quotations about peace
If we are to reach real peace in this world and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with children; and if they will grow up in their natural innocence, we won't have to struggle, we won't have to pass fruitless idle resolutions. But we shall go from love to love and peace to peace, until at last all the corners of the world are covered with that peace and love for which, consciously or unconsciously, the whole world is hungering.
MAHATMA GANDHI
Young India, November 19, 1931
Though the heart wear the garment of its sorrow
And be not happy like a naked star,
Yet from the thought of peace some peace we borrow,
Some rapture from the rapture felt afar.
GEORGE SANTAYANA
"Premonition", A Hermit of Carmel
The firmest security of peace is the preparation during peace of the defenses of war.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
Inaugural Address, March 4, 1825
In the days of peace every precaution should be taken to insure that there are no forces making for war. Just as we now forbid the trafficking in certain drugs, in the sale of poisons, just as we forbid the making of any imprint that suggests a coin or currency, just as experience has demonstrated that men may not make profit out of certain things because of the danger of abuse, so in the gravest of all dangers laws should be passed taking from those who might gain from war or preparations for war every hope that advantage could come to them by such a calamity.
FREDERIC CLEMSON HOWE
Why War
Jesus is called the Prince of Peace, but we look around us and we may often feel like there is no peace for Jesus to reign over. The troubles that surround us, the chaos that is in this world and the pain and suffering that thrives in people. Where is the peace in all of this? God promises in His Word numerous times how He intends to bring peace to this world, but the peace He desires for us sometimes isn't the kind of peace we are looking for. Many people want to see a complete absence of trials, but that's not the way that God brings peace. God works in the heart that it may receive peace no matter the circumstances.
PATRICK MABILOG
"Jesus promises peace, but why can't I feel it?", Christian Today, April 6, 2016
All people have a desire for world peace in their hearts, and through compassion, they can come together to take action and make the world a more peaceful place.
MUHAMMED ALHASSAN YAKUBU
"JCI Ghana Launches Peace Is Possible Campaign", News Ghana, March 11, 2016
We wish peace, but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it is right and not because we are afraid.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Inaugural Address, March 4, 1905
This is a time for action -- not for war, but for mobilization of every bit of peace machinery.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
My Day
We discover peace, we unveil it. Peace is a discovery, not a conquest. It is the fruit of a revelation.
RAIMON PANIKKAR
Cultural Disarmament
Don't search for anything except peace. Try to calm the mind. Everything else will come on its own.
BABA HARI DAS
official website
The peace of our world is indivisible. As long as negative forces are getting the better of positive forces anywhere, we are all at risk.
AUNG SAN SUU KYI
Nobel Lecture, June 16, 2012
Peace, n. In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
Peace, gentlemen, it is well known, does not come of its own accord, and neither does freedom. Peace has enemies. Peace must be won by the sword.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
The Mission Song
The day will come when the people will make so insistent their demand that there be peace in the world that the Governments will get out of the way and let them have peace.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
broadcast discussion, August 31, 1959
I devoutly believe in the reign of peace and in the gradual advent of some sort of socialistic equilibrium. The fatalistic view of the war function is to me nonsense, for I know that war-making is due to definite motives and subject to prudential checks and reasonable criticisms, just like any other form of enterprise. And when whole nations are the armies, and the science of destruction vies in intellectual refinement with the science of production, I see that war becomes absurd and impossible from its own monstrosity. Extravagant ambitions will have to be replaced by reasonable claims, and nations must make common cause against them.
WILLIAM JAMES
The Moral Equivalent of War
Unless we find repose within ourselves, it is vain to seek it elsewhere.
HOSEA BALLOU
Edge-Tools of Speech
Military power serves the cause of security by making prohibitive the cost of any aggressive attack. It serves the cause of peace by holding up a shield behind which the patient constructive work of peace can go on.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
State of the Union Address, January 9, 1958
O that all human hearts might join the strain;
Then Hate, and Bigotry, and Sin would die;
Then Peace would reign and wear its olive crown,
And War with blood-stained feet no longer track
Earth's fair domain, or wave its crimson flag.
Then Pride would lay its flaunting mantle by;
The cry of Hunger cease--the oppressor's rod
Would scourge no more, but man be linked to man
In one unbroken chain of brotherhood.
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"The Love of God"
At the heart of happiness lies peace. It is the last and the highest attainment of the soul.
HUGH BLACK
Happiness
Peace is priceless, but not at any price.
ROBERT ELLIOTT GONZALES
Poems and Paragraphs