|
Nonviolence
|
|
*
It
takes four generations to recover from every act of
violence.
-- Rebecca
Adamson |
|
The
Season For Nonviolence has grown into an important
educational and media opportunity to bring communities
together, empowering them to envision and help create
a nonviolent world, one heart and one day at a time.
Throughout the 64-day campaign, events and activities
for peace and nonviolence take place all around
the world, highlighting existing peacebuilding initiatives
and inspiring new year-round activities for a more
peaceful, nonviolent, just and sustainable world.
-- Robert
Alan Silverstein
|
 |
 |
Conflicts
are fueled by the tendency of the powerful to exploit
the power and the anger and frustration of the powerless,
which turns into violence. International Solidarity
Movement activists are attempting to confront the
exploitation of power and to bring back hope to
the powerless.
-- Ghassan
Andoni
|
 |
"It
may seem sometimes as if a culture of peace does not
stand a chance against the culture of war, the culture
of violence and the cultures of impunity and intolerance.
Peace may indeed be a complex challenge, dependent
on action in many fields and even a bit of luck from
time to time. It may be a painfully slow process,
and fragile and imperfect when it is achieved. But
peace is in our hands. We can do it."
-- Kofi
Annan |
|
*
What
my experience has taught me is that regardless of
how complicated the problems might appear, it is
possible to work through them and find solutions
that are mutually satisfactory to every stakeholder
in the problem… most of our problems on this earth
are created by us and therefore we have the capacity
and the obligation to unmake them.
-- Hizkias
Assefa
|
 |
 |
*
That's
all nonviolence is - organized love.
-- Joan
Baez
I
would say that I'm a nonviolent soldier. In place
of weapons of violence, you have to use your mind,
your heart, your sense of humor, every faculty available
to you...because no one has the right to take the
life of another human being.
-- Joan
Baez
|
 |
*
The
world censures those who take up arms to defend
their causes and calls on them to use nonviolent
means in voicing their grievances. But when a people
chooses the nonviolent path, it is all too often
the case that hardly anyone pays attention. It is
tragic that people have to suffer and die and the
television cameras have to deliver the pictures
to people's homes every day before the world at
large admits there is a problem.
-- Bishop
Carlos Belo
|
|
*
One
is called to live nonviolently, even if the change
one works for seems impossible. It may or may not
be possible to turn the US around through nonviolent
revolution. But one thing favors such an attempt:
the total inability of violence to change anything
for the better.
-- Daniel
Berrigan
|
 |
|
*
We
must look towards societies that set a high value
on nonaggression and noncompetitive ness, and therefore
handle conflicts by nonviolent means. We can see
how child rearing patterns produce nurturing adult
behaviors.”
-- Elise
Boulding
|
 |
|
|
*
"Non-violence
is not inaction. It is not discussion. It is not
for the timid or weak … Non-violence is hard work.
It is the willingness to sacrifice. It is the patience
to win."
-- Cesar
Chavez
"There
is no such thing as defeat in nonviolence."
-- Cesar
Chavez
"The
first principle of non-violent action is that of
non-cooperation with everything humiliating."
--
Cesar
Chavez
|
|
|
*
Non-violence
can truly flourish when the world is free of poverty,
hunger, discrimination, exclusion, intolerance and
hatred - when women and men can realize their highest
potential and live a secure and fulfilling life.
Until then, each and every one of us would have
to contribute - collectively and individually -
to build peace through non-violence.
-- Anwarul
Chowdhury
|
|
*
I
think the only choice that will enable us to hold
to our vision. . . is one that abandons the concept
of naming enemies and adopts a concept familiar
to the nonviolent tradition: naming behavior that
is oppressive
-- Barbara
Deming
Gandhi
once declared that it was his wife who unwittingly
taught him the effectiveness of nonviolence. Who
better than women should know that battles can be
won without resorting to physical strength.
-- Barbara
Deming
A
liberation movement that is nonviolent sets the
oppressor free as well as the oppressed.
-- Barbara
Deming
|
 |
 |
*
Nonviolent
Peaceforce ...is building a large-scale professional
force of well-trained unarmed peacekeepers ... This
nonviolent peacekeeping provides an alternative
to which we may say YES when we say NO to war.
-- Mel
Duncan
|
*
"We
demand a non-violent world where human security is
the basis of our common global security. People have
the right to live in a world where the basic needs
of all peoples are addressed. No more military attacks.
No more war.”
-- Shirin
Ebadi |
 |
"Non-violence
leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all
evolution. Until we stop harming ALL other living beings,
we are still savages."
-- Thomas Edison
*
"Violence
sometimes may have cleared away obstructions quickly,
but it never has proved itself creative."
-- Albert
Einstein |
|
 |
*
If
the Gandhian moment is to be realized, then it must
encompass both concerns with the violence of weapons
and the violence of inequitable structures of domination
and exploitation. Perhaps, unwittingly, the visibility
of this violence due to the globalization of media
coverage, especially TV, will hasten the process
by which the peoples of the world sick from violence
and the suffering entailed, will hasten the awakening
of conscience and commitment needed to carry forward
the struggle for a nonviolent world order. This
is as much as we can hope for at present, but such
a hope will certainly prove vain if we do not also
act to the fullness of our individual and collective
capacities to rid the world of war and violence.
-- Richard
Falk
|
|
*
Nonviolence
is something very powerful, and the power behind
it is not weapons, but the support of the people.
-- Arun
Gandhi
|
 |
So
many people around the world have used nonviolence as
a way to resolve a conflict that they faced in their lives.
And they continue to use it everywhere all over the world
there. And I think, in a way, nonviolence is our nature.
Violence is not really our nature. If violence was our
nature, we wouldn’t need military academies and martial
arts institutes to teach us how to kill and destroy people.
We ought to have been born with those instincts. But the
fact that we have to learn the art of killing means that
it’s a learned experience. And we can always unlearn it.
-- Arun
Gandhi
Nonviolence,
therefore, can be described as an honest and diligent
pursuit of truth. It could also mean the search for the
meaning of life or the purpose of life, questions that
have tormented humankind for centuries. The fact that
we have not been able to find satisfactory answers to
these questions does not mean there is no answer. It only
means we have not searched with any degree of honesty.
The search has to be both external and internal. We seek
to ignore this crucial search because the sacrifices it
demands are revolutionary. It means moving away from greed,
selfishness, possessiveness, and dominance to love, compassion,
understanding, and respect.
-- Arun
Gandhi
 |
*
"There
is no hope for the aching world except through the
narrow and straight path of nonviolence."
-- Mohandas
K. Gandhi
"I
object to violence because when it appears to do
good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does
is permanent."
-- Mohandas
K. Gandhi
[He]
alone is truly nonviolent who remains nonviolent
even though he has the ability to strike.
-- Mohandas
K. Gandhi
"Victory
attained by violence is tantamount to defeat for
it is only momentary."
-- Mohandas
K. Gandhi
|
"Nonviolence
is not to be used ever as the shield of the coward. It
is the weapon of the brave."
-- Mohandas
K. Gandhi
"Things
undreamt of are daily being seen, the impossible is ever
becoming possible. 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."
-- Mohandas
K. Gandhi
In
the application of the method of non-violence, one must
believe in the possibility of every person, however depraved,
being reformed under humane and skilled treatment.
-- Mohandas
K. Gandhi
"Nonviolence
is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is
mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised
by the ingenuity of man."
-- Mohandas
K. Gandhi
Courtesy
towards opponents and eagerness to understand their view-point
is the ABC of non-violence.
--
Mohandas
K. Gandhi
"Generally
speaking, the first nonviolent act is not fasting, but
dialogue. The other side, the adversary, is recognized
as a person, he is taken out of his anonymity and exists
in his own right, for what he really is, a person. To
engage someone in dialogue is to recognize him, have faith
in him. At every step in the nonviolent struggle, at every
level we try tirelessly to establish a dialogue, or reestablish
it if it has broken down. When I say 'the other side,'
that could be a group of persons or a government."
-- Hildegard Goos-Mayr
"All
ideologies end up killing people. If you separate love
from nonviolence you turn nonviolence into an ideology,
a gimmick. Structures that are not inhabited by justice
and love have no liberating or reconciling force, and
are never sources of life."
-- Jean Goss
|
*
"The
essence of nonviolence is love. Out of love and
the willingness to act selflessly, strategies, tactics,
and techniques for a nonviolent struggle arise naturally.
Nonviolence is not a dogma; it is a process."
-- Thich
Nhat Hanh
|
 |
 |
*
In
the next 30 years we can destroy our world. With the
very same powers — spiritual, social, scientific —
we can evolve our world. Our mission is to serve as
catalysts for a planetary awakening in our lifetime,
to take a non-violent path to the next stage of our
evolution.
-- Barbara
Marx Hubbard |
|
*
I
think we brought to the world, the United States
anyway, the whole idea of boycotting as a nonviolent
tactic. I think we showed the world that nonviolence
can work to make social change.
--
Dolores
Huerta
|
|
 |
*
Peace
is the alternative to war, and nonviolence should
be seen as the antidote to violence, not simply
as its opposite. Nonviolence is more concerned with
saving life than with saving face.
-- Jesse
Jackson
I
preach nonviolence because it's the better alternative.
-- Jesse
Jackson
|
The
trouble is that nonviolence is so often defined as refusal
to fight, and that is the American definition of cowardice.
In fact, marching unarmed against the guns and dogs of
the police requires more courage than does aggression.
The perverted idea of manhood coming from the barrel of
a gun is what keeps people from understanding nonviolence.
-- Jesse
Jackson
if
whites would vote their economic interests, not their
racial fears, we the people who have the most need for
change have the power to bring about that change nonviolently.
-- Jesse
Jackson
The
trouble is that nonviolence is so often defined as refusal
to fight, and that is the American definition of cowardice.
In fact, marching unarmed against the guns and dogs of
the police requires more courage than does aggression.
The perverted idea of manhood coming from the barrel of
a gun is what keeps people from understanding nonviolence.
-- Jesse
Jackson
|
"The vision I see is not only a movement of direct
democracy, of self- and co-determination and non-violence,
but a movement in which politics means the power
to love and the power to feel united on the spaceship
Earth...
-- Petra
Kelly
*
In
a world struggling in violence and dishonesty, the
further development of non-violence - not only as
a philosophy but as a way of life, as a force on
the streets, in the market squares, outside the
missile bases, inside the chemical plants and inside
the war industry - becomes one of the most urgent
priorities."
-- Petra
Kelly
|
|
 |
*
Today’s
world is traveling in some strange direction. You
see that the world is going toward destruction and
violence. And the specialty of violence is to create
hatred among people and to create fear. I am a believer
in nonviolence and I say that no peace or tranquility
will descend upon the people of the world until
nonviolence is practiced, because nonviolence is
love and it stirs courage in people.
-- Badshah
Khan
|
 |
*
"...We
have an historic opportunity for a great global
healing and renewal. If we will accept the challenge
of nonviolent activism with faith, courage, and
determination, we can bring this great vision of
a world united in peace and harmony from a distant
ideal into glowing reality."
--
Coretta Scott King
|
"The
nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart
of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts
and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new
self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage
that they did not know they had. Finally it reaches the
opponent and so stirs his conscience that reconciliation
becomes a reality."
-- Martin
Luther King, Jr.
We
must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of
dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative
protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and
again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting
physical force with soul force.
-- Martin
Luther King, Jr.
Nonviolence
is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which
makes for social transformation.
-- Martin
Luther King, Jr.
[nonviolence]
seeks to secure moral ends through moral means.
-- Martin
Luther King, Jr.
Nonviolence
is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed it is a weapon unique
in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the
man who wields it.
-- Martin
Luther King, Jr.
"In
any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection
of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation;
self-purification; and direct action."
-- Martin
Luther King, Jr.
"The
principle of nonviolent resistance seeks to reconcile
the truths of two opposites - acquiescence and violence
- while avoiding the extremes and immoralities of both.
The nonviolent resister agress with the person who acquisces
that one should not be physically agressive toward his
opponent; but he balances the equation by agreeing with
the person of violence that evil must be resisted. He
avoids the nonresistance of the former and the violent
resistance of the latter. With nonviolent resistance,
no invidual or group need to submit to any wrong, nor
need anyone resort to violence in order to right a wrong."
-- Martin
Luther King, Jr.
 |
*
Citizens
across the United States are now uniting in a great
cause to establish a Department of Peace, seeking
nothing less than the transformation of our society,
to make non-violence an organizing principle, to
make war archaic through creating a paradigm shift
in our culture for human development, for economic
and political justice and for violence control.
-- Dennis
Kucinich
|
|
|
*
Emotional
intelligence in the work that we do in the Resolving
Conflict Creatively Program, is about equipping
young people with the kinds of skills they need
to both identify and manage their emotions, to communicate
those emotions effectively, and to resolve conflict
nonviolently. So it's a whole set of skills and
competencies that, for us, fall under the umbrella
of emotional intelligence.
~ Linda
Lantieri
|
 |
*
"I
believe in nonviolence as a way of life, as a way
of living."
-- John
R. Lewis
We
have come a long way in America because of Martin
Luther King, Jr. He led a disciplined, nonviolent
revolution under the rule of law, a revolution of
values, a revolution of ideas. We’ve come a long
way, but we still have a distance to go before all
of our citizens embrace the idea of a truly interracial
democracy, what I like to call the Beloved Community,
a nation at peace with itself.
-- John
R. Lewis
|
“My
dear friends: Your vote is precious, almost sacred. It
is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have to create
a more perfect union.” -- John R. Lewis
|
*
"We
are all invited to work together for peace. We shall
join hands and minds to work for peace through active
nonviolence. We shall help one another, encourage
one another and learn from one another how to bring
peace to our children and to all."
-- Mairead
Corrigan Maguire
"If
we want to reap the harvest of peace and justice
in the future, we will have to sow seeds of nonviolence,
here and now, in the present."
--
Mairead
Corrigan Maguire
|
 |
I
believe that hope for the future depends on each of us
taking nonviolence into our hearts and minds and developing
new and imaginative structures which are nonviolent and
life-giving for all. Some people will argue that this
is too idealistic. I believe it is very realistic. I am
convinced that humanity is fast evolving to this higher
consciousness. For those who say it cannot be done, let
us remember that humanity learned to abolish slavery.
Our task now is no less than the abolition of violence
and war .... We can rejoice and celebrate today because
we are living in a miraculous time. Everything is changing
and everything is possible.
-- Mairead
Corrigan Maguire
We
need now to build a culture of geniune nonviolence and
real democracy.
-- Mairead
Corrigan Maguire
"...I
believe, with Gandhi, that we need to take an imaginative
leap forward toward fresh and generous idealism for the
sake of all humanity -- that we neeed to renew this ancient
wisdom of nonviolence, to strive for a disarmed world,
and to create a culture of nonviolence."
-- Mairead
Corrigan Maguire
|
|
*
A
universal renunciation of violence requires the commitment
of the whole of society. These are not matters
of government but matters of State; not only matters
for the authoirities, but for society in its entirety,
including civilian, military, and religious bodies.
The mobilization which is urgently needed to effect
the transition within two or three years from a culture
of war to a culture of peace demands co-operation
from everyone. In order to change, the world needs
everyone.
-- Federico
Mayor |
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
*
"Wars
aren't stopped by fighting wars, any more than
you can fight fire with fire. You fight fire with
water. You fight violence with nonviolence."
-- Colman
McCarthy
|
|
|
*
I
think that nonviolence is one way of saying that
there are other ways to solve problems, not only
through weapons and war. Nonviolence also means
the recognition that the person on one side of the
trench and the person on the other side of the trench
are both human beings, with the same faculties.
At some point they have to begin to understand one
another.
-- Rigoberta
Menchu
|
 |
Nonviolence
doesn't always work - but violence never does.
-- Madge Michaels-Cyrus
|
*
The
survival of democracy depends on renunciation of
violence and the development of nonviolent means
to combat evil and advance the good.
-- A.
J. Muste
|
 |
|
*
"The
essence of nonviolence is love. Out of love and
the willingness to act selflessly, strategies, tactics,
and techniques for a nonviolent struggle arise naturally.
Nonviolence is not a dogma; it is a process."
-- Thich
Nhat Hanh
|
|
|
This
is a time that calls for extreme restraint. In a
world of outright aggression and violence there
can be no winners. To respond to violence with counter-violence
only throws oil on the fire."
-- Tenzin
Palmo
|
 |
|
|
*
When
we hear the other person's feelings and needs,
we recognize our common humanity.
-- Marshall
Rosenberg
|
*
What
shall we choose? Violence or non violence? …We have
to choose knowing that when we are violent to our
enemies, we do violence to ourselves. When we brutalize
others, we brutalize ourselves. And eventually we
run the risk of becoming our oppressors.
-- Arundhati
Roy |
 |
"The tradition of nonviolence, optimism, concern
for the individual, and unconditional compassion
that developed in Tibet is the culmination of a
slow inner revolution, a cool one, hard to see,
that began 2,500 years ago with the Buddha's insight
about the end of suffering. What I have learned
from these people has forever changed my life, and
I believe their culture contains an inner science
particularly relevant to the difficult time in which
we live."
-- Robert
Thurman |
 |
"All
who affirm the use of violence admit it is only a means
to achieve justice and peace. But peace and justice
are nonviolence...the final end of history. Those who
abandon nonviolence have no sense of history. Rathy
they are bypassing history, freezing history, betraying
history."
-- André Trocmé
|
*
"Nonviolence
is the answer for the questions of our time. Love
will conquer evil every time."
-- James
Twyman
|
 |
Nonviolent
revolution does not seek the liberation simply of a class
or race or nation. It seeks the liberation of mankind…
-- Council of the War Resisters' International
|
|
We
desire peace - and that is why we have never resorted
to physical force. We crave for justice - and that
is why we are so persistent in the struggle for
our rights. We seek freedom of convictions - and
that is why we have never attempted to enslave man's
conscience, nor shall we ever attempt to do so.
We are fighting for the right of the working people
to association and for the dignity of human labor.
We respect the dignity and the rights of every man
and every nation. The path to a brighter future
of the world leads through honest reconciliation
of the conflicting interests and not through hatred
and bloodshed. To follow that path means to enhance
the moral power of the all-embracing idea of human
solidarity.
-- Lech
Walesa
|
 |
*
"The
power of nonviolence is not circumstance-specific.
It is as applicable to the problems that confront
us now, as to problems that confronted generations
in the past. It is not a medicine or a solution
so much as a healing process. It is the active spiritual
immune system of humanity."
-- Marianne
Williamson
The
Department of Peace would take a more human approach
to healing our society, looking not merely for ways
we can destroy an enemy, but for more powerful ways
to create new friends. While the State Department
engages in international diplomacy, there is no
domestic parallel. There is no department seeking
to harness the power of a nonviolent heart.
-- Marianne
Williamson
|
|
*
"In
a world where change is inevitable and continuous,
the need to achieve that change without violence
is essential for survival."
-- Andrew
Young
|
 |
|
*
Our
planet is dying - both spiritually and physically.
Fear, aggression and greed, narrow-minded national
interests and immature dominance and control over
others is a common theme in most countries. However,
there are more and more people who define themselves
as global citizens, who know that life is intimately
interconnected, and that we can never be fully human
whilst others continue to suffer, and who know that
love, justice and nonviolence is the very essence
of life. And what gives me hope is the very many
different ways in which ordinary people are taking
responsibility. They are creating the changes needed
to pass beyond war and injustice, control and dominance
and towards a free, just, loving, and diverse world.
-- Angie
Zelter
|
 |
|
*
The
strike, the boycott, the refusal to serve, the ability
to paralyze the functioning of a complex social
structure-these remain potent weapons against the
most fearsome state or corporate power.
-- Howard
Zinn
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Read
The BETTER
WORLD BOOK
... join
the betterworld
movement...
FREE
online
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
