nonviolance quotes

A. J. Muste: 

The survival of democracy depends on the renunciation of violence and the development of nonviolent means to combat evil and advance the good.

Abdul Ghaffar Khan: 

The Holy Prophet Mohammed came into this world and taught us: 'That man is a Muslim who never hurts anyone by word or deed, but who works for the benefit and happiness of God's creatures. Belief in God is to love one's fellow men.'

Andre Trocme: 

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. Rather they are bypassing history, freezing history, betraying history.

Bishop Desmond Tutu: 

We must not allow ourselves to become like the system we oppose.

Cesar Chavez: 

Non-violence is hard work. It is the willingness to sacrifice. It is the patience to win.

Cesar Chavez: 

Non-violence is not inaction. It is not discussion. It is not for the timid or weak.

Cesar Chavez: 

The first principal of nonviolent action is that of noncooperation with everything humiliating.

Colman McCarthy: 

Everyone's a pacifist between wars. It's like being a vegetarian between meals.

Hildegard Goos-Mayr: 

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.

Jean Goss: 

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.

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.

Mohandas Gandhi: 

Truth is my God. Nonviolence is my way of realizing Him.

Mohandas Gandhi: 

The Roots of Violence: 
Wealth without work, 
Pleasure without conscience, 
Knowledge without character, 
Commerce without morality, 
Science without humanity, 
Worship without sacrifice, 
Politics without principles.

Mohandas Gandhi: 

An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.

Mohandas Gandhi: 

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.

Mohandas K. Gandhi: 

I first learned the concepts of non-violence in my marriage.