moral means.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Mean, Morality, Ends

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• Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence. Violence is any day preferable to impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Heart, Men, Victory

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• Even a believer in nonviolence has to say between two combatants which is less bad or whose cause is just.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Two, Justice, Causes

  Mahatma Gandhi (1927). “Young India, 1924-1926”

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• Nonviolence is an intensely active force when properly understood and used.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Understanding, Used, Force

  Mahatma Gandhi (1994). “The Gandhi Reader: A Sourcebook of His Life and Writings”, p.310, Grove Press

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• I don't mean go out and get violent; but at the same time you should never be nonviolent unless you run into some nonviolence. I'm nonviolent with those who are nonviolent with me. But when you drop that violence on me, then you've made me go insane, and I'm not responsible for what I do.

  Malcolm X

  Running, Mean, Insane

  "The Ballot or The Bullet". Speech at Cory Methodist Church, Cleveland, Ohio, April 3, 1964.

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• If whites would vote their economic interests, not their racial fears, we the people who have the most need for change have the power to bring about that change nonviolently.

  Jesse Jackson

  Racism, People, Needs

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• 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.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Peace, Philosophy, Struggle

  Kenneth L. Smith, Martin Luther King (Jr.), Ira G. Zepp (1986). “Search for the beloved community: the thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr”, Univ Pr of Amer

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• To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman?

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Spiritual, Sex, Heart

  Mahatma Gandhi (1930). “Young India”

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• We have come a long way in America because of Martin Luther King, Jr. He led a disciplined, nonviolent revolution under the rule of law, a revolution of values, a revolution of ideas. We've come a long way, but we still have a distance to go before all of our citizens embrace the idea of a truly interracial democracy, what I like to call the Beloved Community, a nation at peace with itself.

  John Lewis

  Kings, Distance, Beloved Community

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• The tradition of nonviolence, optimism, concern for the individual, and unconditional compassion that developed in Tibet is the culmination of a slow inner revolution, a cool one, hard to see, that began 2,500 years ago with the Buddha's insight about the end of suffering. What I have learned from these people has forever changed my life, and I believe their culture contains an inner science particularly relevant to the difficult time in which we live.

  Robert Thurman

  Time, Believe, Compassion

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• Commercial interests with their advertising industry do not want people to develop contentment and less greed. Military interests in economic, political, ethnic or nationalist guises, do not want people to develop more tolerance, nonviolence and compassion. And ruling groups in general, in whatever sort of hierarchy do not want the ruled to become too insightful, too independent, too creative on their own, as the danger is that they will become insubordinate, rebellious, and unproductive in their alloted tasks.

  Robert Thurman

  Military, Creativity, Independent

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• If one does not practice nonviolence in one's own personal relations with others and hopes to use it in bigger affairs, one is vastly mistaken.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Mistake, Practice, Doe

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• I think the only choice that will enable us to hold to our vision. . . is one that abandons the concept of naming enemies and adopts a concept familiar to the nonviolent tradition: naming behavior that is oppressive.

  Barbara Deming

  Thinking, Choices, Enemy

  Barbara Deming (1984). “We Are All Part of One Another: A Barbara Deming Reader”

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• My dear friends, God’s creation is one and it is good. The concerns for nonviolence, sustainable development, justice and peace, and care for our environment are of vital importance for humanity. They cannot, however, be understood apart from a profound reflection on the innate dignity of every human life from conception to natural death: a dignity conferred by God himself and thus inviolable.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Reflection, Profound, Justice

  Pope Benedict XVI (2014). “The Garden of God”, p.26, CUA Press

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• The desire for a nonviolent and cooperative world is the healthiest of all psychological manifestations. This is the overarching principle of liberation and revolution. Undoubtedly, it seems the highest order of contradiction that, in order to achieve nonviolence, we must first break with it in overcoming its root causes. Therein lies our only hope.

  Ward Churchill

  Lying, Order, Roots

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• Peace equals ability to handle conflict, with empathy, nonviolence, and creativity.

  Johan Galtung

  Creativity, Empathy, Conflict

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• When we hear the other person's feelings and needs, we recognize our common humanity.

  Marshall B. Rosenberg

  Common Humanity, Feelings, Needs

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• If we face our unpleasant feelings with care, affection, and nonviolence, we can transform them into a kind of energy that is healthy and has the capacity to nourish us. By the work of mindful observation, our unpleasant feelings can illuminate so much for us, offering us insight and understanding into ourselves and society.

  Nhat Hanh

  Offering, Understanding, Healthy

  Thich Nhat Hanh (2005). “Wisdom from Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life”, p.41, Peter Pauper Press, Inc.

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• Absolute hospitality would in no way amount to the absence of violence. To the contrary, it would enthrone violence precisely under the guise of nonviolence because it would leave the violators unchanged and the consequences of violence unremedied.

  Miroslav Volf

  Way, Violence, Hospitality

  Miroslav Volf (2011). “A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good”, p.47, Brazos Press

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• It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Choices, World, Today

  I've Been to the Mountaintop, delivered 3 April 1968, Mason Temple (Church of God in Christ Headquarters), Memphis, Tennessee

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