A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.

Our daily deeds as ordinary South Africans must produce an actual South African reality that will reinforce humanity’s belief in justice, strengthen its confidence in the nobility of the human soul, and sustain all our hopes for a glorious life for all.

A war is a horrible thing, but it’s also a unifier of countries.

We all hoped in 2001 that we could put in place an Afghan government under President Karzai that would be able to control the country, make sure al-Qaeda didn’t come back, and make sure the Taliban wasn’t resurging. It didn’t work out.

The deliberate and deadly attacks which were carried out yesterday against our country were more than acts of terror. They were acts of war.

The world is too violent right now.

I believe many people feel like God is mad at them.

Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.

Clinicians, academicians, and politicians are often put to a test of faith. In pursuit of their goals, will their religion show or will it be hidden? Are they tied back to God or to man?

Battle is an orgy of disorder.

You may make some mistakes – but that doesn’t make you a sinner. You’ve got the very nature of God on the inside of you.

Wars have never hurt anybody except the people who die.

I got no quarrel with them Vietcong.

Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.

Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?

To be intimate with a married man, when my own father cheated on my mother, is not something I could forgive. I could not look at myself in the morning if I did that. I wouldn’t be attracted to a man who would cheat on his wife.

For revolutionary Cubans, to cooperate with other poor and exploited peoples has always been a political principle and a duty towards humanity.

Humanity at the centre of the primates, Homo sapiens, in humanity, is the end-product of a gradual work of creation, the successive sketches for which still surround us on every side.

Jesus paid a tremendous price for us so we could have abundant life. He willingly took all of our sin on Himself and gave His life on the cross so we could be forgiven and have new life in Him.

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.

Death wasn’t part of God’s original plan for humanity, and the Bible calls death an enemy – the last enemy to be destroyed.

There is in general good reason to suppose that in several respects the gods could all benefit from instruction by us human beings. We humans are – more humane.

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value.

You can’t forgive without loving. And I don’t mean sentimentality. I don’t mean mush. I mean having enough courage to stand up and say, ‚I forgive. I’m finished with 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.

If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?

Drama usually has some sort of intense conflict.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

Wars are caused by undefended wealth.

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

They say cats have nine lives. I’ve had 12 already and I don’t know how many more I’ll have.

All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us that we are all more alike than we are unalike.

I hold that while man exists, it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind.

The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass; and beyond there is a different country.

I refuse to allow any man-made differences to separate me from any other human beings.

Forgiveness is not a feeling – it’s a decision we make because we want to do what’s right before God. It’s a quality decision that won’t be easy and it may take time to get through the process, depending on the severity of the offense.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

Never forget the three powerful resources you always have available to you: love, prayer, and forgiveness.

Everything in war is very simple. But the simplest thing is difficult.

There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.

If I should ever be captured, I want no negotiation – and if I should request a negotiation from captivity they should consider that a sign of duress.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.

The confessional is not a torture chamber, but the place in which the Lord’s mercy motivates us to do better.

If you have a particular faith or religion, that is good. But you can survive without it.

The proper study of Mankind is Man.

Certainly it is valuable to a trained writer to crash in an aircraft which burns. He learns several important things very quickly. Whether they will be of use to him is conditioned by survival. Survival, with honor, that outmoded and all-important word, is as difficult as ever and as all-important to a writer.

The Army was always big on Clausewitz, the Prussian; the Navy on Alfred Thayer Mahan, the American; and the Air Force on Giulio Douhet, the Italian. But the Marine Corps has always been more Eastern-oriented. I am much more comfortable with Sun-tzu and his approach to warfare.

I did once seriously think of embracing the Christian faith. The gentle figure of Christ, so full of forgiveness that he taught his followers not to retaliate when abused or struck, but to turn the other cheek – I thought it was a beautiful example of the perfect man.

I do not believe in God; his existence has been disproved by Science. But in the concentration camp, I learned to believe in men.

If you haven’t forgiven yourself something, how can you forgive others.

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

Life is too short for long-term grudges.

I particularly admire are Mark Twain and Jerome K. Jerome who wrote in a certain tone of voice which was humane and understanding of humanity, but always ready to annotate its little foibles. I think I’d lay my cards down on that, and say that it’s that that I’m trying to do.

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.

We’re all caught up in circumstances, and we’re all good and evil. When you’re really hungry, for instance, you’ll do anything to survive. I think the most evil thing – well, maybe that’s too strong – but certainly a very evil thing is judgment, the sin of ignorance.

The ineffable joy of forgiving and being forgiven forms an ecstasy that might well arouse the envy of the gods.

The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life.