Peace Quotes - Page 26

• There never has been a war yet which, if the facts had been put calmly before the ordinary folk, could not have been prevented ... The common man, I think, is the great protection against war.

  Ernest Bevin

  War, Thinking, Men

  Hansard 23 Nov. 1945, col. 786

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• The followers of Christ have been called to peace. . . . And they must not only have peace but make it. And to that end they renounce all violence and tumult. In the cause of Christ nothing is to be gained by such methods . . . . His disciples keep the peace by choosing to endure suffering themselves rather than inflict it on others. They maintain fellowship where others would break it off. They renounce hatred and wrong. In so doing they overcome evil with good, and establish the peace of God in the midst of a world of war and hate.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Hate, War, Evil

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• There remains an experience of incomparable value . . . to see the great events of world history from below; from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled ---- in short, from the perspective of those who suffer . . . to look with new eyes on matters great and small.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Eye, Perspective, Suffering

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1998). “Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Writings”

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

  John Boyes

  Voice, Violence, Reason

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

  Aristide Briand

  Writing, Gun, Steel

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• All that a pacifist can undertake -- but it is a very great deal -- is to refuse to kill, injure or otherwise cause suffering to another human creature, and untiringly to order his life by the rule of love though others may be captured by hate.

  Vera Brittain

  Hate, Order, Suffering

  "What Can We Do In Wartime?", September 9, 1939.

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• . . . [T]o live not with hands clenched to grasp, to strike, to hold tight to a life that is always slipping away the more tightly we hold it, but . . . to live with the hands stretched out both to give and receive with gladness.

  Frederick Buechner

  Hands, Giving, Slipping

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• You know, if people are not pacifists, it's not their fault. It's because society puts them in that spot. You've got to change it. You don't just change a man - you've got to change his environment as you do it.

  Cesar Chavez

  Men, People, Society

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• We have created not a Brave New World, but a vulgar marketplace, where human attributes come with a price tag.

  Linda Chavez

  Brave New World, Price Tag, Attributes

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• The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.

  Pema Chodron

  Happiness, Spiritual, Honesty

  Pema Chodron (2001). “The Wisdom of No Escape: And the Path of Loving Kindness”, p.43, Shambhala Publications

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• Sports plays a societal role in engendering jingoist and chauvinist attitudes. They're designed to organize a community to be committed to their gladiators.

  Noam Chomsky

  Sports, Attitude, Play

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• War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds.

  Carl von Clausewitz

  War, Limits, Violence

  "On War (Book 1)". Book by Carl von Clausewitz, 1832.

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• No government can love a child, and no policy can substitute for a family's care. But at the same time, government can either support or undermine families as they cope with moral, social and economic stresses of caring for children.

  Hillary Clinton

  Children, Stress, Caring

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• Can it be that a generation of school children is growing up heedless of the simple truth that the Pentagon's centrla role for many years has been to buy weapons that don't work, against threats that don't exist?

  Alexander Cockburn

  Children, Growing Up, School

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• I believe we are on the edge of a quantum leap into a whole new way of organizing and living as a human family.

  Mairead Corrigan

  Believe, Way, Quantum

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

  Dorothy Day

  Community Living, Giving, Penance

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• God, make me so uncomfortable that I will do the very thing I fear.

  Ruby Dee

  Uncomfortable, American Woman

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• 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.

  Charles de Gaulle

  Crush, War, Heart

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• Gandhi once declared that it was his wife who unwittingly taught him the effectiveness of nonviolence. Who better than women should know that battles can be won without resort to physical strength? Who better than we should know all the power that resides in noncooperation?

  Barbara Deming

  Effectiveness, Wife, Battle

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

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• To resort to power one need not be violent, and to speak to conscience one need not be meek. The most effective action both resorts to power and engages conscience. Nonviolent actions does not have to get others to be nice. It can in effect force them to consult their consciences. Nor does it have to petition those in power to do something about a situation. It can face the authorities with a new fact and say: Accept this new situation which we have created.

  Barbara Deming

  Nice, Doe, Needs

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• Sexism is the foundation on which all tyranny is built. Every social form of hierarchy and abuse is modeled on male-over-female domination.

  Andrea Dworkin

  Abuse, Foundation, Males

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• Men are rewarded for learning the practice of violence in virtually any sphere of activity by money, admiration, recognition, respect, and the genuflection of others honoring their sacred and proven masculinity. In male culture, police are heroic and so are outlaws; males who enforce standards are heroic and so are those who violate them.

  Andrea Dworkin

  Men, Practice, Police

  Andrea Dworkin (1989). “Pornography: men possessing women”, Plume

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• What good is it to me that Mary gave birth to the son of God fourteen hundred years ago, and I do not also give birth to the Son of God in my time and in my culture? We are all meant to be mothers of God. God is always needing to be born.

  Meister Eckhart

  Mother, Son, Years

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• Surely it is not true blessedness to be free of sorrow while there is sorrow and sin in the world. Sorrow is a part of love and love does not seek to throw it off.

  George Eliot

  Love, Sorrow, Doe

  George Eliot (2005). “Four Novels of George Eliot”, p.227, Wordsworth Editions

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• History has a long-range perspective. It ultimately passes stern judgment on tyrants and vindicates those who fought, suffered, were imprisoned, and died for human freedom, against political oppression and economic slavery.

  Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

  Freedom, Tyrants, Long

  Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1949). “Labor's Own William Z. Foster: A Communist's Fifty Years of Working-class Leadership and Struggle”, New York : New Century Publishers

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