Peacemaking Quotes

Injustice lives in the unquiet heart. ~ Nath Jones

Women particularly should concern themselves with peace because men by nature are more foolhardy and headstrong, and their overwhelming desire to avenge themselves prevents them from foreseeing the resulting dangers and terrors of war. But woman by nature is more gentle and circumspect. Therefore, if she has sufficient will and wisdom she can provide the best possible means to pacify man. ~ Christine De Pizan

True peace can rarely be imposed from the outside; it must be born within and between communities through meetings and dialogue and then carried outward. ~ Jean Vanier

Eating together is an occasion that humans have made into a peacemaking ritual; ~ Paul Theroux

Peacemaking calls for courage, much more so than warfare. ~ Pope Francis

Peace is the only battle worth waging. ~ Albert Camus

Instead of thinking those who don't share your passions are not 'real Christians,' recognize the beauty of diversity within the body of Christ. Instead of being angry with others for not feeling your urgency about an issue, give them time to come around. ~ Holly Sprink

Society has arisen out of the works of peace; the essence of society is peacemaking. Peace and not war is the father of all things. Only economic action has created the wealth around us; labor, not the profession of arms, brings happiness. Peace builds, war destroys. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

Throughout history, fairly arbitrary lines drawn on maps have determined who prospers and who needs, who eats and who starves, who attacks and who is attacked, who lives long and who dies young. Oh, we have been slaves to those lines for so long ... ~ Gavin De Becker

We are constantly being astonished these days at the amazing discoveries in the field of violence. But I maintain that far more undreamt of and seemingly impossible discoveries will be made in the field of nonviolence. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Love for one another will create peaceful co-existence. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

There isn't one celebrity I've worked with who doesn't have major doubts about what impact they are having. I am glad when they question the impact, because it shows they are based firmly in the reality that peacemaking isn't the same as changing a streetlight or distributing mosquito nets. ~ John Prendergast

But seen through a long lens, peacemaking founded on 'forgetting' appears to have a limited lifespan. ~ Erna Paris

My life has been devoted to peacemaking. ~ Feisal Abdul Rauf

Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable. ~ H.R. McMaster

In a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred, we have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace. ~ Aristotle.

When the real history of mankind is fully disclosed, will it feature the echoes of gunfire or the shaping sound of lullabies? The great armistices made by military men or the peacemaking of women in homes and in neighborhoods? Will what happened in cradles and kitchens prove to be more controlling than what happened in congresses? When the surf of the centuries has made the great pyramids so much sand, the everlasting family will still be standing, because it is a celestial institution, formed outside telestial time. ~ Neal A. Maxwell

Omer took a deep breath and stood up. 'It's a bad history without a doubt, he said. Nothing to be proud of.' He closed his eyes, turning his face to the side, right into the sun. 'So what are we going to do about it?' Then he opened his eyes, made a little bow, and put his hand out toward the avenue, as if to offer her the street. ~ Naomi Shibab Nye

Many people today agree that we need to reduce violence in our
society. If we are truly serious about this, we must deal with the
roots of violence, particularly those that exist within each of us. We
need to embrace 'inner disarmament,' reducing our own emotions of
suspicion, hatred and hostility toward our brothers and sisters. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

The thought that human beings are considering saving lives by killing millions of their fellow human beings is so preposterous that the words 'saving life' have lost all of their meaning. One of the most tragic facts of our century is that this 'No' to nuclear weapons has been spoken so seldom, so softly, and by so few. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

When religion does not move people to the mystical or non-dual level of consciousness9 it is more a part of the problem than any solution whatsoever. It solidifies angers, creates enemies, and is almost always exclusionary of the most recent definition of "sinner." At this level, it is largely incapable of its supreme task of healing, reconciling, forgiving, and peacemaking. When religion does not give people an inner life or a real prayer life, it is missing its primary vocation. Let me sum up, then, the foundational ways that I believe Jesus and the Twelve Steps of A.A. are saying the same thing but with different vocabulary: We suffer to get well. We surrender to win. We die to live. We give it away to keep it. This counterintuitive wisdom will forever be resisted as true, denied, and avoided, until it is forced upon us - by some reality over which we are powerless - and if we are honest, we are all powerless in the presence of full Reality. ~ Richard Rohr

If any man ceases to attack me, I never remember the past against him. ~ Abraham Lincoln

How ironic for peacemaking efforts to discover that hatred is stronger for many than love; that the longing to achieve power through military victories makes so many men lose their reason, forget all shame, and betray history. ~ Oscar Arias

Dream always of a peaceful, warless, disarmed world. ~ Robert Muller

It is the doom of the Christian church to be always distracted with controversy. John Quincy Adams ~ Paul C. Nagel

There is no path to Happiness. Happiness is the path. There is no path to Love. Love is the path. There is no path to Peace. Peace is the path. ~ Dan Millman

Without being peace, we cannot do anything for peace. If we cannot smile, we cannot help other people to smile. If we are not peaceful, then we cannot contribute to the peace movement. ~ Nhat Hanh

Peace may be hard to achieve, but is possible with small yet essential steps that are guided by courage and sufficient commitment. ~ Widad Akreyi

Peace, if it ever exists, will not be based on the fear of war, but on the love of peace. It will not be the abstaining from an act, but the coming of a state of mind. ~ Herman Wouk

One who stops a war before it starts, is the real victor. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Wars damage the civilian society as much as they damage the enemy. Soldiers never get over it. ~ Paul Fussell

Peace isn't the absence of wars provoked by a series of delinquents of all sort, but a dynamic process of cooperation between states and people ... ~ Ahmed Padia Binkatabana

Avoiding conflict isn't peacemaking. Avoiding conflict means running away from the mess while peacemaking means running into the middle of it.
Peacemaking means addressing those issues that caused conflict in the first place.
Peacemaking can never be separated from doing justice. They go hand in hand. Peacemaking means having to stir the waters on the way to peace.
Peacemaking means speaking the truth in love, but speaking the truth nonetheless. ~ Peggy Haymes

War is terrorism, magnified a hundred times. ~ Howard Zinn

When engaged in safe occupations, and living in healthy countries, men are much more apt to be frugal, than in unhealthy, or hazardous occupations, and in climates pernicious to human life. Sailors and soldiers are prodigals ... War and pestilence have always waste and luxury, among the other evils that follow in their train. ~ John Rae

Peace is not just about the absence of conflict; it's also about the presence of justice. Martin Luther King Jr. even distinguished between "the devil's peace" and God's true peace. A counterfeit peace exists when people are pacified or distracted or so beat up and tired of fighting that all seems calm. But true peace does not exist until there is justice, restoration, forgiveness. Peacemaking doesn't mean passivity. It is the act of interrupting injustice without mirroring injustice, the act of disarming evil without destroying the evildoer, the act of finding a third way that is neither fight nor flight but the careful, arduous pursuit of reconciliation and justice. It is about a revolution of love that is big enough to set both the oppressed and the oppressors free. ~ Shane Claiborne

If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace. ~ Helen Keller

Sometimes you need to swallow hard and recognise your enemy as a fellow human being like who has the same rights as you and accept that you need to live in same space. ~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

Prayer is the beginning and the end, the source and the fruit, the core and the content, the basis and the goal of all peacemaking. ~ Henri Nouwen

Peace comes from being able to contribute the best that we have, and all that we are, toward creating a world that supports everyone. But it is also securing the space for others to contibute the best that they have and all that they are. ~ Hafsat Abiola

In democracies where the citizens may read, hear or say what they like, the leaders are no better and no worse than the followers. So perhaps, if we cannot blame the leaders because the job of peacemaking is a sorry mess, we can only blame ourselves. ~ Martha Gellhorn

If you want to end a war, don't wait for the orders to come in - stand up and demand from the government to focus on peace and not on war, and if they ignore you, which they most likely would, then forget their intervention and go over to the other side yourself as a vulnerable and unarmed citizen of not a nation, but of peace. And when one side of the border has a handful of such citizens of peace, then the other side is bound to reciprocate that peace. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Let's stand against the killing of innocent civilians. It is time to make the future better than today. Together we can bring peace and unity to our communities. ~ Widad Akreyi

while he emphasized that peace is wonderful, Rogers was not altogether starry-eyed in this first week. In fact, he seemed quite the political realist in teaching us that peacemaking will be hard work. It will certainly require the most creative thoughts our moral imagination can muster. Like Daniel Striped Tiger, we will have to move beyond typical options and come up with creative strategies that surprise and shock the warmongers we seek to influence. Peacemaking will also no doubt be time-consuming. It will require us, as it did Lady Aberlin, to take time off from our regular work to create and carry out unique plans we would not normally even consider. And peacemaking will lead us into moments of doubt and uncertainty. Like Lady Aberlin and Mister Rogers, we will find ourselves wondering whether our ideas will really work. ~ Michael G. Long

That in itself is an act of peacemaking, because we're seeking to align our wills with God's will, our dreams with God's dream. ~ Brian D. McLaren

Never think that war is a good thing, grandchildren. Though it may be necessary at times to defend our people, war is a sickness that must be cured. War is a time out of balance. When it is truly over, we must work to restore peace and sacred harmony once again. ~ Joseph Bruchac

Five enemies of peace inhabit with us - avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride; if these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace. ~ Petrarch

In human rights and peacemaking, it's really about having a solid concrete goal - the reduction of human suffering somewhere in the world - and then doing what is required to get that goal achieved. ~ John Prendergast

As long as our restlessness, anxiety, and feelings of guilt dominate our work as peacemakers we cannot last long. But when we have opened each other's eyes to the great human gifts among all people, we can indeed make peacemaking a way of living. The greatest service we can offer each other is mutual support in our conversion from resentment to gratitude. ~ Henri Nouwen

Chad seemed both venomous and insecure, a flammable combination. ~ Pat Conroy

Good literature is one key to peace. When we stop reading each other, when we stop paying attention to each other's words and stories, we too easily oppose one another. ~ Dave DiGrazie