Peace, Non-violence & Conflict quotes for UPSC & State PCS

War is murder writ large.

All savageness is a sign of weakness.

Worse than war is the very fear of war.

The cause of war is preparation for war.

There never was a good war or a bad peace.

To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.

war is a matter not so much of arms as of money,

Unless a nation's life faces peril, war is murder.

In the dictionary of Satyagraha, there is no enemy.

It has always been easier to destroy than to create.

Either Man will abolish war, or war will abolish Man.

The only way to win the next world war is to prevent it.

Happy the people whose annals are blank in history books!

No nation is fit to sit in judgment upon any other nation.

Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived.

Translation: When the rich make war, it's the poor that die.

Preventive war is like committing suicide for fear of death.

Wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please.

We do not covet anything from any nation except their respect.

War arises from both sides feeling they have a hope of victory.

The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.

A conquering army on the border will not be stopped by eloquence.

The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

The hand of the aggressor is stayed by strength — and strength alone.

Military glory, — that attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood.

It is not possible to make a person or society non-violent by compulsion.

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.

The most pious man can't stay in peace If it doesn't please his evil neighbor.

To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.

Nonviolent resistance is not aimed against oppressors, but against oppression.

True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.

It is easier to denature plutonium than it is to denature the evil spirit of man.

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

In today’s world, the security of every one of us is linked to that of everyone else.

The only certainty in war is human suffering, uncertain costs, unintended consequences.

Conquer anger with love, evil with good, meanness with generosity, and lies with truth.

Patriots always talk of dying for their country, and never of killing for their country.

Peace, freedom and justice are only to be found where people are prepared to defend them.

I only take a half share in the civil war; I am willing to die, I am not willing to kill.

History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.

There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.

Once lead this people into war and they will forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance.

Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with conflict by peaceful means.

You can't separate peace from freedom, because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.

There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation.

There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for.

I do not want the peace that passeth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace.

We confide in our strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others, without fearing it.

You can do a lot with diplomacy, but with diplomacy backed up by force you can get a lot more done.

I know that my unity with all people cannot be destroyed by national boundaries and government orders.

Some do not understand that we must die, But those who do realize this settle their quarrels. (Verse 6)

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its stupidity.

International wars became rare only after 1945, largely thanks to the new threat of nuclear annihilation.

What is love's perfection? To love our enemies, and to love them to the end that they may be our brothers.

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.

One is not called noble who harms living beings. By not harming living beings one is called noble. (Verse 270)

The glory of the nation you love is a desirable end, — but generally to be obtained at your neighbor's expense.

He doesn't belong to a race clever enough to split the atom but not clever enough to live at peace with itself.

But he understood from hard-earned experience that true security comes through making peace with your neighbors.

Bombs and pistols do not make a revolution. The sword of revolution is sharpened on the whetting-stone of ideas.

Without forgiveness there can be no future for a relationship between individuals or within and between nations.

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.

Ideologies are not defeated with guns, they’re defeated by better ideas -- a more attractive and compelling vision.

The gravity of the time is such that every new avenue of peace, no matter how dimly discernible, should be explored.

The United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name...We must be impartial in thought as well as in action.

There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.

India wants to avoid a war at all costs but it is not a one-sided affair, you cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.

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.

Arms observe no bounds; nor can the wrath of the sword, once drawn, be easily checked or stayed; war delights in blood.

Let us live happily then, not hating those who hate us! among men who hate us let us dwell free from hatred! (Verse 197)

Trees, though they are cut and lopped, grow up again quickly, but if men are destroyed, it is not easy to get them again.

Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don't believe is right.

It is a common mistake in going to war to begin at the wrong end, to act first, and wait for disaster to discuss the matter.

The time must come when, great and pressing as change and betterment may be, they do not involve killing and hurting people.

Victory begets enmity; the defeated dwell in pain. Happily the peaceful live, discarding both victory and defeat. (Verse 201)

The 1930's taught us a clear lesson: aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged ultimately leads to war.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

Hate not the oppressor, for, if he is strong, thy hate increases his force of resistance; if he is weak, thy hate was needless.

And happiness is thought to depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make war that we may live in peace.

The only thing that will redeem mankind is co-operation, and the first step towards co-operation lies in the hearts of individuals.

All tremble at the rod, all are fearful of death. Drawing the parallel to yourself, neither kill nor get others to kill. (Verse 129)

War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen and unsupposed circumstances ... that no human wisdom can calculate the end.

As for me, I cease not to advocate peace. It may be on unjust terms, but even so it is more expedient than the justest of civil wars.

There is a price which is too great to pay for peace, and that price can be put in one word. One cannot pay the price of self-respect.

The time for the healing of the wounds has come. The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come. The time to build is upon us.

The shaft of the arrow had been feathered with one of the eagle's own plumes. We often give our enemies the means of our own destruction.

War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.

Of all evils of war the greatest is the purely spiritual evil: the hatred, the injustice, the repudiation of truth, the artificial conflict.

We cannot escape the prospect of nuclear war unless we all commit to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and pursuing a world without them.

Money is always to be found when men are to be sent to the frontiers to be destroyed: when the object is to preserve them, it is no longer so.

Fanaticism is the danger of the world, and always has been, and has done untold harm. I might almost say that I was fanatical against fanaticism.

Conquer the hateful man with love; conquer the bad man with goodness; conquer the miser with generosity; conquer the liar with truth. (Verse 223)

For a new type of progress throughout the world to become a reality, everyone must change. Tolerance is the alpha and omega of a new world order.

The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold...The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war betwixt princes.

The peace we seek and need means much more than mere absence of war. It means the acceptance of law, and the fostering of justice, in all the world.

Having defeated your enemy you have to choose (unless you want another war within a generation) between exterminating him and treating him generously.

When Pack meets with Pack in the Jungle, and neither will go from the trail, Lie down till the leaders have spoken—it may be fair words shall prevail.

Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.

Among the calamities of war may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.

A destruction only man can provoke, only man can prevent. Mankind must remember that peace is not God's gift to his creatures, it is our gift to each other.

Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?

Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.

None of us is in a position to eliminate war, but it is our obligation to denounce it and expose it in all its hideousness. War leaves no victors, only victims.

Unless the Security Council is restored to its pre-eminent position as the sole source of legitimacy on the use of force, we are on a dangerous path to anarchy.

There are only two cases in which war is just: first, in order to resist the aggression of an enemy, and second, in order to help an ally who has been attacked.

A nation's hope of lasting peace cannot be firmly based upon any race in armaments but rather upon just relations and honest understanding with all other nations.

We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together and if we are to live together we have to talk.

One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.

Only when an ideal of peace is born in the minds of the peoples will the institutions set up to maintain this peace effectively fulfill the function expected of them.

If any one is angry with you, meet his anger by returning benefits for it: a quarrel which is only taken up on one side falls to the ground: it takes two men to fight.

More than ever before in human history, we share a common destiny. We can master it only if we face it together. And that, my friends, is why we have the United Nations.

Neither we nor the Soviet Union can wish away the differences between our two societies and our philosophies, but we should always remember that we do have common interests.

The time has come to educate people, to cease all quarrels in the name of religion, culture, countries, different political or economic systems. Fighting is useless. Suicide.

In circumstances where the law of force prevails, where security depends on power alone, the weakest party is naturally the most busy to place itself in a posture of defense.

It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive manifestations of their aggressiveness.

Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.

Our object should be peace within, and peace without. We want to live peacefully and maintain cordial friendly relations with our immediate neighbours and with the world at large.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down.

For every idealistic peacemaker willing to renounce his self-defence in favour of a weapons-free world, there is at least one warmaker anxious to exploit the other's good intentions.

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 and democracy?

The real cause I consider to be the one which was formerly most kept out of sight. The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired the Lacedaemon, made war inevitable.

The great need in the world today is for for nations to so define their national interest that it makes for greater harmony, greater equality and justice and greater stability in the world.

Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but left to its own course it ends in power's disappearance.

History teaches us that war is not inevitable. Once again, it is for us to choose whether we use war or some other method of settling the ordinary and unavoidable conflicts between groups of men.

Terrorism must be outlawed by all civilized nations — not explained or rationalized, but fought and eradicated. Nothing can, nothing will justify the murder of innocent people and helpless children.

I pledge you that we will neither commit nor provoke aggression, that we shall neither flee nor invoke the threat of force, that we shall never negotiate out of fear, we shall never fear to negotiate.

Peace ought to be the result of a system well considered, founded on the true interests of the different countries, honorable to each, and ought not to be either a capitulation or the result of a threat.

We can gain no lasting peace if we approach it with suspicion and mistrust or with fear. We can gain it only if we proceed with the understanding, the confidence, and the courage which flow from conviction.

We believe in peace and peaceful development, not only for ourselves but for people all over the world. Our main preoccupation is with economic and social development at home and peace and friendship abroad.

We must all learn to live together as brothers — or we will all perish together as fools. This is the great issue facing us today. No individual can live alone; no nation can live alone. We are tied together.

As long as weapons of mass destruction exist, primarily nuclear weapons, the danger is colossal. All nations should declare... that nuclear weapons must be destroyed. This is to save ourselves and our planet.

14. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

On the streets of Moscow, looking into thousands of faces, I was reminded once again that it’s not people who make war, but governments — and people deserve governments that fight for peace in the nuclear age.

Nuclear weapons are like a rifle hanging on the wall in a play. We did not write the play, we are not staging it and we do not know what the author intends. Anyone could take the rifle from the wall at any time.

We will at all times be ready to talk, if talk will help. But we must also be ready to resist with force, if force is used upon us. Either alone would fail. Together, they can serve the cause of freedom and peace.

I believe with all my heart that our first priority must be world peace, and that use of force is always and only a last resort, when everything else has failed, and then only with regard to our national security.

Those who continue to fight for a hateful cause will find they are increasingly alone. For we will not succumb to threats, and we will demonstrate that the future belongs to those who build — not those who destroy.

By its very nature, non-violence cannot ‘seize’ power, nor can that be its goal. But non-violence can do more; it can effectively control and guide power without capturing the machinery of government. That is its beauty.

No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one. You can wipe out your opponents. But if you do it unjustly you become eligible for being wiped out yourself.

It would be easy for us, if we do not learn to understand the world and appreciate the rights, privileges and duties of al other countries and peoples, to represent in our power the same danger to the world that Fascism did.

We must all turn our backs upon the horrors of the past. We must look to the future. We cannot afford to drag forward cross the years that are to come the hatreds and revenges which have sprung from the injuries of the past.

The accident at Chernobyl showed again what an abyss will open if nuclear war befalls mankind. For inherent in the nuclear arsenals stockpiled are thousands upon thousands of disasters far more horrible than the Chernobyl one.

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.

For we seek not the worldwide victory of one nation or system but a worldwide victory of man. The modern globe is too small, its weapons are too destructive, and its disorders are too contagious to permit any other kind of victory.

In our search for a lasting solution to the Kashmir problem, both in its external and internal dimensions, we shall not traverse solely on the beaten track of the past. Mindsets will have to be altered and historical baggage jettisoned.

Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free. True peace with oneself and with the world around us can only be achieved through the development of mental peace.

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.

You never compromise with violence. You never compromise with intimidation. You never compromise by those who want to use those to extinguish freedom and democracy, because if you do then the very things for which you stand are extinguished.

Chronic disputes which divert precious resources from the needs of the people or drain the energies of both sides serve the interests of no one — and the badge of responsibility in the modern world is a willingness to seek peaceful solutions.

And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter of human rights — the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation — the right to breathe air as nature provided it — the right of future generations to a healthy existence?

So long as antimilitarists propose no substitute for war's disciplinary function, no moral equivalent of war, analogous, as one might say, to the mechanical equivalent of heat, so long they fail to realize the full inwardness of the situation.

The point of having nuclear weapons is to deter a war of any kind. They have succeeded in doing so for the past 37 years. To be an effective deterrent a potential aggressor must believe that under certain circumstances such weapons will be used.

If Greeks and Germans cannot agree on a common destiny, and if 500 million affluent Europeans cannot absorb a few million impoverished refugees, what chances do humans have of overcoming the far deeper conflicts that beset our global civilisation?

Mass non-violent protest is predicated on the humanity of the oppressor. Quite often it doesn't work. Sometimes it does, in unexpected ways. But judgements about that would have to be based on intimate knowledge of the society and its various strands.

Lasting peace is sought, it is essential to adopt international measures to improve the lot of the masses. The welfare of the entire human race must replace hunger and oppression. People of the world must be taught to give up envy, avarice and rancour.

War damages, the fabric of civilisation not by the destruction it causes (the net effect of a war may even be to increase the productive capacity of the world as a whole) nor even by the slaughter of human beings, but by the stimulated hatred and dishonesty.

Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail. So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners to it. Our problems must be dealt with through partnership; progress must be shared.

Taken on the whole, I would believe that Gandhi's views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit... not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in what we believe is evil.

A time will come when a politician who has willfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not stake their own.

If in the modern world wars have unfortunately to be fought (and they do, it seems) then they must be stopped at the first possible moment, otherwise they corrupt us, they create new problems and make our future even more uncertain. That is more than morality; it's sense.

No people on earth can be held, as a people, to be an enemy, for all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and justice. ... No nation's security and well-being can be lastingly achieved in isolation but only in effective cooperation with fellow-nations.

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connexion as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.

So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, those who promote conflict rather than the co-operation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end.

I always disagree, however, when people end up saying that we can only combat Communism, Fascism or what not if we develop an equal fanaticism. It appears to me that one defeats the fanatic precisely by not being a fanatic oneself, but on the contrary by using one's intelligence.

We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate.

We are committed to the proposition that principles of morality and considerations for our own security will never permit us to acquiesce in a peace dictated by aggressors and sponsored by appeasers. We know that enduring peace cannot be bought at the cost of other people's freedom.

It took a man like Madiba to free not just the prisoner, but the jailer as well to show that you must trust others so that they may trust you; to teach that reconciliation is not a matter of ignoring a cruel past, but a means of confronting it with inclusion and generosity and truth.

Ultimately, peace is just not about politics. It’s about attitudes; about a sense of empathy; about breaking down the divisions that we create for ourselves in our own minds and our own hearts that don’t exist in any objective reality, but that we carry with us generation after generation.

As a movement we recognise the legitimacy of Palestinian nationalism just as we recognise the legitimacy of Zionism as a Jewish nationalism. We insist on the right of the state of Israel to exist within secure borders but with equal vigour support the Palestinian right to national self-determination.

Wars are fought to gain a certain objective. War itself is not the objective; victory is not the objective; you fight to remove the obstruction that comes in the way of your objective. If you let victory become the end in itself then you've gone astray and forgotten what you were originally fighting about.

We cannot say much about human affairs with any confidence, but sometimes it is possible. We can, for example, be fairly confident that either there will be a world without war, or there won't be a world—at least, a world inhabited by creatures other than bacteria and beetles, with some scattering of others.

In bitter despair, some people have come to believe that wars are inevitable. With tragic fatalism, they insist that wars have always been, of necessity, and of necessity wars always will be. To such defeatism, men and women of good will must not and can not yield. The outlook for humanity is not so hopeless.

An aggressive war is the great crime against everything good in the world. A defensive war, which must necessarily turn to aggressive at the earliest moment, is the necessary great counter-crime. But never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. Ask the infantry and ask the dead.

Without disarmament there can be no lasting peace. On the contrary, the continuation of military armaments in their present extent will with certainty lead to new catastrophies...For the creation of this public opinion in favor of disarmament every person living shares the responsibility, through ever deed and every word.

I understand why war is not popular, but I also know this: The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it. Peace requires responsibility. Peace entails sacrifice. That's why NATO continues to be indispensable. That's why we must strengthen U.N. and regional peacekeeping, and not leave the task to a few countries.

Great Britain could have no other object but to use her whole influence and resources consistently over a long period of years to weave France and Germany so closely together economically, socially and morally, as to prevent the occasion of quarrels and make their causes die in a realization of mutual prosperity and interdependence.

The Gandhian influence dominated freedom struggles on the African continent right up to the 1960s because of the power it generated and the unity it forged among the apparently powerless. Nonviolence was the official stance of all major African coalitions, and the South African A.N.C. remained implacably opposed to violence for most of its existence.

Chinese irredentism and Communist imperialism are different from the expansionism or imperialism of the Western powers. The former has a cloak of ideology which makes it ten times more dangerous. In the guise of ideological expansion lie concealed racial, national and historical claims. The danger from the north and north-east becomes both communist and imperialist.

For laws are silent among arms.

Where there is fear there is aggression.

Our patience will achieve more than our force.

The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.

Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart.

Threats alone are the weapons of the threatened man.

Those who deny Auschwitz would be ready to remake it.

The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear.

Today, a nation ringed by walls would only imprison itself.

Fanaticism must be put to sleep before it can be eradicated.

I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile — hoping it will eat him last.

A very great part of the mischiefs that vex the world arises from words.

No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.

Arms are of little value in the field unless there is wise counsel at home.

Real power means you can get what you want without having to exert violence.

An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.

You cannot build a great nation or brotherhood of man by spreading envy or hatred.

The true conquests, the only ones that cause no regret, are those made over ignorance.

Disarmament without checks is but a shadow — and a community without law is but a shell.

No religion has mandated killing others as a requirement for its sustenance or promotion.

It is sad that often, to be a good patriot, one must be the enemy of the rest of mankind.

The golden rule of conduct is mutual toleration, seeing that we will never all think alike

It is the enemy who can truly teach us to practice the virtues of compassion and tolerance.

Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours.

No religion is responsible for terrorism — people are responsible for violence and terrorism.

It seems to me certain that more people are killed out of righteous stupidity than out of wickedness.

The reason for having diplomatic relations is not to confer a compliment, but to secure a convenience.

Justice does not require that men must stand idly by while others destroy the basis of their existence.

One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him.

You may either win your peace, or buy it:—win it, by resistance to evil;—buy it, by compromise with evil.

Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.

The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.

I have always held that social justice, even to the least and lowliest, is impossible of attainment by force.

No nation was ever so virtuous as each believes itself, and none was ever so wicked as each believes the other.

Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can.

Sectarian feelings and criticism of other teachings or other sects is very bad, poisonous, and should be avoided.

We must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.

Where freedom is menaced or justice threatened or where aggression takes place, we cannot be and shall not be neutral.

The ideally non-violent state will be an ordered anarchy. That State is the best governed which is governed the least.

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty.

In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?

We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.

These terrorist acts are aimed at destroying our social fabric, undermining communal harmony and demoralising our people.

It is an unfailing maxim, that if policy enjoins an act of violence, its execution must never be entrusted to the violent.

In countries where associations are free, secret societies are unknown. In America there are factions, but no conspiracies.

Democracy cannot be imposed on any nation from the outside. Each society must search for its own path, and no path is perfect.

It is quite possible to be both. I look upon myself as a man. Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.

It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere.

Every war, when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defence against a homicidal maniac.

The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.

The essential job is to get people to recognise war propaganda when they see it, especially when it is disguised as peace propaganda.

The wars fanned the wings of science, and science brought to mankind a thousand blessings, a thousand problems and a thousand perils.

If I become so convinced that ‘I’m always right,’ the logical conclusion of that often ends up being great cruelty and great violence.

Terrorism has long been a tactic, but modern technology allows a few small men with outsized rage to murder innocents on a horrific scale.

Patched-up diplomatic solutions designed to answer the needs of the moment rarely last, and as they unravel they can actually make things worse.

Especially now when views are becoming more polarized, we must work to understand each other across political, religious and national boundaries.

I had anger but never hate. Before the war, I was too busy studying to hate. After the war, I thought, What's the use? To hate would be to reduce myself.

We have heard the rationales offered by the nuclear superpowers. We know who speaks for the nations. But who speaks for the human species? Who speaks for Earth?

The tongue is like a sharp knife, it kills without drawing blood; words in the hands of someone skilled can do more damage than a weapon in the hands of a warrior.

We have not invaded anyone. We have not conquered anyone. We have not grabbed their land, their culture, their history and tried to enforce our way of life on them.

There is -- in world affairs -- a steady course to be followed between an assertion of strength that is truculent and a confession of helplessness that is cowardly.

To be choked with hate May well be of all evil chances chief. If there’s no hatred in a mind Assault and battery of the wind Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.

I believe in the brotherhood of all men, but I don't believe in wasting brotherhood on anyone who doesn't want to practice it with me. Brotherhood is a two-way street.

I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.

A person who does not disturb the world and who cannot be disturbed by the world, who is free from exultation, jealousy, apprehension, and worry - he too is dear to Me.

All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us.

It is doubly chimerical to build peace on economic foundations which, in turn, rest on the systematic cultivation of greed and envy, the very forces which drive men into conflict.

We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians; without the resolution of conflicts in East Timor, the Sudan and other parts of the world.

There's no simple formula here. But we must try as best we can to balance isolation and engagement, pressure and incentives, so that human rights and dignity are advanced over time.

I think what the Nobel committee is doing is going beyond war and looking at what humanity can do to prevent war. Sustainable management of our natural resources will promote peace.

We need to create a world that is equitable, that is stable and a world where we bear in mind the needs of others, and not only what we need immediately. We are all in the same boat.

The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.

Non-violence and kindness to living beings is kindness to oneself. For thereby one's own self is saved from various kinds of sins and resultant sufferings and is able to secure his own welfare.

We, on our side, are praying Him to give us victory, because we believe we are right; but those on the other side pray to Him, look for victory, believing they are right. What must He think of us?

I hold the opinion firmly that Civil Disobedience is the purest type of constitutional agitation. Of course, it becomes degrading and despicable if its civil, i.e. non-violent character is a mere camouflage.

Iraq's invasion of Kuwait defies every principle for which the United Nations stands. If we let it succeed, no small country can ever feel safe again. The law of the jungle would take over from the rule of law.

When there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence… I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than to remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour.

Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.

Leadership means a wise application of military power, and rallying the world behind causes that are right. It means seeing our foreign assistance as part of our national security, not something separate, not charity.

Let the public good overcome all private and selfish regards of every kind and degree; though in truth, even private and selfish regards, and every man's own interest, will be best promoted by the preservation of peace.

I have learnt through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power which can move the world.

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. (Verse 100)

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again.

If you give way, you will instantly have to meet some greater demand, as having been frightened into obedience in the first instance; while a firm refusal will make them clearly understand that they must treat you more as equals.

You can make the Ring an allegory of our own time, if you like: an allegory of the inevitable fate that awaits all attempts to defeat evil power by power. But that is only because all power magical or mechanical does always so work.

History is full of religious wars; but, we must take care to observe, it was not the multiplicity of religions that produced these wars, it was the intolerating spirit which animated that one which thought she had the power of governing.

Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens there can be no free and independent nations. Without internal peace, that is, peace among citizens and between the citizens and the state, there can be no guarantee of external peace.

The right of no nation depends upon the date of its birth or the size of its power. As there can be no second class citizens before the law of America, so—we believe—there can be no second-class nations before the law of the world community.

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

In reality there are as many religions as there are individuals.... Religions are different roads converging to the same point. What does it matter that we take different roads, so long as we reach the same goal. Wherein is the cause for quarreling?

True democracy or the swaraj of the masses can never come through untruthful and violent means, for the simple reason that the natural corollary to their use would be to remove all opposition through the suppression or extermination of the antagonists.

Terrorists who try to sow chaos, they must be met with force and they must also be met, though, with a forceful commitment to uphold the rule of law, and respect for human rights, and to treat everybody who’s peaceful and law-abiding fairly and equally.

Love is better than hate, because it brings harmony instead of conflict into the desires of the persons concerned. Two people between whom there is love succeed or fail together, but when two people hate each other the success of either is the failure of the other.

It is time, we repeat, that this monstrous slumber of men's consciences should end. It must not be, after that fearful scandal, the triumph of crime, that a scandal still more fearful should be presented to mankind: the indifference of the civilized world. Book I, III

Truly, if the preservation of all mankind, as much as in him lies, were every one's persuasion, as indeed it is every one's duty, and the true principle to regulate our religion, politicks and morality by, the world would be much quieter, and better natur'd than it is.

People marched and demonstrated, and the Berlin Wall fell, and communism was ended. People marched and demonstrated, and apartheid ended. And democracy and freedom were born. And now people are marching, and people are demonstrating, because people are saying no to war!

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat; But there is neither East nor West, border, nor breed, nor birth, When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!

Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause; and I was not without hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy of the present age would have put an effectual stop to contentions of this kind.

Human destiny will be what we make of it. And here in Prague, let us honor our past by reaching for a better future. Let us bridge our divisions, build upon our hopes, accept our responsibility to leave this world more prosperous and more peaceful than we found it. Together we can do it.

We want freedom for our country, but not at the expense or exploitation of others, not us to degrade other countries…I want the freedom of my country so that other countries may learn something from my free country so that the resources of my country might be utilized for the benefit of mankind.

In the 1930s Japanese generals, admirals, economists and journalists concurred that without control of Korea, Manchuria and the Chinese coast, Japan was doomed to economic stagnation. They were all wrong. In fact, the famed Japanese economic miracle began only after Japan lost all its mainland conquests.

Recognizing economic health as an indispensable basis of military strength and the free world's peace, we shall strive to foster everywhere, and to practice ourselves, policies that encourage productivity and profitable trade. For the impoverishment of any single people in the world means danger to the well-being of all other peoples.