Quotes about peace
page 17

John F. Kennedy photo
Vladimir Putin photo

“Ukraine is an independent, sovereign state and will choose its own path to peace and security.. . . Such a conversation would be entirely appropriate and entirely possible. I certainly don’t see there being anything particularly tricky here, anything that need or that could cast a shadow over relations between Russia and Ukraine.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

About Ukraine seeking membership in Nato, after the Nato–Russia Council was created at the Nato summit in Rome, May 28, 2002. http://www.usubc.org/keyissues/russia_reset040109.php
On Ukraine

George Galloway photo
Ben Carson photo

“God would grant all of us wisdom, calm, and peace, that his presence would be in the operating room, and that his will might be done.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 20

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani photo

“I believe the main solution [referring to the nuclear issue] is to gain the trust of Europe and America and to remove their concerns over the peaceful nature of our nuclear industry and to assure them that there will never be a diversion to military use.”

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1934–2017) Iranian politician, Shi'a cleric and Writer

Remarks in an interview http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-05/19/content_444110.htm (May 5,2005)
2005

Thich Nhat Hanh photo

“When you understand the roots of anger in yourself and in the other, your mind will enjoy true peace, joy and lightness”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Teachings on Love (2005) Full Circle Publishing ISBN 81-7621-167-2

Nguyen Khanh photo
John Dryden photo

“Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command
Some peaceful province in acrostic land.
There thou mayst wings display and altars raise,
And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Source: Mac Flecknoe (1682), l. 205–208.

Newton Lee photo
George H. W. Bush photo

“Clearly, no longer can a dictator count on East-West confrontation to stymie concerted United Nations action against aggression. A new partnership of nations has begun. And we stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment. The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective — a new world order — can emerge: a new era, freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world, east and west, north and south, can prosper and live in harmony.”

George H. W. Bush (1924–2018) American politician, 41st President of the United States

Speech to joint session of Congress (11 September 1990), as quoted in Encyclopedia of Leadership (2004) by George R. Goethals, Georgia Jones Sorenson, and James MacGregor Burns, p. 1776 http://books.google.com/books?id=kjLspnsZS4UC&pg=RA4-PA1776&dq=%22Out+of+these+troubled+times+our+fifth+objective+a+new+world+order+can+emerge%22&num=100&ei=JoabR-ieJZjSigH106CoCg&ie=ISO-8859-1&sig=75hwmo0dYLCTYEOSWyXaECUpMzA and Confrontation in the Gulf; Transcript of President's Address to Joint Session of Congress http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE6DF113CF931A2575AC0A966958260 The New York Times. September 12, 1990.

James K. Polk photo
Muhammad photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“In 1965 alone we had 300 private talks for peace in Vietnam, with friends and adversaries throughout the world. Since Christmas your government has labored again, with imagination and endurance, to remove any barrier to peaceful settlement. For 20 days now we and our Vietnamese allies have dropped no bombs in North Vietnam. Able and experienced spokesmen have visited, in behalf of America, more than 40 countries. We have talked to more than a hundred governments, all 113 that we have relations with, and some that we don't. We have talked to the United Nations and we have called upon all of its members to make any contribution that they can toward helping obtain peace. In public statements and in private communications, to adversaries and to friends, in Rome and Warsaw, in Paris and Tokyo, in Africa and throughout this hemisphere, America has made her position abundantly clear. We seek neither territory nor bases, economic domination or military alliance in Vietnam. We fight for the principle of self-determination—that the people of South Vietnam should be able to choose their own course, choose it in free elections without violence, without terror, and without fear. The people of all Vietnam should make a free decision on the great question of reunification. This is all we want for South Vietnam. It is all the people of South Vietnam want. And if there is a single nation on this earth that desires less than this for its own people, then let its voice be heard. We have also made it clear—from Hanoi to New York—that there are no arbitrary limits to our search for peace. We stand by the Geneva Agreements of 1954 and 1962. We will meet at any conference table, we will discuss any proposals—four points or 14 or 40—and we will consider the views of any group. We will work for a cease-fire now or once discussions have begun. We will respond if others reduce their use of force, and we will withdraw our soldiers once South Vietnam is securely guaranteed the right to shape its own future. We have said all this, and we have asked—and hoped—and we have waited for a response. So far we have received no response to prove either success or failure.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Thomas Brooks photo

“God's very service is wages; His ways are strewed with roses, and paved with joy that is unspeakable and full of glory, and with peace that passeth understanding.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

Source: Quotes from secondary sources, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, 1895, P. 127.

Akbar photo
Paul Gauguin photo
Tryon Edwards photo

“Temperance is to the body what religion is to the soul, the foundation and source of health and strength and peace.”

Tryon Edwards (1809–1894) American theologian

Source: A Dictionary of Thoughts, 1891, p. 567.

John Quincy Adams photo

“This hand, to tyrants ever sworn the foe,
For Freedom only deals the deadly blow;
Then sheathes in calm repose the vengeful blade,
For gentle peace in Freedom’s hallowed shade.”

John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) American politician, 6th president of the United States (in office from 1825 to 1829)

Written in an Album (1842)l compare: "Manus haec inimica tyrannis / Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem", Algernon Sidney, From the Life and Memoirs of Algernon Sidney.

A.E. Housman photo
Muhammad photo

“Ibn 'Abbas said that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "There are two blessings which deceive many people: health and free time."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 1, hadith number 97
Sunni Hadith

Javad Alizadeh photo
Carole King photo
Mos Def photo
Muhammad photo
Jacques Ellul photo
Francis Escudero photo
Yehudi Menuhin photo

“Peace may sound simple — one beautiful word — but it requires everything we have, every quality, every strength, every dream, every high ideal.”

Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999) American violinist and conductor

Source: U S Congress Congressional Record, V. 151, PT. 6, April 21, 2005 to May 5, 2005 http://books.google.co.in/books?id=feq-KS57zeUC&pg=PA7471, Government Printing Office, 2009 , p. 7471

Tenzin Gyatso photo
Gangubai Hangal photo
Jeremy Corbyn photo
Harry Truman photo
George W. Bush photo
Kurien Kunnumpuram photo
Miklós Horthy photo
Thomas Jefferson photo

“Almighty God, Who has given us this good land for our heritage; We humbly beseech Thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of Thy favor and glad to do Thy will. Bless our land with honorable ministry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion, from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people, the multitude brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endow with Thy spirit of wisdom those whom in Thy name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that through obedience to Thy law, we may show forth Thy praise among the nations of the earth. In time of prosperity fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in Thee to fail; all of which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

This is a misquotation of a prayer from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer (ministry should be industry and arrogance should be arrogancy). This was a revision from an earlier edition. The original form, written by George Lyman Locke, appeared in the 1885 edition. In 1994 William J. Federer attributed it to Jefferson in America's God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations, pp. 327-8. See the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/national-prayer-peace.
Misattributed

Georgy Zhukov photo
Walter Cronkite photo
Richard Nixon photo
Neville Chamberlain photo

“This is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace in our time.”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

"Neville Chamberlain 1937-40 Conservative" http://www.number10.gov.uk/output/Page135.asp, 10 Downing Street, number10.gov.uk (accessed 2006-06-11)
On returning to England from Munich in 1938; cf. Benjamin Disraeli's return from the Congress of Berlin in 1878
Prime Minister

George Meredith photo

“I want sculpture to show the wonder of man, that flowing water, rocks, clouds
vegetation have for the man in peace who glories in existence... Its existence will be its statement”

David Smith (1906–1965) American visual artist (1906-1965)

1940s, The Question – What is your Hope' (c. 1940s)

Hung Hsiu-chu photo

“If we don't put forward such a proposal (signing a peace pact with Mainland China) and start negotiating with (Mainland) China, how can we know we will not achieve any results?”

Hung Hsiu-chu (1948) Taiwanese politician

Hung Hsiu-chu (2015) cited in " Cross-strait status quo is 'one China, same interpretation': KMT's Hung http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201505060036.aspx" on Focus Taiwan, 6 May 2015

Joseph Story photo

“If these Commentaries shall but inspire in the rising generation a more ardent love of their country, an unquenchable thirst for liberty, and a profound reverence for the constitution and the union, then they will have accomplished all that their author ought to desire. Let the American youth never forget that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors; and capable, if wisely improved, and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity all the substantial blessings of life, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence. The structure has been erected by architects of consummate skill and fidelity; its foundations are solid; its compartments are beautiful as well as useful; its arrangements are full of wisdom and order; and its defences are impregnable from without. It has been reared for immortality, if the work of man may justly aspire to such a title. It may, nevertheless, perish in an hour by the folly, or corruption, or negligence of its only keepers, THE PEOPLE. Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people in order to betray them.”

Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 2d ed. (1851), vol. 2, chapter 45, p. 617. This passage was not in the first edition, but in all later editions.

Tawakkol Karman photo
Orson Scott Card photo
Muhammad photo

“Jabir ibn 'Abdullah reported that he heard the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, say three days before his death, "None of you should die without having a good opinion of Allah, the Mighty and Exalted."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 441
Sunni Hadith

Aung San Suu Kyi photo
Ron Paul photo
William T. Sherman photo
Muhammad photo

“Yahya ibn Yahya related to me from Ishaq ibn Abdullah ibn Abi Talha al-Ansari from Anas ibn Malik that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "O Allah! Bless them in their measure, and bless them in their sa and mudd."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

He meant the people of Madina.
Muwatta of Imam Malik, Madina, hadith 1 http://ahadith.co.uk/permalink-hadith-4654
Sunni Hadith

Joseph Addison photo

“See in what peace a Christian can die!”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

Last words, to his stepson (1719), as quoted in Conjectures on Original Composition (1759) by Edward Young
Variants:
I have sent for you that you may see in what peace a Christian may die.
As quoted in The R. I. Schoolmaster, Vol. V (1859), edited by William A. Mowry and Henry Clark, p. 71
I have sent for you that you may see how a Christian may die.
As quoted in Famous Sayings and their Authors (1906) by Edward Latham

Saul D. Alinsky photo
Everett Dean Martin photo
James Martineau photo
George W. Bush photo
Robert E. Lee photo

“I think it is the duty of every citizen, in the present condition of the Country, to do all in his power to aid in the restoration of peace and harmony. It is particularly incumbent upon those charged with the instruction of the young to set them an example.”

Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) Confederate general in the Civil War

Letter to trustees, as quoted in "Honoring Lee Anew" http://wluspectator.com/2014/07/15/cox-honoring-lee-anew/ (15 July 2014), by David Cox, A Magazine of Student Thought and Opinion

John Wesley photo
Geert Wilders photo
Oliver Cromwell photo

“Though peace be made, yet it's interest that keep peace.”

Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) English military and political leader

Quoted in a statement to Parliament as as "a maxim not to be despised" (4 September 1654)

Jim Morrison photo
Vyacheslav Molotov photo
Mark Akenside photo
Rosa Luxemburg photo
Fred Rogers photo
Muhammad photo
Harry Truman photo
Pat Condell photo
Pope Leo XIII photo
Elie Wiesel photo

“From time immemorial, people have talked about peace without achieving it. Do we simply lack enough experience? Though we talk peace, we wage war. Sometimes we even wage war in the name of peace.. . . War may be too much a part of history to be eliminated—ever.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

As quoted in "Is World Peace on the Horizon?", in The Watchtower (15 April 1991)

Ron Paul photo

“We can achieve much more in peace than we can ever achieve in these needless, unconstitutional, undeclared wars.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Republican debate in Des Moines, Iowa, August 5, 2007 http://www.cfr.org/publication/13981/republican_debate_transcript_iowa.html
2000s, 2006-2009

Winston S. Churchill photo
Greg Egan photo
Muhammad photo
John McCain photo

“I know how to secure the peace.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

2000s, 2008, (2008)

Ambrose photo
Dwight D. Eisenhower photo
Ferdinand Foch photo

“This is not a peace. It is an armistice for 20 years.”

Ferdinand Foch (1851–1929) French soldier and military theorist

Said after the Treaty of Versailles, as quoted in Memoires (1963) by Paul Reynaud, vol. 2, p. 457

Fidel Castro photo
José Martí photo
Alauddin Khalji photo
Robert Olmstead photo
Daniel Berrigan photo

“I think of the good, decent, peace-loving people I have known by the thousands, and I wonder. How many of them are so afflicted with the wasting disease of normalcy that, even as they declare for the peace, their hands reach out with an instinctive spasm… in the direction of their comforts, their home, their security, their income, their future, their plans—that five-year plan of studies, that ten-year plan of professional status, that twenty-year plan of family growth and unity, that fifty-year plan of decent life and honorable natural demise. “Of course, let us have the peace,” we cry, “but at the same time let us have normalcy, let us lose nothing, let our lives stand intact, let us know neither prison nor ill repute nor disruption of ties.” And because we must encompass this and protect that, and because at all costs—at all costs—our hopes must march on schedule, and because it is unheard of that in the name of peace a sword should fall, disjoining that fine and cunning web that our lives have woven, because it is unheard of that good men should suffer injustice or families be sundered or good repute be lost—because of this we cry peace and cry peace, and there is no peace. There is no peace because there are no peacemakers. There are no makers of peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war—at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.”

Daniel Berrigan (1921–2016) American Catholic priest, peace activist, and poet

No Bars to Manhood (1971), p. 49.

Taliesin photo
William A. Dembski photo
Statius photo

“The cruelty of war makes for peace.”

Statius (45–96) Roman poet of the 1st century AD (Silver Age of Latin literature)

As quoted in Our Day of Empire (1954) by Louis Obed Renne, p. 180.
Attributed

Ilana Mercer photo

“Look at Jared Kushner. The poor man looks low T—like he might one day go the way of Bruce Jenner, now Caitlyn Jenner. (I love LGBTQ, so long as they come in peace.) Jared's not wearing the pants in the Kushner castle. The beguilingly beautiful Ivanka is.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"What Ivanka wants, Ivanka gets." http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/04/what_ivanka_wants_ivanka_gets.html American Thinker, April 13, 2017
2010s, 2017

Norman Vincent Peale photo
Franklin D. Roosevelt photo
Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo photo
Kenneth N. Waltz photo
Charles Evans Hughes photo

“Equally unavailing is the insistence that the statute is designed to prevent the circulation of scandal which tends [p722] to disturb the public peace and to provoke assaults and the commission of crime. Charges of reprehensible conduct, and in particular of official malfeasance, unquestionably create a public scandal, but the theory of the constitutional guaranty is that even a more serious public evil would be caused by authority to prevent publication. To prohibit the intent to excite those unfavorable sentiments against those who administer the Government is equivalent to a prohibition of the actual excitement of them, and to prohibit the actual excitement of them is equivalent to a prohibition of discussions having that tendency and effect, which, again, is equivalent to a protection of those who administer the Government, if they should at any time deserve the contempt or hatred of the people, against being exposed to it by free animadversions on their characters and conduct. There is nothing new in the fact that charges of reprehensible conduct may create resentment and the disposition to resort to violent means of redress, but this well understood tendency did not alter the determination to protect the press against censorship and restraint upon publication. […] The danger of violent reactions becomes greater with effective organization of defiant groups resenting exposure, and if this consideration warranted legislative interference with the initial freedom of publication, the constitutional protection would be reduced to a mere form of words.”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931).
Judicial opinions