It’s a lose-lose situation to get in a confrontation on the street. If you can break contact and get away, break contact and get away. That’s what you should learn self-defense for.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.

You may either win your peace or buy it: win it, by resistance to evil; buy it, by compromise with evil.

The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.

It is understanding that gives us an ability to have peace. When we understand the other fellow’s viewpoint, and he understands ours, then we can sit down and work out our differences.

Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.

As soon as I go out into the world, I belong, in a way, to everyone else. It’s legal to follow me. It’s legal to stalk me at the beach. And I can’t call the police or ask them to leave.

We win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party.

In a false quarrel there is no true valor.

I have known war as few men now living know it. It’s very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes.

Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.

One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.

I don’t feel bitterness, I don’t feel anger towards anybody. Fighting is never emotional to me.

If you have to stand and fight, you train yourself so that you’re able to do it.

I used to get into a lot of fights.

An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.

If you don’t like what someone has to say, argue with them.

You will kill 10 of our men, and we will kill 1 of yours, and in the end it will be you who tire of it.

You have to make sure you know why you are going to war and then use decisive force to end it as soon as possible.

The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution.

Nowhere is it written that there must be conflict between the United States and China.

My mother was very strong. Once, she picked up a coconut and smashed it against my father’s head. It taught me about women defending themselves and not collapsing in a heap.

You never need an argument against the use of violence, you need an argument for it.

There can be no doubt that the average man blames much more than he praises. His instinct is to blame. If he is satisfied he says nothing; if he is not, he most illogically kicks up a row.

Diplomacy: the art of restraining power.

To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.

The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed. It is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed to produce valuable and lasting results.

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.

Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels.

We can’t afford to be killing one another.

Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.

If you have an enemy, then learn and know your enemy, don’t just be mad at him or her.

You must show the world that you abhor fighting.

The capability of negotiating… is something that means you not only have to understand fully what you believe and what your national interests are but in order to be a really good negotiator, you have to try to figure out what the other person on the other side of the table has in mind.

I do not believe there is a problem in this country or the world today which could not be settled if approached through the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount.

I learned a great many years ago that in a fight between husband and wife, a third party should never get between the woman’s skillet and the man’s ax-helve.

Debates, I hate.

Example is leadership.

We should not fight wars without a clearly defined end state… when you go to war, it can’t be a half-step.

War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands.

Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it… You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week.

What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.

Poverty breeds despair. We know this. Despair breeds violence. We know this. In turbulent times, isn’t it cheaper, and smarter, to make friends out of potential enemies than to defend yourself against them later?

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.

You don’t send people to prison on the basis of what other people imagine, or on the basis of media sound bites like ‚shooting an unarmed child,‘ when that ‚child‘ was beating him bloody.

In my view of the present aspect of affairs, there is no need of bloodshed and war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course, and I may say in advance, there will be no blood shed unless it be forced upon the government. The government will not use force unless force is used against it.

As we dread any disease that undermines the health of the body, so should we deplore contention, which is a corroding canker of the spirit.

Whoever has provoked men to rage against him has always gained a party in his favor, too.

Notifying the enemy in advance of our withdrawal dates or reassuring the enemy that we will not use certain capabilities like our ground forces should be avoided.

Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.

Politics are very much like war. We may even have to use poison gas at times.

It is far more important to be able to hit the target than it is to haggle over who makes a weapon or who pulls a trigger.

Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.

Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.

Fear not those who argue but those who dodge.

I’ve never fought with anyone. A lot of people talk to me, and they’re like, ‚Oh, you would have been fighting all the time when you were younger,‘ but I’m like, ‚I never fought with anyone because I always knew that if I hurt myself, I might lose important time in my cricket career,‘ so I never got into any fight, ever in my life.

When you have a conflict, that means that there are truths that have to be addressed on each side of the conflict. And when you have a conflict, then it’s an educational process to try to resolve the conflict. And to resolve that, you have to get people on both sides of the conflict involved so that they can dialogue.

Foe means enemy. Now, will we have differences of opinion with the Russians? Yes. Will they get mad at us from time to time, and we get mad at them? That’s part of the normal diplomatic relations.

It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.

Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.