* ...Any definition of a culture of peace must address the problem of achieving justice for communities and individuals who do not have the means to compete or cope without structured assistance and compassionate help.
-- Mahnaz Afkhami

* We have the ability to achieve, if we master the necessary goodwill, a common global society blessed with a shared culture of peace that is nourished by the ethnic, national and local diversities that enrich our lives.-- Mahnaz Afkhami

* Peace consists, very largely, in the fact of desiring it with all one's soul.
-- Oscar Arias Sanchez

Peace consists, very largely, in the fact of desiring it with all one's soul. The inhabitants of my small country, Costa Rica, have realized those words by Erasmus. Mine is an unarmed people, whose children have never seen a fighter or a tank or a warship."
-- Oscar Arias Sanchez

* "As they used to say 'What if they gave a war and nobody came?' How worthwhile if they declared a day of peace and everybody came."
-- Ed Asner

"September 21, the International Day of Peace, is an occasion to take stock of our efforts to promote peace and well-being for all people everywhere. It is an opportunity to appreciate what we have already accomplished, and to dedicate ourselves to all that remains to be done. It is also meant to be a day of global cease-fire: a twenty-four hour respite from the fear and insecurity that plague so many places.

Today, I urge all countries and all combatants to honour this cessation of hostilities. And I ask people everywhere to observe a minute of silence at 12 noon local time. As the guns fall silent, we should use this opportunity to ponder the price we all pay due to conflict. And we should resolve to vigorously pursue ways to make permanent this day’s pause.

On this International Day, let us promise to make peace not just a priority, but a passion. Let us pledge to do more, wherever we are in whatever way we can, to make every day a day of peace."
-- Ban Ki-moon

* In these disturbing and distressing times, surely it's cheaper, and smarter, to make friends out of potential enemies than it is to defend yourself against them..Justice is the surest way to get peace.
-- Bono

* Militarism is no longer a synonym for patriotism. Our survival as a planet depends on maintaining peace and justice.
-- Blasé Bonpane

* There is no time left for anything but to make peace work a dimension of our every waking activity
-- Elise Boulding

Our most important task is to transform our consciousness so that violence is no longer an option for us in our personal lives, that understanding that a world of peace is possible only if we relate to each other as peaceful beings, one individual at a time.
-- Deepak Chopra

* If we desire peace, we must prepare for peace. The most important thing is to build a culture of peace.
-- Anwarul Chowdhury

"Peace is not just a colored ribbon. It's more than a wristband or a t-shirt. It's not just a donation or a 5 K race. It's not just a folk song, or a white dove. And peace is certainly more than a celebrity endorsement. Peace is a fulltime job. It's protecting civilians, overseeing elections, and disarming ex-combatants. The UN has over 100,000 Peacekeepers on the ground, in places others can't or won't go, doing things others can't or won't do. Peace, like war, must be waged."
-- George Clooney

* "What's so funny about peace, love and understanding?"
~ Elvis Costello

“I think war is based in greed and there are huge karmic retributions that will follow. I think war is never the answer to solving any problems. The best way to solve problems is to not have enemies.” -- Sheryl Crow

* "Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free."
-- 14th Dalai Lama

Patriarchy is a fundamental imbalance underlying society And it's one we rarely address because it's so universal. But as I get older, I see that peace is a product of balance. -- Ani DiFranco

You can't start with imbalance and end with peace, be that in your own body, in an ecosystem or between a government and its people. What we need to strive for is not perfection, but balance.
-- Ani DiFranco

* ...how many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they're forever banned?
-- Bob Dylan

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction.
-- Albert Einstein

* Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved through understanding.
-- Albert Einstein

* Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved through understanding.
-- Albert Einstein

"In the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love."
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

* "I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it."
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

There are astonishing stories of heroism not only in preventing bloodshed, but in building understanding which lasts.
-- Scilla Elworthy

* We need to learn and to show others that there are tried and tested, powerful ways of containing and resolving conflict which do not require the use of force.
-- Scilla Elworthy

Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

We must apply our humble efforts to the construction of a more just and humane world. And I want to declare emphatically: Such a world is possible. To create this new society, we must present outstretched and friendly hands, without hatred and rancor, even as we show great determination and never waver in the defense of truth and justice. Because we know that we cannot sow seeds with clenched fists. To sow we must open our hands.
-- Adolfo Perez Esquivel

Let us pray for peace, and let us bring it about, starting in our own homes!
-- Pope Francis

We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace.
-- Pope Francis

Even peace may be purchased at too high a price.
-- Benjamin Franklin

* There was never a good war or a bad peace.
-- Benjamin Franklin

Either war is obsolete, or men are.
-- R. Buckminster Fuller

* Everywhere we turn, we see violence and hate and prejudice and anger and all of these negative emotions that are destroying humanity. And we have to wake up and take note of this and try to change our course, so that we can create a world of peace and harmony where future generations can live happily together.
-- Arun Gandhi

* "It Is possible to live in peace."
-- Mohandas K. Gandhi

World Peace Day is envisioned to become a moment of global unity - it is up to each and every one of us to make this a reality.
-- Jeremy Gilley

Today, peace means the ascent from simple coexistence to cooperation and common creativity among countries and nations.
-- Mikhail Gorbachev

Ideally, peace means the absence of violence. It is an ethical value.
-- Mikhail Gorbachev

* The pursuit of peace and progress cannot end in a few years in either victory or defeat. The pursuit of peace and progress, with its trials and errors, its successes and setbacks, can never be relaxed and never abandoned.
--Dag Hammarskjold

We need to move into a culture of peace. What I hope to promote is the idea that we all need each other and that the greatest happiness in life is not how much we have but how much we give. That's a wealth that's priceless. You can't buy compassion.
-- Herbie Hancock

Peace is more than just absence of war. It is rather a state in which no people of any country, in fact no group of people of any kind live in fear or in need.
-- Poul Hartling

What greater cause and what more splendid adventure can be set before the youth of the world than the endeavor to bring into being that age-old dream of saints and sages - the great Commonwealth of the World as the visible embodiment of the brotherhood of man?
-- Arthur Henderson

* When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.
-- Jimi Hendrix

"We proclaim our commitment to continue to strive for the establishment of lasting world peace."
-- Iccho Itoh

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

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations
~ Thomas Jefferson

"There are plenty of people who pray for peace but if praying were enough it would have come to be."
-- Jewel

"I am a strong believer that without justice, there is no peace. No lasting peace, anyway. "
~ Angelina Jolie

Never have the nations of the world had so much to lose, or so much to gain. Together we shall save our planet, or together we shall perish in its flames.
--John F. Kennedy

* "Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures."
--John F. Kennedy

* The world does not need a war against ‘terrorism’, it needs a culture of peace based on human rights for all.
-- Irene 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

* So we must fix our vision not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but upon the positive affirmation of peace.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

* "Many men cry Peace! Peace! but they refuse to do the things that make for peace."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Peace is a civil right which makes other human rights possible. Peace is a precondition for our existence. Peace permits our continued existence." ~ Dennis Kucinich

Peace is not just the absence of war, it is the active presence of a capacity for love and compassion, and reciprocity. It is an awareness that our lives are not to be lived simply for ourselves through expressing our individuality, but we confirm the purpose of our lives through the work of expressing our shared sense of community in a purposeful and practical way; to sustain our own lives we sustain the lives of others - in family, in a community of neighborhoods called a city, and in a community of nations called the world.
-- Dennis Kucinich

...we must remain hopeful that for our children and our children’s children, that we are not a warring nation, but we will embrace and practice true compassion and honor the ideals of peace and freedom, and we will not give up. -- Jessica Lange

* All we are saying is give peace a chance...
-- John Lennon

And so this is Xmas for black and for white, for yellow and red, let's stop all the fight.
-- John Lennon

* "Imagine all the people living life in peace.
You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one.
I hope someday you'll join us,
and the world will be as one."
-- John Lennon

* "With malice toward none, with charity for all, ...let us strive on to finish the work we are in, ...to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
-- Abraham Lincoln

* Indigenous Peoples have always believed that peace is central to human security and all life forms that exist in a community, a nation, Mother Earth and the universe…
-- Hilda Lini

"Every one of us can make a contribution. And quite often we are looking for the big things and forget that, wherever we are, we can make a contribution. Sometimes I tell myself, I may only be planting a tree here, but just imagine what's happening if there are billions of people out there doing something. Just imagine the power of what we can do."
-- Wangari Maathai

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

"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

* Therefore my challenge to each of you ... is that you ask yourself what you can do to make a difference. And then take that action, no matter how large or how small. For our children have a right to peace.
-- Graça Machel-Mandela

* "Peace cannot exist without justice, justice cannot exist without fairness, fairness cannot exist without development, development cannot exist without democracy, democracy cannot exist without respect for the identity and worth of cultures and peoples."
-- Rigoberta Menchu

* We have learned that change cannot come through war. War is not a feasible tool to use in fighting against the oppression we face. War has caused more problems. We cannot embrace that path.
-- Rigoberta Menchu

* Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war.
-– Maria Montessori

"The greatest warriors are the ones who fight for peace."
-- Holly Near

The only alternative to coesistence is codestruction
-- Jawaharlal Nehru

Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people.
-- Jawaharlal Nehru

I wanted to connect all people who are thinking about peace on Earth.
-- Willie Nelson

In an interconnected world, the defeat of international terrorism – and most importantly, the prevention of these terrorist organizations from obtaining weapons of mass destruction -- will require the cooperation of many nations. We must always reserve the right to strike unilaterally at terrorists wherever they may exist. But we should know that our success in doing so is enhanced by engaging our allies so that we receive the crucial diplomatic, military, intelligence, and financial support that can lighten our load and add legitimacy to our actions. This means talking to our friends and, at times, even our enemies.
-- Barack Obama

Remember, each one of us has the power to change the world. Just start thinking peace, and the message will spread quicker than you think. ~ Yoko Ono

We are privileged to have the opportunity of contributing to the achievement of the goal of the abolition of war and its replacement by world law. I am confident that we shall succeed in this great task; that the world community will thereby be freed not only from the suffering caused by war but also through the better use of the earth's resources, of the discoveries of scientists, and of the efforts of mankind, from hunger, disease, illiteracy, and fear; and that we shall in the course of time be enabled to build a world characterized by economic, political, and social justice for all human beings and a culture worthy of man's intelligence. -- Linus Pauling

Misunderstanding arising from ignorance breeds fear, and fear remains the greatest enemy of peace.
-- Lester B. Pearson

The choice, however, is as clear now for nations as it was once for the individual: peace or extinction.
- Lester B. Pearson

* "One little person, giving all of her time to peace, makes news. Many people, giving some of their time, can make history."
-- Peace Pilgrim

We seem always ready to pay the price for war. Almost gladly we give our time and our treasures - our limbs and even our lives - for war. But we expect to get peace for nothing.
-- Peace Pilgrim

* Our generation has the ability and the responsibility to make our ever-more connected world a more hopeful, stable and peaceful place.
-- Natalie Portman

...if our humanity – our soul as a society – is overtaken by the materiel and cosmetic, there will be no hope of peace. ~ Robert Redford

* "It isn't enough to talk about peace; one must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it; one must work at it."
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together and if we are to live together we have to talk.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

* The basis of world peace is the teaching which runs through almost all the great religions of the world. "Love thy neighbor as thyself."
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

* "Peace, like charity, begins at home."
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

* More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars -- yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.
-- George Bernard Shaw

* We want peace on earth!
-- Robert Alan Silverstein

"Peace is more than the absence of war. It is learning to respect ourselves, each other and the planet we share. And it begins with each of us, ONE DAY at a time..."
-- Robert Alan Silverstein

* In our innermost Spirit - we nourish the gentleness
and understanding of Peace.
Those around us feel a gentle breeze
whispering as if rustling leaves -
Peace comes not from contemplation-
but action!
-- Pauline Tangiora

* "All works of love are works of peace."
-- Mother Teresa.

Wars begin in the minds of men, and in those minds, love and compassion would have built the defenses of peace.
~ U Thant