Disarmament Quotes - Page 7

• With the persistence of tensions and conflicts in various parts of the world, the international community must never forget what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as a warning and in incentive to develop truly effective and peaceful means of settling tensions and disputes. Fifty years after the Second World War, the leaders of nations cannot become complacent but rather should renew their commitment to disarmament and to the banishment of all nuclear weapons.

  Pope John Paul II

  Religious, War, Commitment

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• I urge Governments to considerably reduce funds allocated to the military, not only as a disarmament issue, but also as a potential contributor to social and environmental protection and call for the holding of referenda on this issue worldwide.

  Alfred-Maurice de Zayas

  Military, Issues, Government

  "UN Expert Urges States to Cut Military Spending and Invest More in Human Development". www.ohchr.org. April 14, 2014.

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• For the United States to recommit itself to the obligation that we undertook in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that many other states undertook, which was to work towards disarmament and the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons, is something that manifestly serves our national security interests.

  Susan Rice

  Proliferation Treaty, Nuclear Disarmament, United States

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• In a world where millions of human beings live in extreme poverty, die of malnutrition and lack medical care, where pandemics continue to kill, it is imperative to pursue good faith disarmament negotiations and to shift budgets away from weapons production, war-mongering, surveillance of private persons and devote available resources to address global challenges including humanitarian relief, environmental protection, climate change mitigation and adaptation, prevention of pandemics, and the development of a green economy.

  Alfred-Maurice de Zayas

  War, Challenges, Environmental

  "UN Expert Urges States to Cut Military Spending and Invest More in Human Development". www.ohchr.org. April 14, 2014.

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• Ironically, the only gun control in 19th century England was the policy forbidding police to have arms while on duty.

  Don Kates

  Gun, Police, Arms

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• Defeatism about the feasibility of plans for disarmament and ordered peace has been the most calamitious of all the errors made by democratic governments in modern times.

  Philip Noel-Baker, Baron Noel-Baker

  Peace, Errors, Government

  "The Arms Race". Book by Philip Noel-Baker, 1958.

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• History, well taught, is the demythologising of the past... Take any important issue of our time - Northern Ireland, Nuclear Disarmament, Race, The Welfare State, South Africa - and it becomes impossible to seriously confront any of them without understanding their historical background.

  Alan Bullock

  Past, Race, Nuclear Disarmament

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• The five original nuclear weapon states I mentioned - U.S., Britain, France, China, and Russia - under the NPT have committed to the achievement of the elimination of their nuclear arsenals through good faith negotiations of nuclear disarmament - that's Article Six of the treaty.

  John Burroughs

  Russia, Nuclear Disarmament, Achievement

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• The United States says "We're complying. We're following the disarmament obligation. Look at the quantitative reductions that are taking place." But, since '96, there really hasn't been progress on specific commitments that have been made. Perhaps most disturbing is this: that the United States and France in particular, since 1996, have expanded the range of circumstances under which they might use - they say they might use - nuclear weapons.

  John Burroughs

  Commitment, Might Use, Progress

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• The antidote to hatred in the heart, the source of violence, is tolerance. Tolerance is an important virtue of bodhisattvas [enlightened heroes and heroines] - it enables you to refrain from reacting angrily to the harm inflicted on you by others. You could call this practice "inner disarmament," in that a well-developed tolerance makes you free from the compulsion to counterattack. For the same reason, we also call tolerance the "best armor," since it protects you from being conquered by hatred itself.

  Dalai Lama

  Hero, Heart, Practice

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• Here's how the court put it, and all judges agreed to this. The court said: "There exists and obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations under nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control."

  John Burroughs

  Nuclear Disarmament, Judging, Negotiation

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• A civilization built on dualism and war within and between persons, one that puts its most creative minds and its best engineers to sadistic work building more and more destructive weapons, is no civilization at all. It needs a radical transformation from the heart outwards. It needs to outgrow and outlaw war just as in the last century it outlawed slavery. The human race has outgrown war, but it hardly knows it yet.

  Matthew Fox

  War, Heart, Civilization

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• This new declaration which emphasizes the necessity of global disarmament is based on the purposes and principles of the United Nations, in particular the prohibition of the threat and use of force, and on the obligation to negotiate disputes in conformity with the UN Charter. It is a strong and positive example for the entire world.

  Alfred-Maurice de Zayas

  Strong, Principles, Example

  "CELAC / Zone of Peace: 'A key step to countering the globalization of militarism' – UN Expert". Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights News Item, www.ohchr.org. February 03, 2014.

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• As long as nuclear weapons exist, there is a risk that they will be used. And the consequences of their use would be catastrophic. This realization has led to increased engagement, not least through the humanitarian initiative. We must now use this broad engagement to garner support and to push for real results in the disarmament field.

  Margot Wallstrom

  Real, Long, Support

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• 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

  Growing Up, War, Fighting

  Cindy Sheehan (2005). “Not One More Mother's Child”, Koa Books Incorporated

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• Unlike South Africa, which decided on its own to eliminate its nuclear weapons and welcomed inspection as a means of creating confidence in its disarmament, Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance - not even today - of the disarmament, which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace.

  Hans Blix

  Mean, Acceptance, Winning

  UNMOVIC Executive Chairman Hans Blix's report to the United Nations, www.foxnews.com. January 27, 2003.

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• For some twenty years the window that opened at the end of the Cold War has been allowed to hang flapping in the wind. It is high time that the five nuclear-weapon states take seriously their commitment to negotiate toward nuclear disarmament.

  Hans Blix

  Military, War, Commitment

  Hans Blix (2008). “Why Nuclear Disarmament Matters”, p.37, MIT Press

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• The nuclear arms race is like two people sitting in a pool of gasoline spending all their time making matches.

  John Denver

  Two, Race, People

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• Victim disarmament types are sick, sick people, who'd rather see a woman raped in an alley and strangled with her own pantyhose than see her with a gun in her hand.

  L. Neil Smith

  Gun, Hands, People

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• The sponsors of war closely resemble the weapons they create. And smart bombs, depleted uranium, land mines, rockets and tanks, rather than protect 'widows and orphans and strangers at the gate', are designed precisely to create 'widows and orphans', to transform strangers into enemies and enemies into corpses.

  Daniel Berrigan

  War, Smart, Widows And Orphans

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• When are we left-wingers going to learn that we are losing the cultural and political battle with conservatives because we are fractured into narcissistic special-interest groups? Why should an antiwar protestor be so concerned about her dietary identity? The political opinions of vegetarians and meat-eaters are, after all, equally important. And what does it tell us about vegetarians that it would never occur to meat-eaters to carry a sign that reads "Pacifist Pork Chop Lover for Peace" or "Backyard Rib Barbecuer for International Nuclear Disarmament"?

  Sherman Alexie

  Political Opinions, Nuclear Disarmament, Unity

  "Lefties Need to Love, Love, Love the White Working Class". Article by Sherman Alexie, www.thestranger.com. April 17, 2003.

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• 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.

  C. G. Weeramantry

  Country, Justice, Expectations

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• We are standing face to face with the barbarians. The enemy is no longer outside but inside the City, and the ruling ideology, paralysed, is incapable of spotting him. It stammers, overcome by its own moral disarmament, and is giving up: this is the time to seize the reins. Present society is an accomplice to the evil that is devouring it.

  Guillaume Faye

  Giving Up, Cities, Evil

  Guillaume Faye, Michael O'Meara (2010). “Archeofuturism”, p.18, Arktos

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• 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?

  Jose Ramos-Horta

  Children, Pain, Love Is

  Jose Ramos-Horta's Nobel Lecture in Oslo, Norway, www.nobelprize.org. December 10, 1996.

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• 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

  Children, Issues, Rights

  Nobel Price Acceptance Speech, www.nobelprize.org. December 10, 1985.

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