Nonviolence Quotes - Page 13

• Nonviolence is really tough. You don't practice nonviolence at conferences; you practice it on picket-lines.

  Cesar Chavez

  Peace, Practice, Humanity

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• The point of nonviolence is to build a floor, a strong new floor, beneath which we can no longer sink. A platform which stands a few feet above napalm, torture, exploitation, poison gas, A and H bombs, the works. Give man a decent place to stand.

  Joan Baez

  Peace, Strong, Men

  Joan Baez (1968). “DAYBREAK”

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• The force generated by nonviolence is infinitely greater than the force of all the arms created by man's ingenuity.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Freedom, Men, Democracy

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• Nonviolence is not a weapon of the weak. It is a weapon of the strongest and bravest.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Freedom, Democracy, Weapons

  Mahatma Gandhi (1976). “Collected Works”

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• 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

  Fear, Weapons, Economy

  Howard Zinn (2013). “A Power Governments Cannot Suppress”, p.26, City Lights Books

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• Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream was a manifestation of hope that humanity might one day get out of its own way by finding the courage to realize that love and nonviolence are not indicators of weakness but gifts of significant strength.

  Aberjhani

  Dream, Kings, Humanity

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• If you are not vegan, please consider going vegan. It’s a matter of nonviolence. Being vegan is your statement that you reject violence to other sentient beings, to yourself, and to the environment, on which all sentient beings depend.

  Gary L. Francione

  Matter, Violence, Vegan

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• "What's going on down there, Katniss? Have they all joined hands? Taken a vow of nonviolence? Tossed the weapons in the sea in defiance of the Capitol?" Finnick asks.
  "No," I say.
  "No," Finnick repeats. "Because whatever happened in the past is in the past. And no one in this arena was a victor by chance." He eyes Peeta for a moment. "Except maybe Peeta."

  Suzanne Collins

  Taken, Eye, Past

  "Catching Fire". Book by Suzanne Collins, 2009.

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• In a world facing the revolt of ragged and hungry masses of God's children; in a world torn between the tensions of East and West, white and colored, individuals and collectivists; in a world whose cultural and spiritual power lags so far behind her technological capabilities that we live each day on the verge of nuclear co-annihilation; in this world, nonviolence is no longer an option for intellectual analysis, it is an imperative for action

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Spiritual, Children, White

  Martin Luther King (Jr.) (2012). “A Gift of Love: Sermons from Strength to Love and Other Preachings”, p.18, Beacon Press

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• I would not look upon anger as something foreign to me that I have to fight... I have to deal with my anger with care, with love, with tenderness, with nonviolence.

  Nhat Hanh

  Buddhist, Anger, Fighting

  Thich Nhat Hanh (2008). “Being Peace”, p.47, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  God, Truth, Mean

  Mahatma Gandhi (1984). “The Quintessence of Gandhi in His Own Words”

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• His headstone said FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST But death is a slave's freedom We seek the freedom of free men And the construction of a world Where Martin Luther King could have lived and preached nonviolence.

  Nikki Giovanni

  Kings, Men, Justice

  Nikki Giovanni (1993). “Ego-Tripping and Other Poems for Young People”, p.28, Chicago Review Press

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• 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

  Hate, Heart, Mean

  Colman McCarthy (2002). “I'd Rather Teach Peace”

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• My dear friends, God’s creation is one and it is good. The concerns for nonviolence, sustainable development, justice and peace, and care for our environment are of vital importance for humanity. They cannot, however, be understood apart from a profound reflection on the innate dignity of every human life from conception to natural death: a dignity conferred by God himself and thus inviolable.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Reflection, Profound, Justice

  Pope Benedict XVI (2014). “The Garden of God”, p.26, CUA Press

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• 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

  Thinking, Choices, Enemy

  Barbara Deming (1984). “We Are All Part of One Another: A Barbara Deming Reader”

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• If one does not practice nonviolence in one's own personal relations with others and hopes to use it in bigger affairs, one is vastly mistaken.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Mistake, Practice, Doe

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• Commercial interests with their advertising industry do not want people to develop contentment and less greed. Military interests in economic, political, ethnic or nationalist guises, do not want people to develop more tolerance, nonviolence and compassion. And ruling groups in general, in whatever sort of hierarchy do not want the ruled to become too insightful, too independent, too creative on their own, as the danger is that they will become insubordinate, rebellious, and unproductive in their alloted tasks.

  Robert Thurman

  Military, Creativity, Independent

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• 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

  Time, Believe, Compassion

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• 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 Lewis

  Kings, Distance, Beloved Community

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• To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman?

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Spiritual, Sex, Heart

  Mahatma Gandhi (1930). “Young India”

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• I plan to stand by nonviolence, because I have found it to be a philosophy of life that regulates not only my dealings in the struggle for racial justice, but also my dealings with people, and with my own self.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Peace, Philosophy, Struggle

  Kenneth L. Smith, Martin Luther King (Jr.), Ira G. Zepp (1986). “Search for the beloved community: the thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr”, Univ Pr of Amer

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• 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

  Racism, People, Needs

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• I don't mean go out and get violent; but at the same time you should never be nonviolent unless you run into some nonviolence. I'm nonviolent with those who are nonviolent with me. But when you drop that violence on me, then you've made me go insane, and I'm not responsible for what I do.

  Malcolm X

  Running, Mean, Insane

  "The Ballot or The Bullet". Speech at Cory Methodist Church, Cleveland, Ohio, April 3, 1964.

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• [nonviolence] seeks to secure moral ends through moral means.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Mean, Morality, Ends

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• Violence sometimes may have cleared away obstructions quickly, but it never has proved itself creative.

  Albert Einstein

  Faith, Inspiration, Creative

  Albert Einstein (2015). “Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations on Just About Everything from the Greatest Mind of the Twentieth Century”, p.55, St. Martin's Press

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