Peace Quotes

If we are serious about peace, then we must work for it as ardently, seriously, continuously, carefully, and bravely as we have ever prepared for war.
-Wendell Berry, Citizenship Papers (2003)

Peace is never long preserved by weight of metal or by an armament race. Peace can be made tranquil and secure only by understanding and agreement fortified by sanctions. We must embrace international cooperation or international disintegration. Science has taught us how to put the atom to work. But to make it work for good instead of for evil lies in the domain dealing with the principles of human dignity. We are now facing a problem more of ethics than of physics.
-Bernard Baruch, Address to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (14 June 1946)

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Of Self-Reliance", Essays, First Series (1841)

The situation of the world is still like this. People completely identify with one side, one ideology. To understand the suffering and the fear of a citizen of the Soviet Union, we have to become one with him or her. To do so is dangerous — we will be suspected by both sides. But if we don't do it, if we align ourselves with one side or the other, we will lose our chance to work for peace. Reconciliation is to understand both sides, to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, and then to go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side. Doing only that will be a great help for peace.
-Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace (1987)

I maintain, then, that we should make peace, not only with the Chians, the Rhodians, the Byzantines and the Coans, but with all mankind...
-Isocrates, "On the Peace", c. 355 B.C. In Isocrates (1929)

Together we shall save our planet, or together we shall perish in its flames. Save it we can — and save it we must — and then shall we earn the eternal thanks of mankind and, as peacemakers, the eternal blessing of God.
-John F. Kennedy in his Address to the United Nations General Assembly (25 September 1961)

Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures. And however undramatic the pursuit of peace, that pursuit must go on.
-John F. Kennedy in his Address to the United Nations General Assembly (20 September 1963)

All we are saying is give peace a chance.
-John Lennon in "Give Peace A Chance" (1969)