Americans have a severe disease - worse than AIDS. It's called the winner's complex.
Mikhail GorbachevRead
Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences.
Interpretation
True peace arises from embracing and reconciling our differences rather than seeking uniformity.
This quote emphasizes that genuine peace does not come from everyone being the same, but rather from appreciating and valuing the differences among individuals and groups. Mikhail Gorbachev highlights the importance of dialogue and understanding as essential components of achieving harmony, suggesting that diversity in perspectives can lead to a more profound and lasting peace.
In practice
During a community meeting discussing local issues, this quote can be used to encourage acceptance among diverse opinions.
Americans have a severe disease - worse than AIDS. It's called the winner's complex.
Gentlemen, comrades, do not be concerned about all you hear about Glasnost and Perestroika and democracy in the coming years. They are primarily for outward consumption. There will be no significant internal changes in the Soviet Union, other than for cosmetic purposes. Our purpose is to disarm the Americans and let them fall asleep.
The soviet people want full-blooded and unconditional democracy.
To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals.
New approaches are needed, new orientations in both thought and action. We must make the transition to a new civilization...We are talking of a transition toward a new civilization. No one knows what it will be like. What is important is to orient in that direction... I am convinced that a new civilization will inevitably take on certain features that are characteristic of, or inherent in, the socialist ideal.
According to Lenin, socialism and democracy are indivisible.... The essence of perestroika lies in the fact that it unites socialism with democracy and revives the Leninist concept of socialist construction both in theory and in practice. We want more socialism and, therefore, more democracy.
By its existence, the Peace Movement denies that governments know best; it stands for a different order of priorities: the human race comes first.
The only way to end a culture of violence is to proactively create a culture of peace.
I appeal for cessation of hostilities, not because you are too exhausted to fight, but because war is bad in essence. You want to kill Nazism. You will never kill it by its indifferent adoption.
But wherever we are, we must all, in our daily lives, live up to the age-old faith that peace and freedom walk together. In too many of our cities today, the peace is not secure because freedom is incomplete." (John F. Kennedy, June 10, 1963, American University speech)
Perhaps if all the peoples of the world understand what war really means, we would eliminate it.
We must have research for peace ... It would embrace the outstanding problems of morality. The time has come for man's intellect, his scientific method, to win over the immoral brutality and irrationality of war and militarism ... Now we are forced to eliminate from the world forever this vestige of prehistoric barbarism, this curse to the human race.
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