Peace, like charity, begins at home.
Interpretation
True peace starts within our own lives and relationships before it can be extended to the world.
The quote emphasizes that the foundation of peace is cultivated in our personal lives and surroundings. Just as charity, or caring for others, must originate from a place of love and stability at home, peace must also be nurtured within our own hearts and communities. Only when we find and practice peace in our immediate environments can we hope to extend that peace outward to the broader world.
In practice
During a community meeting about conflict resolution, one might say this quote to emphasize the importance of resolving personal disputes first.
There has been one persistent theme through all Axis propaganda. This theme has been that Americans are admittedly rich, that Americans have considerable industrial power - but that Americans are soft and decadent, that they cannot and will not unite and work and fight. ... Let them tell that to the Marines!
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
A war of ideas can no more be won without books than a naval war can be won without ships. Books, like ships, have the toughest armor, the longest cruising range, and mount the most powerful guns.
Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
A world turned into a stereotype, a society converted into a regiment, a life translated into a routine, make it difficult for either art or artists to survive. Crush individuality in society and you crush art as well. Nourish the conditions of a free life and you nourish the arts, too.
The world cannot live at peace without the United Nations. For this reason: it creates a reasonable guarantee that all this change in the world, these tremendous political and economic developments, can be channelized, kept orderly. The United Nations is a mold that keeps the hot metal from spilling over.
It may seem sometimes as if a culture of peace does not stand a chance against the culture of war, the culture of violence and the cultures of impunity and intolerance. Peace may indeed be a complex challenge, dependent on action in many fields and even a bit of luck from time to time. It may be a painfully slow process, and fragile and imperfect when it is achieved. But peace is in our hands. We can do it.
The only way to end a culture of violence is to proactively create a culture of peace.
You can always make peace with an F-16 in your pocket.
I think one country with nuclear weapons is one country too many.
No more wars, no more bloodshed. Peace unto you. Shalom, salaam, forever.
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