A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know you are my disciples, if you love one another. - Jesus (John 13:34, NIV)

First keep peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others. - Thomas à Kempis

There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places and ages hath had different names. It is, however, pure and proceeds from God. It is deep and inward, confined to no form of religion nor excluded from any where the heart stands in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows, of what nation soever, they become brethren in the best sense of the expression. - John Woolman, 1774

There is a spirit which I feel, that delights to do no evil, nor to avenge any wrong, but delights to endure all things in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations. As it bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other: if it be betrayed, it bears it; for its ground and spring are the mercies and forgiveness of God. Its crown is meekness, its life is everlasting love unfeigned, and takes its kingdom with entreaty, and not with contention, and keeps it by lowliness of mind. In God alone it can rejoice, though none else regard it, or can own its life.
James Naylor, 1660

If you wish to be brothers, let the arms fall from your hands. One cannot love while holding offensive arms. - Pope Pius VI
A good end cannot sanctify evil means; nor must we ever do evil, that good may come of it... It is as great presumption to send our passions upon God's errands, as to palliate them with God's name... We are too ready to retailiate, rather than forgive, or gain by love and information. And yet we could hurt no man that we believe loves us. Let us try then what Love will do: for if men did once see we love them, we should soon find they would not harm us. Force may subdue, but Love gains: and he that forgives first, wins the laurel. - William Penn

Love didn't die on the cross - it simply chose not to fight. -Unknown
Peace is the work of justice indirectly, in so far as justice removes the obstacles to peace; but it is the work of charity (love) directly, since charity, according to its very notion, causes peace. - Thomas Aquinas

When evil is allowed to compete with good, evil has an emotional populist appeal that wins out unless good men and women stand as a vanguard against abuse. - Hannah Arendt

Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God. - Leon Bloy

When you're finally up on the moon, looking back at the earth, all these differences and nationalistic traits are pretty well going to blend and you're going to get a concept that maybe this is really one world and why the hell can't we learn to live together like decent people? - Frank Borman

We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living. - General Omar Bradley

In separateness lies the world's great misery; in compassion lies the world's true strength. - Buddha

It is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners. - Albert Camus

Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not complicated but it takes courage. It takes courage for a person to listen to his own goodness and act on it. - Pablo Casals

The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border? - Pablo Casals

Looking for peace is like looking for a turtle with a mustache: You won't be able to find it. But when your heart is ready, peace will come looking for you. - Ajahn Chah (Reflections)

We may draw good out of evil; we must not do evil, that good may come. - Maria Weston Chapman

The day will come when, after harnessing the winds, the tides and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of Love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. - Teilhard de Chardin

If there is light in the soul, there will be beauty in the person. If there is beauty in the person, there will be harmony in the house. If there is harmony in the house, there will be order in the nation. If there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world. - Chinese Proverb

A spiritual person tries less to be godly than to be deeply human. - Rev. William Sloan Coffin, Jr.

Peace rules the day, where reason rules the mind. - Wilkie (William) Collins

"The Golden Rule is of no use to you whatsoever unless you realize that it's your move." - Dr. Frank Crane

We are, each of us angels with only one wing; and we can only fly by embracing one another. - Luciano de Crescenzo

Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free. - the Dalai Lama

If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies. - Moshe Dayan

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

At some ideas you stand perplexed, especially at the sight of human sins, uncertain whether to combat it by force or by human love. Always decide, "I will combat it with human love." If you make up your mind about that once and for all, you can conquer the whole world. Loving humility is a terrible force; it is the strongest of all things and there is nothing like it. - Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov

You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments that stand out, the moments when you have really lived, are the moments when you have done things in a sprit of love. - Henry Drummond

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

Nothing that I can do will change the structure of the universe. But maybe, by raising my voice I can help the greatest of all causes - goodwill among men and peace on earth. - Albert Einstein

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

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder. - Albert Einstein

Peace is more the product of our day-to-day living than of a spectacular program, intermittently executed. - Dwight David Eisenhower

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it. - Dwight David Eisenhower

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. - Dwight David Eisenhower

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is alway someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart. - St. Francis of Assisi

It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery and death. And yet I think this cruelty will end, and that peace and tranquillity will return again. - Anne Frank

I hope...that mankind will at length, as they call themselves reasonable creatures, have reason and sense enough to settle their differences without cutting throats; for in my opinion there never was a good war, or a bad peace. - Benjamin Franklin

We may never be strong enough to be entirely nonviolent in thought, word and deed. But we must keep nonviolence as our goal and make strong progress towards it. The Attainment of freedom, whether for a person, a nation or a world, must be in exact proportion to the attainment of nonviolence for each. - Mohandas Gandhi

It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace. - Andre Gide

We cannot have world peace without peace in our own lives. We cannot attack our planet by the way we live, and then go off to a peace rally and hope to set right all the imbalance we have caused. Peace is first a private matter. It cannot grow except from there. - Granny 'D'

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. - Dag Hammarskjold

Smiling is very important. If we are not able to smile, then the world will not have peace. It is not by going out for a demonstration against nuclear missiles that we can bring about peace. It is with our capacity of smiling, breathing, and being peace that we can make peace. - Thich Nhat Hanh

When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. - Jimmy Hendrix

We have dedicated ourselves to the preservation of Men's lives, but we find no freedom in giving, or doing or assisting in any thing by which Men's lives are destroyed or hurt. - Benjamin Hershey, 1776
American Mennonite Minister


It's a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than "try to be a little kinder." - Aldous Huxley

The most faithful disciples of Christ have been builders of peace, to the point of forgiving their enemies, sometimes even to the point of giving their lives for them. - Pope John Paul II

There must be amidst all the confusions of the hour a tried and undisturbed remnant of persons who will not become purveyors of coercion and violence, who are ready to stand alone, if it is necessary, for the way of peace and love among men. - Rufus Jones

I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do. - Helen Keller

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

Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind...War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today. - John F. Kennedy

Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures. And however undramatic the pursuit of peace, the pursuit must go on. - John F. Kennedy

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Peace depends ultimately not on political arrangements but on the conscience of mankind. -- Henry A. Kissinger

The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend. - Abraham Lincoln

Peace is more important than all justice; and peace was not made for the sake of justice, but justice for the sake of peace. - Martin Luther (1483-1546)

Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes. If only they could see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time, there would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed... I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other. - Thomas Merton

Instead of loving what you think is peace, love other men and women and love God above all else. Instead of hating all the people you think are warmongers, hate the appetites and disorders in your own soul which are the causes of war. - Thomas Merton

There is no way to peace. Peace is the way. - A.J. Muste

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

I stand at the altar of murdered men, and, while I live, I fight their cause. - Florence Nightingale

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfullness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. - Paul the Apostle. Galations 5:22-24 (NIV)

One little person, giving all of her time to peace, makes news. Many people, giving some of their time, can make history. - Peace Pilgrim


When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it? - Eleanor Roosevelt

More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars -- yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments. - Franklin D. Roosevelt

It is not right, my fellow-countrymen, you who know very well all the crimes committed in our name. It's not at all right that you do not breathe a word about them to anyone, not even to your own soul, for fear of having to stand in judgment of yourself. I am willing to believe that at the beginning you did not realize what was happening; later, you doubted whether such things could be true; but now you know, and still you hold your tongues. - Jean Paul Sartre

Teach your children what we have taught our children that the earth is our mother. What ever befalls the earth befalls the sons and daughters of the earth. This we know. The earth does not belong to us. We belong to the earth. This we know. All things are connected-like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. What ever befalls the earth befalls the sons and daughters of the earth. We did not weave the web of life; we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, We do to ourselves. - Chief Seattle.

Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous. - George Bernard Shaw

Peace is not an absence of war; it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice. - Benedict de Spinoza

Every act of love is a work of peace, no matter how small. - Mother Teresa

Peace begins with a smile - smile a hundred times a day at someone you don't really feel like smiling at - do it for peace. In this way we will spread the peace of God, and in this way we will shine with His light, and in the world and in the hearts of men we will snuff out all hatred and all love of power. - Mother Teresa

The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty - it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God. - Mother Teresa

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. - Mother Teresa
Anything war can do, peace can do better. - Desmond Tutu

The arms race can kill, though the weapons themselves may never be used...by their cost alone, armaments kill the poor by causing them to starve. - Vatican statement to the U.N., 1976

Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. - George Washington