Quotes about peace
page 30

Francis Escudero photo

“What can I say about the peace efforts with our Muslim brothers and the NPA?”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero

Tawakkol Karman photo
George W. Bush photo

“I believe that a prosperous, democratic Pakistan will be a steadfast partner for America, a peaceful neighbor for India and a force for freedom and moderation in the Arab world.”

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

Televised speech in India, March 3, 2006; According to one news report, "White House spokesman Scott McClellan later had to explain aboard Air Force One en route to Pakistan that Bush meant to say 'Muslim world' — uncomfortably noting that Pakistan is not an Arab nation."
"Bush's Pakistan visit not 'risk-free'" Chicago Tribune, March 3, 2006
2000s, 2006

Jimmy Carter photo
George W. Bush photo
Malala Yousafzai photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Bertolt Brecht photo

“Their peace and their war
Are like wind and storm.War grows from their peace.”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

"Those at the top say: peace and war" [Die Oberen sagen: Friede und Krieg] from "A German War Primer" [Deutsche Kriegsfibel] (1937), trans. Lee Baxendall in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 288
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

John F. Kennedy photo
David Cameron photo

“Britain is a special country. We have so many great advantages: a Parliamentary democracy where we resolve great issues about our future through peaceful debate; a great trading nation, with our science and arts, our engineering and our creativity, respected the world over. And while we are not perfect, I do believe we can be a model for the multi-racial, multi-faith democracy, where people can come and make a contribution and rise to the very highest that their talent allows.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech delivered outside outside 10 Downing Street, announcing that he would resign as prime minister after British voters chose to leave the European Union in a referendum (June 24, 2016), see David Cameron's resignation speech in full http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/24/europe/david-cameron-full-resignation-speech/ (published by CNN)
2010s, 2016

Lord Randolph Churchill photo
George W. Bush photo

“We cannot rely exclusively on military power to assure our long-term security. Lasting peace is gained as justice and democracy advance.”

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

2000s, 2003, Remarks on U.S.-British relations and foreign policy (November 2003)

William Blackstone photo

“The founders of the English laws have with excellent forecast contrived, that no man should be called to answer to the king for any capital crime, unless upon the preparatory accusation of twelve or more of his fellow subjects, the grand jury: and that the truth of every accusation, whether preferred in the shape of indictment, information, or appeal, should afterwards be confirmed by the unanimous suffrage of twelve of his equals and neighbours, indifferently chosen, and superior to all suspicion. So that the liberties of England cannot but subsist, so long as this palladium remains sacred and inviolate, not only from all open attacks, (which none will be so hardy as to make) but also from all secret machinations, which may sap and undermine it; by introducing new and arbitrary methods of trial, by justices of the peace, commissioners of the revenue, and courts of conscience. And however convenient these may appear at first, (as doubtless all arbitrary powers, well executed, are the most convenient) yet let it be again remembered, that delays, and little inconveniences in the forms of justice, are the price that all free nations must pay for their liberty in more substantial matters; that these inroads upon this sacred bulwark of the nation are fundamentally opposite to the spirit of our constitution; and that, though begun in trifles, the precedent may gradually increase and spread, to the utter disuse of juries in questions of the most momentous concern.”

Book IV, ch. 27 http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk4ch27.asp: Of Trial, And Conviction.
Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769)

Clive Staples Lewis photo
Muhammad photo
Toby Keith photo
André Maurois photo
Robert F. Kennedy photo
Sergey Lavrov photo

“I am very pleased to be here in Israel, the land of our friends, friends who are going through a complex period like their neighbors. We are convinced that the efforts of all countries and governments in the region will find a way to reach peace and long-term security. I have arrived here after visiting Beirut and Damascus and I want to tell the Prime Minister and all other ministers that today, everyone wants peace more than ever, peace and security.Now, the preferred position is that of those who do not want to live amidst endless arguments about who was right first and last. Everybody wants to sit around the negotiating table. Everyone aspires to reach decisions that will be acceptable to all and certainly to Israel. We always point out the Russian Federation’s full agreement that the State of Israel has the full right to peace and security. We are convinced that that there is no other way to resolve this problem except through peace.We are certain that UN Security Council Resolution #1701, that we all worked on together, will be carried out in full by all sides. We think that the abductees should be released as soon as possible and we are also convinced that the military blockade of Lebanon must be lifted and that the Lebanese army needs to deploy in southern Lebanon in order to facilitate the Israeli army’s withdrawal as quickly as possible. But we are convinced that peace is attainable only if an international conference - with the participation of all sides - convenes. Lastly, I would like to point out that we are very much looking forward to the Prime Minister’s visit to Moscow in order to discuss bilateral relations.”

Sergey Lavrov (1950) Russian politician and Foreign Minister

In Israel, where he meets the Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, {{September 2006)) http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2006/PM+Olmert+meets+Russian+FM+Lavrov+7-Sept-2006.htm

John F. Kennedy photo
Gustav Stresemann photo
Robert Spencer photo

“Most local imams in Dagestan shun radical views, but they have found it hard to counter the appeal of radical ideas promoted by the Islamic State. Some imams who spoke against radical Islam have been killed.” Why have they “found it hard to counter the appeal of radical ideas promoted by the Islamic State”? To Western leaders such as David Cameron, John Kerry, Joe Biden, Pope Francis, the U. S. Catholic bishops, and a host of others, it is patently obvious that the Qur’an teaches peace and that Islam is a religion of peace. So it ought to be child’s play for these imams in Dagestan to refute the twisted, hijacked version of Islam presented by the Islamic State. Here’s an idea: why doesn’t Barack Obama send Kerry to Dagestan to explain to young Muslims how the Islamic State is misunderstanding and misrepresenting Islam? Or maybe Pope Francis could go there, or he could send some Arabic-speaking Eastern Catholic bishop — say, one who knows that Islam is at its core a peaceful religion and who moves actively to silence and ostracize those who say otherwise — to the Islamic State, straight to Raqqa, to explain to the caliph how he is misunderstanding Islam. That would clear up this problem in a hurry. I volunteer to pay the bishop’s airfare.”

Robert Spencer (1962) American author and blogger

Jihad Watch - Islamic State on recruitment spree in Russia, “moderate” imams can’t counter the jihadis’ appeal http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/10/islamic-state-on-recruitment-spree-in-russia-moderate-imams-cant-counter-the-jihadis-appeal (29 October 2015)

Calvin Coolidge photo
Adam Smith photo
Edward Bond photo

“As Shakespeare himself knew, the peace, the reconciliation that he created on the stage would not last an hour on the street.”

Edward Bond (1934) English writer best known as a dramatist

Introduction to Plays (London: Methuen, 1978) vol. 2, p. x.

Tony Blair photo

“Analogies with the past are never properly accurate and analogies especially with the rising fascism can be easily misleading, but in pure chronology I sometimes wonder if we're not in the 1920s or 1930s again… This ideology now has a state, Iran, that is prepared to back and finance terror in the pursuit of destabilising countries whose people wish to live in peace.”

Tony Blair (1953) former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

[Martin Hodgson, Blair accuses Iran of fuelling 'deadly ideology' of militant Islam, http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2195043,00.html, The Guardian, 2007-10-19, 2007-10-19]
2000s

Franz Kafka photo
Abd al-Karim Qasim photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
Hosni Mubarak photo
Joseph Franklin Rutherford photo
Winfield Scott photo

“Peace won by compromise is usually a short lived achievement.”

Winfield Scott (1786–1866) Union United States Army general

As quoted in The Iron Man of India (1951) by S. Jaysbee, p. 57

Calvin Coolidge photo
Alfred de Zayas photo
Han-shan photo
Aisha photo

“Narrated Aisha, Ummul Mu'minin: The Prophet (peace be upon him) used to kiss her and suck her tongue when he was fasting.”

Aisha (605–678) Muhammad's wife

Sunan Abu Dawud 13:2380 WEAK NARRATION!

Kenneth N. Waltz photo
William Collins photo

“Love of peace, and lonely musing,
In hollow murmurs died away.”

William Collins (1721–1759) English poet, born 1721

Source: The Passions, an Ode for Music (1747), Line 67.

Benjamín Netanyahu photo

“Israel has extended its hand in peace from the moment it was established… In Israel our hope for peace never wanes. Our scientists, doctors, and innovators apply their genius to improve the world of tomorrow. Our artists, our writers, enrich the heritage of humanity. Now, I know that this is not exactly the image of Israel that is often portrayed…”

Benjamín Netanyahu (1949) Israeli prime minister

2010s, 2011
Source: Address to the U.N. General Assembly https://web.archive.org/web/20130615172321/http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/pressroom/2011/pages/remarks_pm_netanyahu_un_general%20_assembly_23-sep-2011.aspx (23 September 2011).

Graham Greene photo
Richard Cobden photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“As the idealism of our youth has served world peace, so can it serve the domestic tranquility.”

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

1963, Third State of the Union Address

Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein photo

“There were many reasons why we did not gain complete success at Arnhem. The following in my view were the main ones. First. The operation was not regarded at Supreme Headquarters as the spearhead of a major Allied movement on the northern flank designed to isolate, and finally to occupy, the Ruhr - the one objective in the West which the Germans could not afford to lose. There is no doubt in my mind that Eisenhower always wanted to give priority to the northern thrust and to scale down the southern one. He ordered this to be done, and he thought that it was being done. It was not being done. Second. The airborne forces at Arnhem were dropped too far away from the vital objective - the bridge. It was some hours before they reached it. I take the blame for this mistake. I should have ordered Second Army and 1st Airborne Corps to arrange that at least one complete Parachute Brigade was dropped quite close to the bridge, so that it could have been captured in a matter of minutes and its defence soundly organised with time to spare. I did not do so. Third. The weather. This turned against us after the first day and we could not carry out much of the later airborne programme. But weather is always an uncertain factor, in war and in peace. This uncertainty we all accepted. It could only have been offset, and the operation made a certainty, by allotting additional resources to the project, so that it became an Allied and not merely a British project. Fourth. The 2nd S. S. Panzer Corps was refitting in the Arnhem area, having limped up there after its mauling in Normandy. We knew it was there. But we were wrong in supposing that it could not fight effectively; its battle state was far beyond our expectation. It was quickly brought into action against the 1st Airborne Division.”

Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (1887–1976) British Army officer, Commander of Allied forces at the Battle of El Alamein

Concerning Operation Market Garden in his autobiography, 'The Memoirs of Field Marshal Montgomery' (1958)

Douglas Coupland photo
Beilby Porteus photo

“War its thousands slays, Peace its ten thousands.”

Beilby Porteus (1731–1809) Bishop of Chester; Bishop of London

Source: Death: A Poetical Essay (1759), Line 178.

Aron Ra photo
Henry M. Jackson photo

“We all want to put the brakes on the arms race…we all want to achieve arms control…but to those who say we must take risks for peace by cutting the meat from our military muscle, I say you are unwittingly risking war.”

Henry M. Jackson (1912–1983) American politician

" Henry “Scoop” Jackson for President 1972 Campaign Brochure http://www.4president.org/brochures/scoopjackson1972brochure.htm", 4President.org. Retrieved 07-02-2006.

Jeremy Corbyn photo
William Ewart Gladstone photo
Dwight D. Eisenhower photo
Angela Merkel photo
Muhammad photo
Peace Pilgrim photo

“This is the way of peace — overcome evil with good, and falsehood with truth, and hatred with love.”

Peace Pilgrim (1908–1981) American non-denominational spiritual teacher

The one-sentence peace message summarizing her ideas. Ch. 3 : The Pilgrimage
Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words (1982)

Oliver Wendell Holmes photo
Jonah Goldberg photo

“[L]iberals are going to have to make peace with the possibility that their political enemies aren’t always the cartoon villains they so desperately want them to be.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

2010s, 2018, Liberals' Irritable Mental Gestures (2018)

William Moulton Marston photo
Enoch Powell photo
Paul Thurrott photo
John Ruysbroeck photo

“When love has carried us above and beyond all things, Into the Divine Dark, We receive in peace the Incomprehensible Light, Enfolding us and penetrating us. What is this Light, If it be not a contemplation of the Infinite, And an intuition of Eternity?”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

Evelyn Underhill Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness (1912), p. 506
The Sparkling Stone (c. 1340)

Gustavo Gutiérrez photo

“The building of a just society means overcoming every obstacle to the creation of authentic peace.”

Gustavo Gutiérrez (1928) Peruvian theologian

Source: A Theology of Liberation - 15th Anniversary Edition, Chapter Three, The problem, p. 31

Julius Malema photo

“Malema: So these popcorn and mushrooming political parties in Zimbabwe, they will never find friendship in us. They can insult us here from air-conditioned offices of Sandton, we are unshaken. They must stop shouting at us, they must go and fight with their battle in Zimbabwe and win. Even if they've got ground and they are formed on the basis of solid ground in Zim, why are they speaking in Sandton and not Mashonaland or Matabeleland? … Let them go back and go and fight there. Even when the ANC was underground in exile, we had our internal underground forces fighting for freedom.
Fisher: You live in Sandton.
Malema: And we have never spoken from … exile. Let me tell you before you are tjatjarag [i. e. chatty]. This is a building of a revolutionary party, and you know nothing about the revolution.
Fisher: So, so they are not welcome in Sandton but you are?
Malema: So here you behave or else you jump. [Fisher and others laugh. ] Don't laugh.
Fisher: You're joking.
Malema: Chief, can you get security to remove this thing here. If you are not going to behave … call security to take you out. This is not a news room this. This is a revolutionary house. And you don't come here with that tendency. Don't come here with that white tendency, not here. … If you've got a tendency of undermining blacks even while you work, you are in a wrong place …
Fisher: That's rubbish.
Malema: … and you can go out!
Fisher: Absolutely rubbish.
Malema: Rubbish is what you have covered in that trouser. … You are a small boy, you can't do anything. … Bastard! Go out! You bloody agent! … So we think that we need to ensure that we encourage Zanu PF comrades to engage in peaceful means.”

Julius Malema (1981) South African political activist

Outburst against reporter Jonah Fisher at Luthuli House on 8 April 2010, while president of the ANC youth league and after his return from Zimbabwe, ANC's Julius Malema lashes out at 'misbehaving' BBC journalist https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/08/anc-julius-malema-bbc-journalist (8 April 2010)

Thomas Hobbes photo
Samuel Beckett photo
Vannevar Bush photo
Alija Izetbegović photo

“This may not be a just peace, but it is more just than the continuation of war.”

Alija Izetbegović (1925–2003) Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Quoted on BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/21/newsid_2549000/2549809.stm

George F. Kennan photo

“Whenever you have a possibility of going in two ways, either for peace or for war, for peaceful methods of for military methods, in the present age there is a strong prejudice for the peaceful ones. War seldom ever leads to good results.”

George F. Kennan (1904–2005) American advisor, diplomat, political scientist and historian

As quoted in "George Kennan Speaks Out About Iraq" at History News Network (26 September 2002)

Benjamín Netanyahu photo
William Tyndale photo

“The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face to shine upon thee and be merciful unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.”

William Tyndale (1494–1536) Bible translator and agitator from England

Numbers 6:24-26.
Tyndale's translations

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi photo

“O Cyrus, great King, King of Kings, Achaemenian King, King of the land of Iran. I, the Shahanshah of Iran, offer thee salutations from myself and from my nation. Rest in peace, for we are awake, and we will always stay awake.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

Opening speech on October 12, 1971, when Iran marked the 2500th anniversary of Cyrus' founding of the Persian Empire
Speeches, 1971

Anthony Eden photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Tad Williams photo
Muhammad photo
Ayn Rand photo
Baruch Spinoza photo

“Of a commonwealth, whose subjects are but hindered by terror from taking arms, it should rather be said, that it is free from war, than that it has peace. For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from force of character : for obedience is the constant will to execute what, by the general decree of the commonwealth, ought to be done. Besides, that commonwealth, whose peace depends on the sluggishness of its subjects, that are led about like sheep, to learn but slavery, may more properly be called a desert than a commonwealth.”
Civitas, cuius subditi metu territi arma non capiunt, potius dicenda est, quod sine bello sit, quam quod pacem habeat. Pax enim non belli privatio, sed virtus est, quae ex animi fortitudine oritur; est namque obsequium constans voluntas id exsequendi, quod ex communi civitatis decreto fieri debet. Illa praeterea civitas, cuius pax a subditorum inertia pendet, qui scilicet veluti pecora ducuntur, ut tantum servire discant, rectius solitudo, quam civitas dici potest.

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Liberally rendered in A Natural History of Peace (1996) by Thomas Gregor as:
"Peace is not an absence of war; it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice."
Source: Political Treatise (1677), Ch. 5, Of the Best State of a Dominion

Russell Brand photo

“With each tentative tiptoe and stumble, I had to inwardly assure myself that I was a good comedian and that my life was not pointless. “I am addicted to comfort,” I thought as I tumbled into the wood chips. I have become divorced from nature; I don’t know what the names of the trees and birds are. I don’t know what berries to eat or which stars will guide me home. I don’t know how to sleep outside in a wood or skin a rabbit. We have become like living cutlets, sanitized into cellular ineptitude. They say that supermarkets have three days’ worth of food. That if there was a power cut, in three days the food would spoil. That if cash machines stopped working, if cars couldn’t be filled with fuel, if homes were denied warmth, within three days we’d be roaming the streets like pampered savages, like urban zebras with nowhere to graze. The comfort has become a prison; we’ve allowed them to turn us into waddling pipkins. What is civilization but dependency? Now, I’m not suggesting we need to become supermen; that solution has been averred before and did not end well. Prisoners of comfort, we dread the Apocalypse. What will we do without our pre-packed meals and cozy jails and soporific glowing screens rocking us comatose? The Apocalypse may not arrive in a bright white instant; it may creep into the present like a fog. All about us we may see the shipwrecked harbingers foraging in the midsts of our excess. What have we become that we can tolerate adjacent destitution? That we can amble by ragged despair at every corner? We have allowed them to sever us from God, and until we take our brothers by the hand we will find no peace.”

Revolution (2014)

Frank Chodorov photo
Pope Benedict XVI photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“Peace to the weary and the beating heart,
That fed upon itself!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

A History of the Lyre
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Muhammad photo

“Never desire war but pray to Allah for peace and security. And when you are (forced) to fight the enemy, fight with steadfastness and know that Paradise is under the shadow of swords.”

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

Riyadh us Saleheen, as quoted in Muhammad As a Military Leader, Afzalur Rahman
Sunni Hadith

Tawakkol Karman photo
Margaret Thatcher photo

“No-one in their senses wants nuclear weapons for their own sake, but equally, no responsible prime minister could take the colossal gamble of giving up our nuclear defences while our greatest potential enemy kept their's. Policies which would throw out all American nuclear bases…would wreck NATO and leave us totally isolated from our friends in the United States, and friends they are. No nation in history has ever shouldered a greater burden nor shouldered it more willingly nor more generously than the United States. This Party is pro-American. And we must constantly remind people what the defence policy of the [Labour] Party would mean. Their idea that by giving up our nuclear deterrent, we could somehow escape the result of a nuclear war elsewhere is nonsense, and it is a delusion to assume that conventional weapons are sufficient defence against nuclear attack. And do not let anyone slip into the habit of thinking that conventional war in Europe is some kind of comfortable option. With a huge array of modern weapons held by the Soviet Union, including chemical weapons in large quantities, it would be a cruel and terrible conflict. The truth is that possession of the nuclear deterrent has prevented not only nuclear war but also conventional war and to us, peace is precious beyond price. We are the true peace party.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (12 October 1984) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105763
Second term as Prime Minister

Lana Turner photo
Ellen G. White photo
Julian of Norwich photo
William Saroyan photo

“What is a street? It is where the living weep, where the dead go off in silence to their peace.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

The Bicycle Rider In Beverly Hills (1952)

C. J. Cherryh photo
Gerald Ford photo
Woodrow Wilson photo

“What is at at stake now is the peace of the world. What we are striving for is a new international order based upon broad and universal principles of right and justice, -- no mere peace of shreds and patches.”

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

1910s, Address to Congress: Analyzing German and Austrian Peace Utterances (1918)

Jill Eikenberry photo