Quotes about peace
page 25

George W. Bush photo

“Freedom is a universal human desire… and a force for peace and prosperity in the world.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

"The Struggle for Human Rights and Human Freedom" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW33AxBe06o (June 2013)
2010s, 2013

James Anthony Froude photo

“We start with enthusiasm — out we go each of us to our task in all the brightness of sunrise, and hope beats along our pulses; we believe the world has no blanks except to cowards, and we find, at last, that, as far as we ourselves are concerned, it has no prizes; we sicken over the endless unprofitableness of labour most when we have most succeeded, and when the time comes for us to lay down our tools we cast them from us with the bitter aching sense, that it were better for us if it had been all a dream. We seem to know either too much or too little of ourselves — too much, for we feel that we are better than we can accomplish; too little, for, if we have done any good at all, it has heen as we were servants of a system too vast for us to comprehend. We get along through life happily between clouds and sunshine, forgetting ourselves in our employments or our amusements, and so long as we can lose our consciousness in activity we can struggle on to the end. But when the end comes, when the life is lived and done, and stands there face to face with us; or if the heart is weak, and the spell breaks too soon, as if the strange master-worker has no longer any work to offer us, and turns us off to idleness and to ourselves; in the silence then our hearts lift up their voices, and cry out they can find no rest here, no home. Neither pleasure, nor rank, nor money, nor success in life, as it is called, have satisfied, or can satisfy; and either earth has nothing at all which answers to our cravings, or else it is something different from all these, which we have missed finding — this peace which passes understanding — and from which in the heyday of hope we had turned away, as lacking the meretricious charm which then seemed most alluring.
I am not sermonizing of Religion, or of God, or of Heaven, at least not directly.”

Confessions Of A Sceptic
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)

Aneurin Bevan photo
Joseph Chamberlain photo

“Lord Goschen tells you that France only takes 2 per cent. of its corn from abroad, that it is self-sufficient, and that Germany only takes 30 per cent., whereas, he says, we take four-fifths. That is not a comforting reflection…it is not a comforting reflection to think that we, a part of the British Empire that might be self-sufficient and self-contained, are, nevertheless, dependent, according to Lord Goschen, for four-fifths of our supplies upon foreign countries, any one of which, by shutting their doors upon us, might reduce us to a state of almost absolute starvation. … the working man has to fear the result of a shortage of supplies and of a consequent monopoly. If in time of war one of the great countries, Russia, Germany, France, or the United States of America, were to cut off its supply, it would infallibly raise the price according to the quantity which we received from that country. If there were no war, if in times of peace these countries wanted their corn for themselves, which they will do, or if there were bad harvests, which there may be in either of these cases, you will find the price of corn rising many times higher than any tax I have ever suggested. And there is only one remedy for it. There is only one remedy for a short supply. It is to increase your sources of supply. You must call in the new world, the Colonies, to redress the balance of the old. Call in the Colonies, and they will answer to your call with very little stimulus or encouragement. They will give you a supply which will be never failing and all sufficient.”

Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) British businessman, politician, and statesman

Speech in Newcastle (20 October 1903), quoted in The Times (21 October 1903), p. 10.
1900s

“Perhaps justified violence is better than peace at any price.”

Edmund Cooper (1926–1982) British writer

The Uncertain Midnight (1958)

I. F. Stone photo

“The governments hated the peace party even more than each other, since their existence now depended on war.”

Source: Last and First Men (1930), Chapter III: America and China; Section 2, “The Conflict” (p. 50)

Edmund Sears photo
Salma Hayek photo
Percy Bysshe Shelley photo
Philo photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo

“Mackieson gave me the other day a buffalo hide whip from Africa called in those regions a Peace Maker and used as such in the households of chieftains. Our Peace Makers are our Armstrongs and Whitworths and our engineers.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Letter to Austen Henry Layard (23 October 1864), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (London: Constable, 1970), p. 590.
1860s

Prem Rawat photo
Muhammad photo

“From Ibn 'Umar is that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, stated while he was on the minbar, "The upper hand is better than the lower hand. The upper hand is the one which spends and the lower is the beggar's."”

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

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 531
Sunni Hadith

Patricia A. McKillip photo
Dmitriy Ustinov photo

“If the present White House leadership runs the gauntlet of common sense and the people's will for peace and challenges us by starting MX missile deployment, then the Soviet Union will respond by deploying a new intercontinental ballistic missile of the same class, with its characteristics in no way inferior to those of the MX.”

Dmitriy Ustinov (1908–1984) Soviet military commander and politician

Quoted in "The Arms Control Reporter: A Chronicle of Treaties, Negotiations, Proposals" - by Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies (U.S.) - Arms control - 1982 - Page 57.

James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce photo

“I venture to hope that…the Government will approach the question with a desire to deal in the most liberal manner they can with Ireland, and to give her, if need be, more than justice requires, in order that we may bring about peace. That would be good policy in the long run.”

James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce (1838–1922) British academic, jurist, historian and Liberal politician

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1921/jun/16/the-government-of-ireland#column_635 in the House of Lords (16 June 1921) during the Irish War of Independence
1920s

Shlomo Amar photo

“We know… that the war between the Jews and the Muslims is the work of the cursed devil. We know that Islam is named after peace.”

Shlomo Amar (1948) Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem

In a letter to Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi criticizing the pope Benedict XVI for his remarks on Islam. http://web.archive.org/web/20081201181916/http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/763616.html (17/09/2006)

Ellen Kushner photo
Elton John photo
Sharon Gannon photo
Charles James Fox photo
Robert M. La Follette Sr. photo
Muhammad photo

“Abu Hurayra reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "This world is the prison of the believer and the paradise of the unbeliever."”

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

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 470
Sunni Hadith

Stanley Baldwin photo
Giorgio Morandi photo
André Maurois photo
Francis Parkman photo
John Maynard Keynes photo
Muhammad photo
John Bright photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“While we shall never weary in the defense of freedom, neither shall we ever abandon the pursuit of peace.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Third State of the Union Address

Muhammad photo
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg photo

“Nothing can contribute more to peace of soul than the lack of any opinion whatever.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

E 11
Variant translations: Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all.
Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all.
Nothing contributes more to a person's peace of mind than having no opinions at all.
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook E (1775 - 1776)

John Bright photo

“I am for "peace, retrenchment, and reform" — the watchword of the great Liberal party 30 years ago. Whosoever may abandon the cause I shall never pronounce another Shibboleth, but as long as the old flag floats in the air I shall be found a steadfast soldier in the foremost ranks”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech (28 April 1859); this phrase was first used by William IV in his speech from the Throne for the Whig government of Earl Grey (17 November 1830), quoted in The Times (29 April 1859), p. 6.
1850s

John C. Wright photo
Alexander H. Stephens photo

“As to whether we shall have war with our late confederates, or whether all matters of differences between us shall be amicably settled, I can only say that the prospect for a peaceful adjustment is better, so far as I am informed, than it has been. The prospect of war is, at least, not so threatening as it has been. The idea of coercion, shadowed forth in President Lincoln’s inaugural, seems not to be followed up thus far so vigorously as was expected. Fort Sumter, it is believed, will soon be evacuated. What course will be pursued toward Fort Pickens, and the other forts on the gulf, is not so well understood. It is to be greatly desired that all of them should be surrendered. Our object is peace, not only with the North, but with the world. All matters relating to the public property, public liabilities of the Union when we were members of it, we are ready and willing to adjust and settle upon the principles of right, equity, and good faith. War can be of no more benefit to the North than to us. Whether the intention of evacuating Fort Sumter is to be received as an evidence of a desire for a peaceful solution of our difficulties with the United States, or the result of necessity, I will not undertake to say. I would feign hope the former. Rumors are afloat, however, that it is the result of necessity. All I can say to you, therefore, on that point is, keep your armor bright and your powder dry.”

Alexander H. Stephens (1812–1883) Vice President of the Confederate States (in office from 1861 to 1865)

The Cornerstone Speech (1861)

Calvin Coolidge photo
Paul Keating photo
Robert Jordan photo

“The only man completely at peace is a man without a navel.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Old saying in Randland
(15 October 1994)

Amir Taheri photo
Muhammad photo

“Jabir reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "The metaphor of the five prayers is that of an sizeable flowing river at the door of one of you in which he washes five times every day."”

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

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 5, hadith number 1043
Sunni Hadith
Variant: Jabir reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "The metaphor of the five prayers is that of an sizeable flowing river at the door of one of you in which he washes five times every day."

Prem Rawat photo
Franklin D. Roosevelt photo
G. I. Gurdjieff photo
Nisargadatta Maharaj photo
Woodrow Wilson photo

“There is a price which is too great to pay for peace, and that price can be put in one word. One cannot pay the price of self-respect.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Des Moines Iowa speech (1 February 1916) http://www.combat.ws/S3/BAKISSUE/CMBT01N2/SMOKE.HTM, on "The Westerm Preparedness Tour" http://www.allthingswilliam.com/presidents/wilson.html
1910s

Muhammad photo

“Abu Musa reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "A believer in respect of another believer is like a building whose parts support one another." and he intertwined his fingers.”

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

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 2, hadith number 222
Sunni Hadith

Tom Petty photo

“Last time through I hid my tracks.
So well I could not get back.
Yeah my way was hard to find.
Can't sell your soul for peace of mind.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

Square One
Lyrics, Highway Companion (2006)

Richard Nixon photo
Justina Robson photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“And as Americans know from our history on our own old frontier, gun battles are caused by outlaws, and not by officers of the peace.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1961, Berlin Crisis speech

Ratko Mladić photo
Vladimir Lenin photo
Ron Paul photo
Steven Curtis Chapman photo
William Ellery Channing photo
Jefferson Davis photo
Dinesh D'Souza photo

“America, the freest nation on Earth, is also the most virtuous nation on Earth. This point seems counter-intuitive, given the amount of conspicuous vulgarity, vice and immorality in America. Some Islamic fundamentalists argue that their regimes are morally superior to the United States because they seek to foster virtue among the citizens. Virtue, these fundamentalists argue, is a higher principle than liberty. Indeed it is. And let us admit that in a free society, freedom will frequently be used badly. Freedom, by definition, includes the freedom to do good or evil, to act nobly or basely. But if freedom brings out the worst in people, it also brings out the best. The millions of Americans who live decent, praiseworthy lives desire our highest admiration because they have opted for the good when the good is not the only available option. Even amid the temptations of a rich and free society, they have remained on the straight path. Their virtue has special luster because it is freely chosen. By contrast, the societies that many Islamic fundamentalists seek would eliminate the possibility of virtue. If the supply of virtue is insufficient in a free society like America, it is almost nonexistent in an unfree society like Iran's. The reason is that coerced virtues are not virtues at all. Consider the woman who is required to wear a veil. There is no modesty in this, because she is being compelled. Compulsion cannot produce virtue, it can only produce the outward semblance of virtue. Thus a free society like America's is not merely more prosperous, more varied, more peaceful, and more tolerant; it is also morally superior to the theocratic and authoritarian regimes that America's enemies advocate.”

Dinesh D'Souza (1961) Indian-American political commentator, filmmaker, author

Articles, 10 Things to Celebrate: Why I'm an Anti-Anti-American (June 2003)

Ayn Rand photo
Anthony Crosland photo

“To say that we must attend meticulously to the environmental case does not mean that we must go to the other extreme and wholly neglect the economic case. Here we must beware of some of our friends. For parts of the conservationist lobby would do precisely this. Their approach is hostile to growth in principle and indifferent to the needs of ordinary people. It has a manifest class bias, and reflects a set of middle and upper class value judgements. Its champions are often kindly and dedicated people. But they are affluent and fundamentally, though of course not consciously, they want to kick the ladder down behind them. They are highly selective in their concern, being militant mainly about threats to rural peace and wildlife and well loved beauty spots: they are little concerned with the far more desperate problem of the urban environment in which 80 per cent of our fellow citizens live…As I wrote many years ago, those enjoying an above average standard of living should be chary of admonishing those less fortunate on the perils of material riches. Since we have many less fortunate citizens, we cannot accept a view of the environment which is essentially elitist, protectionist and anti-growth. We must make our own value judgement based on socialist objectives: and that judgement must…be that growth is vital, and that its benefits far outweigh its costs.”

Anthony Crosland (1918–1977) British politician

'Class hypocrisy of the conservationists', The Times (8 January 1971), p. 10
An extract from the Fabian pamphlet A Social Democratic Britain.

Pope John Paul II photo
Miguel de Unamuno photo
Steven Erikson photo
Nelson Mandela photo
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti photo
Joseph Joubert photo
Roger Williams (theologian) photo
Abdul Halim of Kedah photo

“Grab this opportunity for us to visit one another. Strengthen the fraternal relationship among the various races found in Malaysia. May our country will continue be peace and prosper.”

Abdul Halim of Kedah (1927–2017) King of Malaysia

2016 Hari Raya Aidilfitri Message https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s92hqTf3Dd0, 5/7/2016

Manmohan Singh photo

“Japan is at the heart of India’s Look East Policy. It is also a key partner in our economic development and in our quest for a peaceful, stable and prosperous Asia and the world. Anchored in our shared values and interests, the partnership between a strong and economically resurgent Japan and a transforming and rapidly growing India can be an effective force of good for the region.”

Manmohan Singh (1932) 13th Prime Minister of India

On Japan, as quoted in "Media Statements of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe at the press event held after the annual India-Japan summit level meeting" http://mea.gov.in/in-focus-article.htm?22782/Media+Statements+of+Prime+Minister+Dr+Manmohan+Singh+and+Prime+Minister+of+Japan+Shinzo+Abe+at+the+press+event+held+after+the+annual+IndiaJapan+summit+level+meeting, Ministry of External Affairs (25 January 2014)
2011-present

John Ruskin photo
Boutros Boutros-Ghali photo
Jerome K. Jerome photo
John Dryden photo

“Thus in a pageant-show a plot is made;
And peace itself is war in masquerade.”

Pt. I, lines 750–751.
Absalom and Achitophel (1681)

Newton Lee photo

“Humankind too often cooks up an excuse to start war instead of making peace. Rather than developing better strategies to win wars, we should focus on better recipes to attain peace.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2015

John Gray photo
Walter Lippmann photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“A fourth enduring strand of policy has been to help improve the life of man. From the Marshall Plan to this very moment tonight, that policy has rested on the claims of compassion, and the certain knowledge that only a people advancing in expectation will build secure and peaceful lands. This year I propose major new directions in our program of foreign assistance to help those countries who will help themselves. We will conduct a worldwide attack on the problems of hunger and disease and ignorance. We will place the matchless skill and the resources of our own great America, in farming and in fertilizers, at the service of those countries committed to develop a modern agriculture. We will aid those who educate the young in other lands, and we will give children in other continents the same head start that we are trying to give our own children. To advance these ends I will propose the International Education Act of 1966. I will also propose the International Health Act of 1966 to strike at disease by a new effort to bring modern skills and knowledge to the uncared—for, those suffering in the world, and by trying to wipe out smallpox and malaria and control yellow fever over most of the world during this next decade; to help countries trying to control population growth, by increasing our research—and we will earmark funds to help their efforts. In the next year, from our foreign aid sources, we propose to dedicate $1 billion to these efforts, and we call on all who have the means to join us in this work in the world.”

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)

Felix Adler photo
Glenn Beck photo

“They want a race war. We must be peaceful people. They are gonna poke and poke and poke, and our government is going to stand by and let them do it. We must be — we must take the role of Martin Luther King, because I do not believe that Martin Luther King believed in, "Kill all white babies."”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2010-07-12
Beck: "They want a race war … and our government is going to stand by and let them do it"
2010-07-12
Media Matters for America
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201007120021
on The New Black Panther Party
2010s, 2010

Newton Lee photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Clement Attlee photo
Albert Lutuli photo
Wendell Berry photo
Frederick Douglass photo

“Solon was a sort of Athenian Franklin D. Roosevelt… He was an aristocratic reformer who understood instinctively that the aristocracy's monopoly on power had to be loosened and some power given to the lesser orders if social peace was to be shored up.”

Thomas Cahill (1940) American scholar and writer

Source: Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (2003), Ch.IV The Politician and the Playwright: How to Rule

Simone de Beauvoir photo

“After wars peace, after peace, another war. Every day men are born and others die.”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

All Men are Mortal (1946)

“I am going to help everyone I can to understand the Buddha’s teachings, I am going to help everyone I can to recite the Great Compassion Mantra and the Heart Sutra, I am going to let everyone know how great the Buddha’s teachings are. I am going to make world peace a reality.”

Jun Hong Lu (1959) Australian Buddhist leader

Master Jun Hong Lu - Ambassador of Peace Education https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrZUen8PMVI&feature=youtu.be&list=PLU6NSq1Oq8pxTDav8m7__9IVbfqlTPB4C&t=175, YouTube, 2016
Guan Yin Citta Dharma Door

David Lloyd George photo

“Any intervention now would be a triumph for Germany! A military triumph! A war triumph! Intervention would have been for us a military disaster. Has the Secretary of State for War no right to express an opinion upon a thing which would be a military disaster? That is what I did, and I do not withdraw a single syllable. It was essential. I could tell the hon. Member how timely it was. I can tell the hon. Member it was not merely the expression of my own opinion, but the expression of the opinion of the Cabinet, of the War Committee, and of our military advisers. It was the opinion of every ally. I can understand men who conscientiously object to all wars. I can understand men who say you will never redeem humanity except by passive endurance of every evil. I can understand men, even—although I do not appreciate the strength of their arguments—who say they do not approve of this particular war. That is not my view, but I can understand it, and it requires courage to say so. But what I cannot understand, what I cannot appreciate, what I cannot respect, is when men preface their speeches by saying they believe in the war, they believe in its origin, they believe in its objects and its cause, and during the time the enemy were in the ascendant never said a word about peace; but the moment our gallant troops are climbing through endurance and suffering up the path of ascendancy begin to howl with the enemy.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1916/oct/11/statement-by-prime-minister in the House of Commons (11 October 1916)
Secretary of State for War