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* No treaty, however much it may be to the advantage of all, however tightly it may be worded, can provide absolute security against the risks of deception and evasion. But it can, if it is sufficiently effective in its enforcement and if it is sufficiently in the interests of its signers, offer far more security and far fewer risks than an unabated, uncontrolled, unpredictable arms race. ~ John F. Kennedy * "We must create world-wide law and law enforcement as we outlaw world-wide war and weapons" -- John F. Kennedy

Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us… The mere existence of modern weapons … is a sources of horror and discord and distrust.
~ John F. Kennedy

* If we are to achieve a world free from nuclear weapons, we need the involvement of young people. Youth have energy, enthusiasm and many good ideas to share. Most importantly, however, it is young people who will be inheriting the problems which have been left to them by the generations past. -- Marc Kielburger

* Somehow we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race which no one can win to a positive contest to harness man's creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all of the nations of the world. -- Martin Luther King, Jr

"We have ancient habits to deal with, vast structures of power, indescribably complicated problems to solve. But unless we abdicate our humanity altogether and succumb to fear and impotence in the presence of the weapons we have ourselves created, it is as possible and as urgent to put an end to war and violence between nations as it is to put an end to poverty and racial injustice."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr

* We all have choices. We can build walls or we can build bridges. We can give our talents to creating weapons of annihilation, as so many scientists have done, or we can work to find solutions to humanities greatest problems. Our orientation is found not only in our acts, but also in the policies we support or oppose. -- David Krieger

* We must work toward the elimination of all nuclear weapons, and an end to policies which cause this country to move toward the weaponization of space. -- Dennis Kucinich * As citizen-activists the world over merge, they can become an irresistible force to create peace and protect the planet. From here will come a new movement to abolish nuclear weapons and all weapons of mass destruction. From here will come the demand for sustainable communities, for new systems of energy, transportation and commerce. From here comes the future rushing in on us. How does one acquire the capacity for active citizenship? The opportunities exist every day...Active citizenship begins with an envisioning of the desired outcome and a conscious application of spiritual principles. -- Dennis Kucinich

We cannot by ourselves reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world, but we are doing what has to be done all over the world if those weapons are one day to be eliminated. We will not contemplate any circumstance in which their possession or threatened use is justified. We reject the secrecy and hypocrisy which surrounds the continuing refinement of the technology. -- David Lange * Our nuclear free status is a statement of our belief that we and our fellow human beings can build the institutions which will one day allow us all to renounce the weapons of mass destruction. We are a small country and what we can do is limited. But in this as in every other great issue, we have to start somewhere. -- David Lange

Kids can't see us bombing, and then listen to us talking about getting guns out of the schools. How can we tell them to solve problems without violence, if, in fact, we can't show an ability to solve problems without violence? -- Barbara Lee

* Every adult in the world has some sense that he or she might be obliterated at any time by these weapons that we have created. -- Robert Jay Lifton

* "We physicians have focused on the nuclear threat as the singular issue of our era. We are not indifferent to other human rights and hard-won civil liberties. But first we must be able to bequeath to our children the most fundamental of all rights, which preconditions all others; the right to survival. -- Bernard Lown As long as we rationalize nuclear weapons as “necessary” in order to save American lives, then nuclear weapons will never be gotten rid of. -- Bernard Lown

* The big powers are traveling on the dangerous road of armament. The signpost just ahead of us is 'Oblivion.' Can the march on this road be stopped? Yes, if public opinion uses the power it now has. -- Sean MacBride

The students I've been with these twenty years are looking for a world where it becomes a little easier to love and a lot harder to hate, where learning nonviolence means that we dedicate our hearts, minds, time, and money to a commitment that the force of love, the force of truth, the force of justice, and the force of organized resistance to corrupt power are seen as sane and the force of fists, guns, armies, and bombs insane. -- Colman McCarthy

* Long live all us crazy soldiers Who were born under calico skies May we never be called to handle All the weapons of war we despise -- Paul McCartney

* "I never liked guns, I hate them..." -- Sir Roger Moore

* The cause of Peace has had my share of efforts, taking the ultra non-resistance ground - that a Christian cannot consistently uphold, and actively support, a government based on the sword, or whose ultimate resort is to the destroying weapons. -- Lucretia Mott

* I agree with the many who consider freezing all sorts of weapons systems a first step in a realistic disarmament policy. -- Alva Myrdal

More must be done in concrete terms in order to promote the cause of disarmament.
-- Alva Myrdal

The smaller nations can in fact exercise greater influence on disarmament negotiations than they have hitherto done.
-- Alva Myrdal

Because war and preparations for war have acquired legitimacy, and because of the tremendous proliferation of arms through production and export, so that they are now available more or less to all and sundry, right down to handguns and stilettos, the cult of violence has by now so permeated relations between people that we are compelled to witness as well an increase in everyday violence.
-- Alva Myrdal

In less than a century we experienced great movement. The youth movement! The labor movement! The civil rights movement! The peace movement! The solidarity movement! The women's movement! The disability movement! The disarmament movement! The gay rights movement! The environmental movement! Movement! Transformation! Is there any reason to believe we are done? -- Holly Near

* In the age when the atom has been split, the moon encircled, diseases conquered, is disarmament so difficult a matter that it must remain a distant dream? -- Philip Noel-Baker

* The sheer folly of trying to defend a nation by destroying all life on the planet must be apparent to anyone capable of rational thought. Nuclear capability must be reduced to zero, globally, permanently. There is no other option. -- Queen Noor of Jordan

I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manfuacturer's lobby. But I also believe that when a gangbanger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels someone disrespected him, we have a problem of morality. Not only do we need to punish that man for his crime, but we need to acknowledge that there's a hole in his heart, one that government programs alone may not be able to repair. -- Barack Obama * The single biggest threat that we face is a nuclear weapon or some weapon of mass destruction. What that means is that we have to be extraordinarily aggressive and vigilant in controlling nuclear proliferation. -- Barack Obama

* "What is wrong with keeping guns out of the hands of the wrong people?" -- Gregory Peck

When distrust exists between governments, when there is a danger of war, they will not be willing to disarm even when logic indicates that disarmament would not affect military security at all. -- Ludwig Quidde Time and time again we have experienced efforts directed toward this popular and simple concept of securing peace by means of disarmament. -- Ludwig Quidde * Disarmament or limitation of armaments, which depends on the progress made on security, also contributes to the maintenance of peace. -- Ludwig Quidde

Lightly armed nations can move toward war just as easily as those which are armed to the teeth, and they will do so if the usual causes of war are not removed.
-- Ludwig Quidde

* Land mines, torture equipment, cluster bombs, chemical weapons are weapons designed to inflict pain and death on human beings. Most victims are civilians, women and children. How can arms manufacturers, weapons designers, plant managers, politicians, who have families of their own whom they love, be so insensitive when it comes to the suffering of other human beings? -- José Ramos-Horta

* Extending social and economic development throughout the world and eliminating nuclear weapons from military arsenals are two fundamental prerequisites to replacing the culture of war with a culture of peace, and building true security for all the world's people. -- Douglas Roche

 

Moral disarmament is to safeguard the future; material disarmament is to save for the present, that there may be a future to safeguard.
-Elihu Root

* "Nuclear disarmament is not just an ardent desire of the people, as expressed in many resolutions of the United Nations. It is a legal commitment ... for the sake of humanity - we must get rid of all nuclear weapons." -- Joseph Rotblat Indeed, the very first resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations - adopted unanimously - called for the elimination of nuclear weapons. -- Joseph Rotblat

* If you are religious, then remember that this bomb is man's challenge to God. It's worded quite simply: We have the power to destroy everything you have created. If you're not religious, then look at it this way. This world of ours is four thousand, six hundred million years old. It could end in an afternoon. -- Arundhati Roy

* " This idea of weapons of mass extermination is utterly horrible and is something which no one with one spark of humanity can tolerate. -- Bertrand Russell

* Except for fools and madmen, everyone knows that nuclear war would he an unprecedented human catastrophe. -- Carl Sagan

It is now almost 40 years since the invention of nuclear weapons. We have not yet experienced a global thermonuclear war -- although on more than one occasion we have come tremulously close. I do not think our luck can hold forever. Men and machines are fallible, as recent events remind us. Fools and madmen do exist, and sometimes rise to power. Concentrating always on the near future, we have ignored the long-term consequences of our actions. We have placed our civilization and our species in jeopardy. Fortunately, it is not yet too late. We can safeguard the planetary civilization and the human family if we so choose. There is no more important or more urgent issue.
-- Carl Sagan

* The use of a mere dozen nuclear weapons ... would be a human catastrophe without parallel. ... Because so few weapons can kill so many people, even far-reaching disarmament proposals would leave us implicated in plans for unprecedented slaughter of innocent people. The sole measure that can free us from this burden is abolition. -- Jonathan Schell

* preparedness for war is an incentive to war, and the only hope of permanent peace is the systematic and scientific disarmament of all the nations of the world -- Anna Howard Shaw

* When I was growing up, it was 'Communists'. Now it's 'Terrorists'. So you always have to have somebody to fight and be afraid of, so the war machine can build more bombs, guns, and bullets and everything. -- Cindy Sheehan

* We are the generation that brought the bomb in. We have got to be the generation that should take it out. -- Martin Sheen

* In the long run the purpose is to form a new security system in a world when nobody goes hungry because we spend money on armaments. -- Inga Thorsson

The situation of the world around us can be painted in a picture of the darkest possible colours. On one hand, the arms race absorbs for deadly purposes 40 million dollars every 24 hours. On the other hand, immeasurable poverty affects the lives of three-quarters of the men, women and children in the world around us. The efforts for disarmament must therefore be an inextricable part of the efforts to solve the common problems of our time, problems which ultimately involve our very survival, the possibility to continue the human experiment."
-- Inga Thorsson

We have now reached the stage where disarmament alone, although an absolute necessity, is not enough. The stockpiles of arms are in themselves a mortal threat to mankind but there are also other threats to our existence.Disarmament for peace is not sufficient: it must be supported by development for peace.
-- Inga Thorsson

"On the collective level, we have unwittingly shifted from being a nation of liberators, defenders of freedom, into becoming a nation of arms dealers and mercenaries, fabricating our own weapons of mass destruction and arming tyrants with the tools to oppress their own people. Within our own society, we jail more prisoners than any other country in the world, 85 percent of them people of nonwhite races — red, black, brown, and yellow. We are one of the few nations that still indulge in the death penalty for increasing numbers of these prisoners. We must become mindful of these negative things, since we need not support these actions of our nation to be affected negatively by their evolutionary impact, unless we mentally, verbally, and ultimately physically, disassociate ourselves from them." -- Robert Thurman

* Universal  peace  education, the  concept  of  peace  as a human  right, and  yes, the  abolition of  nuclear weapons  are all sound and achievable objectives to which every person can contribute  their energies. -- Barbara Valocore

We do not believe that a nuclear war should be fought and we do not believe that a nuclear war can be won. -- Atal Bihari Vajpayee

* The main reason we are held hostage by the most destructive technology on earth is simple: the complete lack of international resolve to ban nuclear weapons and banish them from the arsenals of the world. -- Christopher Weeramantry But elimination will only happen if all countries — nuclear and non-nuclear states — genuinely work towards this result. Nuclear states must abolish their arsenals, as was indicated by the unanimous opinion of the international Court of Justice, the highest international tribunal. The five nuclear states seem to expect others to refrain from obtaining bombs while at the same time maintaining their own caches of deadly weapons. -- Christopher Weeramantry * The creation of a nuclear weapons convention is not only achievable, it is imperative if civilisation is to survive. -- Christopher Weeramantry

* War and the preparation for war rob resources from human security. As long as we honour war and warriors we maintain fear and hate, always based on ignorance; and fear is the enemy of learning, it gives ignorance its power. As long as we misplace money for weapons – we keep water polluted, we keep far too many women illiterate and unskilled, we prevent health care and education from being universally enjoyed – we promote poverty. These are among the root causes of violent conflict. -- Cora Weiss

* "We're trying to protect these communities from our own weapons of mass destruction. We didn't have to go to Iraq to find these things. They're right here." -- Craig Williams

* The Second Amendment says we have the right to bear arms, not to bear artillery.” -- Robin Williams

* The question of armaments, whether on land or sea, is the most immediately and intensely practical question connected with the future fortunes of nations and of mankind. -- Woodrow Wilson

This is our message – killing is wrong. Mass killing is wrong. Threatening mass destruction is a denial of our own humanity and is suicidal. When something is wrong we have to stop it. Dismantling the machinery of destruction is thus a practical act of love that we can all join in. Please join us – together we are unstoppable. -- Angie Zelter

* "We need to rethink our position in the world. We need to stop sending weapons to countries that oppress other people. We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children. War is terrorism, magnified a hundred times." -- Howard Zinn

DISARMAMENT QUOTES

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DISARMAMENT
HERO PIX

Dwight D. Eisenhower | John F. Kennedy

Disarmament Week - October 24-30