“Bringing
up the subject of an education for peace in
such critical times as these, when society is
continually threatened by the possibility of
war, may appear to be the most naïve kind
of idealism. I nonetheless believe that laying
the foundations for peace through education
is the most effective and the most constructive
way of opposing the war, since people’s
needs today in no way justify armed combat,
and since war offers them no hope whatsoever
of bettering their lot."
Dr. Maria Montessori, Education and Peace
"Peace
must first be developed within an individual.
And I believe that love, compassion, and altruism
are the fundamental basis for peace. Once these
qualities are developed within an individual,
he or she is then able to create an atmosphere
of peace and harmony. This atmosphere can be expanded
and extended from the individual to his family,
from the family to the community and eventually
to the whole world."
The Dalai Lama
"The ultimate object of education should be, Gandhi
said, to help create not only a balanced and harmonious
individual but also a balanced and harmonious
society where true justice prevails, where there
is no unnatural division between the "haves" and
the "have-nots," and where everybody is assured
of a living wage and the right to live and the
right to freedom."
Arun
Gandhi
"Almost
always, it is the conviction that 'I am right'
or 'my cause is the cause of justice' that triggers
violence. That is, ...the moment propaganda does
its work, violence is unleashed. And violence
can be reduced by countering this propaganda."
Jacques Ellul
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful
committed citizens can change the world:
Indeed it's the only thing that ever has."
Margaret Mead
Some
day children will learn words whose meanings they
do not understand.
Children
in India will ask, "What is hunger?"
Children
in Hiroshima will ask, "What is an atomic bomb?"
Children
in Alabama will ask, "What is segregation?"
And
we will say to them: "These are words that no
longer have meaning, so we have removed them from
the dictionary."
The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"When
you cease to make a contribution you begin to
die."
Eleanor Roosevelt
"Our
lives begin to end
the day we become silent
about things that matter."
The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Whatever
you believe you can do, begin it; boldness has
genius, power and magic in it."
Goethe
"When I dare to be powerful -
to use my strength in the service of my vision,
then it becomes less and less important
whether
I am afraid."
Audre Lorde
"Do
not fear your enemies. The worst they can do is
kill you. Do not fear friends.
At
worst, they may betray you. Fear those who do
not care; they neither kill nor
betray,
but betrayal and murder exists because of their
silent consent."
Bruno Jasienski (Yasensky)
"Life
shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."
Anais Nin
"It's
the action, not the fruit of the action, that's
important. You have to
do
the right thing... You may never know what results
come from your
action.
But if you do nothing, there will be no result."
Mahatma Gandhi
"Every day we do things, we are things, that have to do with
peace. If we are aware of our lifestyle, our way
of consuming, our way of looking at things, we
will know how to make peace right in the moment
we are alive."
Thich Nhat Hanh
"First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace
to
others."
Thomas á Kempis, 1420
"Nothing can bring you peace but yourself."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The greatest warriors are the ones who fight for peace."
Holly Near
"Until he extends his circle of compassion to include
all living things, man
will not himself
find peace."
Albert Schweitzer
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, ...let
us strive on to finish the
work we are
in, ...to do all which may achieve and cherish
a just and lasting
peace among
ourselves and with all nations."
Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, Mar.
4, 1865
"Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind
brought about
by a serenity
of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war.
It is also a state
of mind. Lasting
peace can come only to peaceful people."
Jawaharlal Nehru
"The world will never have lasting peace so long as men
reserve for war the
finest human
qualities. Peace, no less than war, requires idealism
and
self-sacrifice
and a righteous and dynamic faith."
John Foster Dulles
"The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens."
Baha'ullah, prophet and founder of the Baha'i
Faith
"If
you begin the day with love in your heart, peace
in your nerves, and truth
in your mind, you not only benefit by their presence
but also bring them to
others, to your family and friends, and to all
those whose destiny draws
across your path that day."
Unknown
"Think
not forever of yourselves, O Chiefs, nor of your
own generation.
Think
of continuing generations of our families, think
of our grandchildren
and
of those yet unborn, whose faces are coming from
beneath the ground."
Peacemaker, founder of the Iroquois Confederacy
(ca. 1000 AD)
"Do
not believe in anything simply because you have
heard it. Do not believe in
anything
simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
Do not believe in
anything
simply because it is found written in your religious
books. Do not
believe
in anything merely on the authority of your teachers
and elders. Do not
believe
in traditions because they have been handed down
for many generations.
But
after observation and analysis, when you find
that anything agrees with
reason
and is conducive to the good and benefit of one
and all, then accept it and
live
up to it."
Buddha
"Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."
Chinese Proverb
"I
let no man drag me down so low as to make me hate
him."
Booker T. Washington
"You
must be the change you wish to see in the world."
Mahatma Gandhi
"If
we leave somebody behind for something as ridiculous
as skin color, we all lose."
Janet Langert (wife of Secretary of Defense William
Cohen)
"Let us endeavor to live that when
we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. "
Mark Twain (Samuel
Clemens), from Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar (1894)
"Great
spirits have always found violent opposition from
mediocrities. The latter
cannot
understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly
submit to hereditary
prejudices
but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
Albert Einstein
"Never
do anything against conscience even if the state
demands it."
Albert Einstein
"The
right to search for truth implies also a duty.
One must not conceal any part of what one has recognized
to be true."
Albert Einstein
"Few are those who see with their own eyes
and feel with their own hearts."
Albert Einstein
"One
man scorned and covered with scars
still
strove with his last ounce of courage
to
reach the unreachable stars;
and
the world will be better for this."
Cervantes
"Most
people would rather die than think; in fact, they
do so."
Bertrand Russell
"There
is only one religion, though there are a hundred
versions of it."
George Bernard Shaw
"Civilization
is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled
with blood
from
people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things
historians usually
record,
while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes,
make love, raise
children,
sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues.
The story of
civilization
is what happened on the banks."
Will Durant, "The History of Civilization"
"A
free society is a place where it's safe to be unpopular."
Adlai Stevenson
"When
a true genius appears in this world, you may know
him by this sign, that
the
dunces are all in confederacy against him."
Jonathan Swift, "Thoughts on Various Subjects"
"To
be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing
its best, night and day, to
make
you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle
which any human
being
can fight; and never stop fighting."
e. e. cummings
"Rule
a kingdom as though you were cooking a small fish
- don't overdo it."
Lao Tzu
"Discovery
consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking
what
nobody
has thought."
Albert von Szent-Gyorgy
"Each
man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat
him. But a day comes when
he
begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor.
Then all goes well -- he has
changed
his market-cart into a chariot of the sun."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Just
because an animal is large, it doesn't mean he doesn't
want kindness;
however
big Tigger seems to be, remember that he wants as
much kindness as Roo."
Pooh's Little Instruction Book, inspired by A.
A. Milne
"The
right to swing my fist ends where the other man's
nose begins."
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935)
"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."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace."
The Dalai Lama
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy
from
oppression;
for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent
that will reach to himself."
Thomas Paine
"In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak
up because I
wasn't a Communist. Then they came
for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because
I wasn't a Jew. Then they came
for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up
because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't
speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time no
one was left to speak up."
Martin Niemoeller, German Lutheran Pastor
"There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace.
You will find
that deep place of
silence right in your room, your garden or even
your
bathtub."
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
"If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You
talk to your
enemies."
Moshe Dayan
"Start
by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible;
and suddenly you are doing the impossible."
St. Francis of Assisi
"In
order to change something, don't struggle to change
the existing model. Create a new model, and make
the old one obsolete."
Buckminster Fuller
"Out
Beyond Ideas Of Rightdoing And Wrongdoing There
is A Field - I Will Meet You There."
Rumi
"...our
civilization, so addicted to knowledge, has fled
from wisdom. Knowledge is very, very powerful. If
it is not tempered and contoured by greater visions,
like justice, compassion, beauty, grace and thinking
of the next generation and seven generations to
come -- then indeed, it is dangerous. Unfortunately,
many of our educational systems in the West are
still very dangerous places."
Matthew Fox
"Through
violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder
hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. .
. Returning violence for violence multiples violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid
of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only
light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: Only
love can do that."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having."
Henry Miller
"Everytime you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you
gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like
feeding a dog on his own tail. It won't fatten the
dog."
Mark Twain
"Peace is a civil right which makes other human rights possible. Peace
is a precondition for our existence. Peace permits
our continued existence."
Dennis Kucinich
"I imagine one of the reasons people cling
to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense,
once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with
pain."
James A. Baldwin
"If we let people see that kind of thing, there
would never again be any war."
Pentagon official, on why the US military censored graphic footage
from the first Gulf War
"Our
strategy should be not only to confront empire,
but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen.
To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music,
our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance,
our sheer relentlessness -- and our ability to tell
our own stories. Stories that are different from
the ones we're being brainwashed to believe.
The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse
to buy what they are selling -- their ideas, their
version of history, their wars, their weapons, their
notion of inevitability.
Remember this: We be many and they be few. They
need us more than we need them."
Arundhati
Roy
"Being
an activist means being aware of what's happening
around you as well as being in touch with your feelings
about it -- your rage, your sadness, your excitement,
your curiosity, your feeling of helplessness, and
your refusal to surrender. Being an activist means
owning your desire."
Paula
Allen
"Stop
thinking this is all there is... Realize that for
every ongoing war and religious outrage and environmental
devastation and bogus Iraqi attack plan, there are
a thousand counter-balancing acts of staggering
generosity and humanity and art and beauty happening
all over the world, right now, on a breathtaking
scale, from flower box to cathedral...Resist the
temptation to drown in fatalism, to shake your head
and sigh and just throw in the karmic towel...Realize
that this is the perfect moment to change the energy
of the world, to step right up and crank your personal
volume; right when it all seems dark and bitter
and offensive and acrimonious and conflicted and
bilious...there's your opening."
Mark
Morford
"This
Republic was founded in part because of the arrogance
of a king who expected his subjects to do as they
were told, without question, without hesitation.
Our forefathers overthrew that tyrant and adopted
a system of government where dissent is not only
important, but it is also mandatory. Questioning
flawed leadership is a requirement of this government.
Failing to question, failing to speak out, is failing
the legacy of the Founding Fathers."
Senator
Robert Byrd, as part of a speech delivered on the
Senate floor, April 8, 2004
