Peace Quotes by

Peace Leaders:

Peace comes from being able to contribute the best that we have, and all that we are, toward creating a world that supports everyone. But it is also securing the space for others to contribute the best that they have and all that they are.

-- Hafsat Abiola

Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

It is possible to live in peace.

-- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

Peace is the respect for the rights of others. (El respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz ).

-- Benito Juarez (1806-1872)

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

-- Malcolm X (1925-1965)

If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.

-- John Lennon (1940-1980)

There is no way to peace; peace is the way.

-- A.J. Muste (1885-1967)

Peace is always beautiful.

-- Walt Whitman (1819-1892) Leaves of Grass

Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.

-- Albert Einstein (1979-1955)

 

Peace is the only battle worth waging.

-- Albert Camus (1913-1960)

The goal toward which all history tends is peace, not peace through the medium of war, not peace through a process of universal intimidation, not peace through a program of mutual impoverishment, not peace by any means that leaves the world too weak or too frightened to go on fighting, but peace pure and simple based on that will to peace which has animated the overwhelming majority of mankind through countless ages. This will to peace does not arise out of a cowardly desire to preserve one's life and property, but out of conviction that the fullest development of the highest powers of men can be achieved only in a world of peace.

-- Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899-1977)

One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

Poetry is an act of peace. Peace goes into the making of a poet as flour goes into the making of bread.

-- Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

Peace Quotes by

Religious Leaders:

Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace.

-- Buddha (560-483 B.C.)

To reach peace, teach peace.

-- Pope John Paul II

If you want peace, work for justice.

-- Pope Paul VI (1897-1978)

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 Theresa (1910-1997)

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

-- Mother Theresa (1910-1997)

Human Beings, indeed all sentient beings, have the right to pursue happiness and live in peace and freedom.

-- The XIVth Dalai Lama

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.

-- Isaiah, II:4

Peace is not the product of terror or fear.
Peace is not the silence of cemeteries.
Peace is not the silent revolt of violent repression.
Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution
of all to the good of all.
Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity.
It is right and it is duty.

-- Bishop Oscar Romero (1917-1980)

Peace Quotes by

Presidents and Military Leaders:

“To announce that there must be no
criticism of the president, or that we
are to stand by the president right or
wrong, is not only unpatriotic and
servile, but is morally treasonable
to the American public.”

Theodore Roosevelt,
U.S. President 1901-1909

*******

“War is a racket”

General Smedley D. Butler. Most
decorated U.S. Marine in history, 1935
(War is a Racket. S.D. Butler)

*******

“If we do not end war,
war is going to end us.”

John F. Kennedy, Lieutenant U.S.N.
President of the United States, 1961.

*******

“We should now proclaim our readiness to
abolish war in concert with the great powers
of the world. The results would be magical.”

“Our government has kept us in a perpetual state
of fear--kept us in a continuous stampede of
patriotic fever--with the cry of grave national
emergency. Always there has been some
terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign
power that was going to gobble us up if we did
not blindly rally behind it...”

“Could I have but a line a century hence
crediting a contribution to the advance of
peace, I would gladly yield every honor which
has been awarded me in war.”

General Douglas MacArthur,
Commander U.S. Forces in the Pacific, World War II, 1945.
(The Pathology of Power, Norman Cousins, Norton , 1987).

“ The lessons of the last six years should be
enough to convince everybody of the
danger of nations striding up and down the
earth armed to the teeth.”

General John (Black Jack) Pershing
Commander in Chief U.S. Forces,
World War-1, 1920
(Three Generals on War Chambers, Garland Press, 1973)

*******

“We know more about war than we do about
peace. We know more about killing than we
do about living.”
General Omar Bradley,
“The Soldier’s General” World War II. 1957
(Missile Envy, Helen Caldicott, Bantam, 1985.)

“We have grasped the secret of the atom and
rejected the Sermon on the Mount.”

General Omar Bradley (Caldicott, Bantam)

*******

“I believe that if we had and would keep our
dirty, bloody dollar-soaked fingers out of the
business of these [Third World] nations so full
of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive
at a solution of their own...at least what they
get will be their own, and not the American
style, which they don’t want and above all don’t
want crammed down their throats by Americans

General David M. Shoup.
Former U.S. Marine Commandant, recipient
of the Medal of Honor after Tarawa, 1966.

*******

“I think we’ll probably destroy ourselves.
I’m not proud of the part I played.”

Admiral Hyman Rickover, 1981
(Address to Congress, 1982)

On WAR & on Declaring WAR

“There never was a time, in my opinion, when a
problem could not be solved without the
drawing of a sword.”

“This war was a dreadful lesson and should
teach us the necessity of avoiding wars in the
future.”

General Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States, 1885.

He had “Let us have Peace” inscribed on the door of his tomb. (Turning the Tide, Noam Chomsky, South End Press,1985)

*******

“Every gun that is made, every warship that
is launched, every rocket that is fired,
signifies--in the final sense--a theft from
those who hunger and are not fed, those
who are cold and not clothed. This world
in arms is not spending money alone. It is
spending the sweat of its laborers, the
genius of its scientists, the hopes of its
children. This is not a way of life at all, in
any true sense. Under the cloud of
threatening war, it is humanity hanging on
a cross of iron.”

“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived
it can, as only one who has seen its
brutality, its futility, its STUPIDITY.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower April 16, 1953.
U.S. general and 34th president (1890-1969)

The Stupidity of War

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscleman for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and specially Tampico safe for American oil interest in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers 1n 1902-1912.

I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927, I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.”

General Smedley D. Butler.
Most decorated U.S. Marine in history,
(Speech in Philadelphia just before his death in 1940.)

“I spent 30 years in the service of our nation, most of them as officer of Marines. Combat duty in Korea and Vietnam confirmed my belief that war is truly stupid behavior. Ten years of additional duties as Nuclear Weapons Employment Officer convinced me that war is now absurd behavior....And I learned that people are much the same the world over. I can attest that the antipathy to war is as strong in Tokyo, Manila, Moscow, London and Ottawa as it is in my home town of Barrington, New Hampshire.”

Col. John F. Barr, USMC 1994.
Former president Veterans For Peace.

www.salsa.net (San Antonio Peace Center)

www.toppun.com

www.thinkexist.com

www.wagingpeace.org

www.widsomquotes.com

www.betterworld.net

www.cultureofpeace.org

www.imaginepeace.net

www.peacepilgrim.com