Quotes on Nonviolence

Concerning non-violence: it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.

Use truth as your anvil, nonviolence as your hammer and anything that does not stand the test when it is brought to the anvil of truth and hammered with nonviolence, reject it.

We must, I believe, start teaching our children the sanity of nonviolence much earlier.

We must always refill and ensure there is a critical mass of leaders and activists committed to nonviolence and racial and economic justice who will keep seeding and building transforming movements.

Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.

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.

Nonviolence will empower and equip us to bring generations to the table and fuse our knowledge, gifts, and zeal together.

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.

Non-violence is a permanent attitude we bring to the breakfast table and bring to bed at night.

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.

Choosing nonviolence does not mean that one will never get angry or become upset with others, including the ones we love.

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

The first principle of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.

There is nothing on earth that I would not give up, excepting of course, two things and two things only, truth and nonviolence.

Consider all of the possibilities for positive global progress if we utilized nonviolence as the central value of our culture, encompassing our law enforcement and labor practices, which currently include people in numerous nations working for inhumane wages in unhealthy conditions.

We demand a non-violent world where human security is the basis of our common global security. People have the right to live in a world where the basic needs of all peoples are addressed. No more military attacks. No more war.

I think a culture of nonviolence will help create the condition where poverty is unacceptable, where racism is way behind us and not something that we have to deal with on a frequent basis, and where militarism and violence are reduced almost to be nonexistent.

I hold that without truth and nonviolence there can be nothing but destruction of humanity.

We must rediscover our faith in the future and join with one another to ensure that nonviolence is the prevalent choice for government, law enforcement, the non-profit sector, business, education, media, entertainment, arts, and for the global citizenry.

I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour. But I believe that nonviolence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness is more manly than punishment.