Peace

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Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God. ~ Yeshua (Jesus Christ)

This page is for quotations on the theme of Peace, alphabetically listed by author.

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Listed alphabetically by author
The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.
Better than a thousand hollow words
Is one word that brings peace.

Better than a thousand hollow verses
Is one verse that brings peace. ~ Gautama Buddha

I do not want the peace that passeth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace. ~ Helen Keller
The pursuit of peace and progress, with its trials and errors, its successes and setbacks, can never be relaxed and never abandoned. ~ Dag Hammarskjöld
All we are saying is give peace a chance. ~ John Lennon
There is no way to peace; peace is the way. ~ A. J. Muste
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. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. ~ Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. ~ George Washington
  • Peace at home, peace in the world.
    • Mustafa Kemal Atatürk , as quoted in many sources including, Atatürk (1963) by Uluğ İğdemir, p. 200; and Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus (2000) by Svante E. Cornell, p. 287; this later became the motto of the Republic of Turkey.
  • There is no trust more sacred than the one the world holds with children. There is no duty more important than ensuring that their rights are respected, that their welfare is protected, that their lives are free from fear and want and that they grow up in peace.
  • If you keep your mind stayed on Jesus, he'll give you peace, that passes all understanding.
  • The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes from within the souls of men when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which is within the souls of men.
    • Black Elk in The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux (1953).
  • Peace is a resistance to the terrible satisfactions of war.
  • Better than a thousand hollow words
    Is one word that brings peace.

    Better than a thousand hollow verses
    Is one verse that brings peace.

    Better than a hundred hollow lines
    Is one line of the law, bringing peace.

  • No matter what someone else has done, it still matters how we treat people. It matters to our humanity that we treat offenders according to standards that we recognize as just. Justice is not revenge — it's deciding for a solution that is oriented towards peace, peace being the harder but more human way of reacting to injury. That is the very basis of the idea of rights.
  • There never was a good war, or a bad peace.
  • Our work for peace must begin within the private world of each one of us. To build for man a world without fear, we must be without fear. To build a world of justice, we must be just. And how can we fight for liberty if we are not free in our own minds? How can we ask others to sacrifice if we are not ready to do so?... Only in true surrender to the interest of all can we reach that strength and independence, that unity of purpose, that equity of judgment which are necessary if we are to measure up to our duty to the future, as men of a generation to whom the chance was given to build in time a world of peace.
  • 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 its errors, its successes and its setbacks, can never be relaxed and never abandoned.
  • The situation of the world is still like this. People completely identify with one side, one ideology. To understand the suffering and the fear of a citizen of the Soviet Union, we have to become one with him or her. To do so is dangerous — we will be suspected by both sides. But if we don't do it, if we align ourselves with one side or the other, we will lose our chance to work for peace. Reconciliation is to understand both sides, to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, and then to go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side. Doing only that will be a great help for peace.
    • Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace, 1987 edition, Parallax Press, Berkeley, CA.
  • They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
  • Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God.
  • I do not want the peace that passeth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace.
    • Helen Keller, as quoted in Henry More: The Rational Theology of a Cambridge Plattonist (1962) by Aharon Lichtenstein
  • True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.
  • We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not enough to say "We must not wage war." It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace. ... We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody that is far superior to the discords of war. Somehow we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race which no one can win to a positive contest to harness man's creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all of the nations of the world. In short, we must shift the arms race into a "peace race". If we have the will and determination to mount such a peace offensive, we will unlock hitherto tightly sealed doors of hope and transform our imminent cosmic elegy into a psalm of creative fulfillment.
  • Make love, not war.
    • Gershon Legman in his lecture Love and death (and schmutz): G. Legman's second thoughts held at University of Ohio in 1963. (According to Dudar, H. (1984, May 1))
  • All we are saying is give peace a chance.
  • Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one.
  • Peace is not the absence of anything. Real peace is the presence of something beautiful. Both peace and the thirst for it have been in the heart of every human being in every century and every civilization.
    • Maharaji; Address to faculty, students and guests at Harvard University's Sanders Theater (August 2004)
  • To have peace and not war, the drift toward a war economy, as facilitated by the moves and the demands of the sophisticated conservatives, must be stopped; to have peace without slump, the tactics and policies of the practical right must be overcome. The political and economic power of both must be broken. The power of these giants of main drift is both economically and politically anchored; both unions and an independent labor party are needed to struggle effective.
  • The American elite does not have any real image of peace — other than as an uneasy interlude existing precariously by virtue of the balance of mutual fright. The only seriously accepted plan for peace is the full loaded pistol. In short, war or a high state of war-preparedness is felt to be the normal and seemingly permanent condition of the United States.
  • Peace hath her victories
    No less renowned than war.
  • There is no way to peace; peace is the way.
    • A. J. Muste, as quoted in The New York Times, (16 November 1967); this has come to sometimes be misattributed to Mahatma Gandhi.
  • If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.
  • Do you know what I admire most in the world? The inability of force to organize anything. There are only two powers in this world, the sword and the spirit ... in the long run the sword is always beaten by the spirit.
    • In an 1808 conversation with Louis-Marcelin de Fontanes, quoted in Madame de Staël et Napoléon (1903) by Henri Guillemin, p. 185, as translated in Dictatorship and Political Police: The Technique of Control by Fear (1945) by Ernest Kohn Bramsted
    • Variant translations:
    • Fontanes, do you know what I admire most in the world ? It is the powerlessness of force to organize anything. There are only two powers in the world, the sword and the mind .... In the long run the sword is always vanquished by the mind.
      • As quoted in "French Literature" by William Koren, in Modern Language Notes, Vol. XX, No. 3, (March 1905), p.97
    • Do you know what astonished me most in the world? The inability of force to create anything. In the long run the sword is always beaten by the spirit.
      • As quoted in A Path With Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life (1993) by Jack Kornfield, p. 29
  • 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.
  • All roads lead to Rome, but some roads to peace lead straight to Pompeii.
  • The best weapon against warmongers is a peaceful solution.
  • Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.
  • Peace will come wherever it is sincerely invited.
    • Alice Walker in Living by the word: selected writings, 1973-1987, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 192, (1989)
  • To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.
    • George Washington, First Annual Address to both Houses of Congress (8 January 1790)
  • Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all.

[edit] Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

  • Two sorts of peace are more to be dreaded than all the troubles in the world — peace with sin, and peace in sin.
  • We shall never be at peace with ourselves until we yield with glad supremacy to our higher faculties.
  • I could not live in peace if I put the shadow of a willful sin between myself and God.
  • How different the peace of God from that of the world! It calms the passions, preserves the purity of the conscience, is inseparable from righteousness, unites us to God and strengthens us against temptations. The peace of the soul consists in an absolute resignation to the will of God.
  • Let not thy peace depend on the tongues of men; for whether they judge well of thee or ill, thou art not on that account other than thyself. Where are true peace and true glory? Are they not in God?
  • When Christ was about to leave the world, He made His will. His soul He committed to His father; His body He bequeathed to Joseph to be decently interred; His clothes fell to the soldiers; His mother He left to the care of John; but what should He leave to His poor disciples that had left all for Him? Silver and gold He had none; but He left them that which was infinitely better, His peace.
  • There have been keen agonies, sore heart-aches, but they have been short, and a sweet peace abides. Can it be His peace? Is it possible that to such a weak, sinful creature as I, the Comforter has indeed come? I must believe this, and that it is His presence that cheers me.
  • After love comes peace. A great many people are trying to make peace. But that has already been done. God has not left it for us to do; all that we have to do is to enter into it.
  • The promise is: "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee." Now, as long as our minds are stayed on our dear selves, we shall never have peace.
  • You may assuredly find perfect peace, if you are resolved to do that which your Lord has plainly required,— and content that He should indeed require no more of you,— than to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with Him.
  • Patience and resignation are the pillars
    Of human peace on earth.

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