Soft is stronger than hard, water stronger than rock, love stronger than violence. —Hermann Hesse More about this quote Tags: love strength violence water softness hardness Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
For every one torturer, there are a thousand people ready to risk their lives to save another. For every soldier who shoots in a neighborhood, there are a thousand compañeros who help and protect each other. —Isabel Allende More about this quote Tags: risk torture daring Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Truth has a power of its own. . . . A poem can inspire a movement. A pamphlet can spark a revolution. Civil disobedience can arouse people and provoke us to think. —Howard Zinn More about this quote Tags: truth power civil disobedience revolution Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
My father . . . used to say, "I need my anger. It obliges me to take action." I think my father was partly right. Anger arises, naturally, to signal disturbing situations that might require action. But actions initiated in anger perpetuate suffering. The most effective actions are those conceived in the wisdom of clarity. —Sylvia Boorstein More about this quote Tags: action wisdom suffering anger clarity Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today. —John F. Kennedy More about this quote Tags: war reputation soldiers conscientious objection Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
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 More about this quote Tags: enemies violence brutality Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
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 More about this quote Tags: strength nonviolence women Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
The acquisition of the spirit of nonresistance is a matter of long training in self-denial and appreciation of the hidden forces within ourselves. . . . It puts different values upon things and upsets previous calculations. . . . It is the greatest force because it is the highest expression of the soul. —Mahatma Gandhi More about this quote Tags: soul force nonresistance training self-denial Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Agitators are a set of interfering, meddling people who come down to some perfectly contented class of the community and sow the seeds of discontent among them. That is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary. —Oscar Wilde More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Ordinarily, a person leaving a courtroom with a conviction behind him would wear a somber face. But I left with a smile. I knew that I was a convicted criminal, but I was proud of my crime. —Martin Luther King Jr. More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
As a punishment for refusing to serve in the army, poet Robert Lowell was imprisoned for five months by the U.S. courts. While waiting to be transferred to Connecticut to serve the sentence, Lowell spent a few days in New York's West Street Jail. During his stay there he was put in a cell next to Louie Lepke, a convicted member of Murder Incorporated. "I'm in for killing," Lepke told the poet. "What are you in for?" Lowell answered, "Oh, I'm in for refusing to kill. —Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Everyone's a pacifist between wars. It's like being a vegetarian between meals. —Colman McCarthy More about this quote Tags: war fear meat Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
There have been periods of history in which episodes of terrible violence occurred but for which the word violence was never used. . . . Violence is shrouded in justifying myths that lend it moral legitimacy, and these myths for the most part kept people from recognizing the violence for what it was. —Gil Bailie More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize. —Steven Wright More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
You can get a whole lot more done with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone. —Al Capone More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email