It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.

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

I can tell you this: If I’m ever in a position to call the shots, I’m not going to rush to send somebody else’s kids into a war.

Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.

I’m married. My wife, Stella – a beautiful woman. She’s brought a lot of peace to my life, a lot of wisdom.

Maybe if everybody in leadership was a woman, you might not get into the conflicts in the first place. But if you watch the women who have made it to the top, they haven’t exactly been non-aggressive – including me.

Who wants to leave the door open to being dominated physically by another human being? Jiu Jitsu gives you the ability to not be dominated by that person, and to me, that’s real peace of mind. I don’t have to worry about that when I’m walking around in the world.

Indeed, we’re strongest when the face of America isn’t only a soldier carrying a gun but also a diplomat negotiating peace, a Peace Corps volunteer bringing clean water to a village, or a relief worker stepping off a cargo plane as floodwaters rise.

Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.

I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness; I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too. I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.

I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is opposed to every instinct in my body. But as president I must put the interests of America first Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow.

Whenever our neighbour’s house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.

Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.

In war, when a commander becomes so bereft of reason and perspective that he fails to understand the dependence of arms on Divine guidance, he no longer deserves victory.

It might be pardonable to refuse to defend some men, but to defend them negligently is nothing short of criminal.

I’m very disappointed in Obama. I was very much in support of him in the beginning, but I cannot support war. I cannot support droning. I cannot support capitulating to the banks.

Don’t hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft.

Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character.

In the long term we can hope that religion will change the nature of man and reduce conflict. But history is not encouraging in this respect. The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars.

If you get down and quarell everyday, you’re saying prayers to the devil, I say.

Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.

War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.

For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.

What we have to do, what at any rate it is our duty to do, is to revive the old art of Lying.

A man who is not afraid is not aggressive, a man who has no sense of fear of any kind is really a free, a peaceful man.

We’ve never advocated violence; violence is inflicted upon us. But we do believe in self-defense for ourselves and for black people.

I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.

War has always been the grand sagacity of every spirit which has grown too inward and too profound; its curative power lies even in the wounds one receives.

Fortune, which has a great deal of power in other matters but especially in war, can bring about great changes in a situation through very slight forces.

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls.

We did not choose to be the guardians of the gate, but there is no one else.

I dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself.

The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes.

I am never proud to participate in violence, yet I know that each of us must care enough for ourselves that we can be ready and able to come to our own defense when and wherever needed.

Nothing good ever comes of violence.

If you learn a martial art, you learn to be dangerous, but simultaneously, you learn to control it.

If you’re yelling you’re the one who’s lost control of the conversation.

If you die you’re completely happy and your soul somewhere lives on. I’m not afraid of dying. Total peace after death, becoming someone else is the best hope I’ve got.

I think the first duty of society is justice.

We’ve climbed the mighty mountain. I see the valley below, and it’s a valley of peace.

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

I was so upset with what was going on in the world. I just couldn’t stand the idea of being people tortured and that we even had such a thing as war. I hated the older generation, who had not done anything about it. Punk was a call-to-arms for me.

Our numbers have increased in Vietnam because the aggression of others has increased in Vietnam. There is not, and there will not be, a mindless escalation.

When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration?

Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.

Government can provide opportunity. But opportunity means nothing unless people are prepared to seize it.

Non-violence requires a double faith, faith in God and also faith in man.

Wars have never hurt anybody except the people who die.

Part of the reason there’s an injunction to the truth, for example, is that if you’re in a circumstance of extreme uncertainty, your best weapon, let’s say, or your best tool or your best defense is the truth, because it keeps things simpler.

No religion has mandated killing others as a requirement for its sustenance or promotion.

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?

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.

If there is not the war, you don’t get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don’t get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.

To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.

Acceptance looks like a passive state, but in reality it brings something entirely new into this world. That peace, a subtle energy vibration, is consciousness.

There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile to continue talking about peace and non-violence against a government whose only reply is savage attacks on an unarmed and defenseless people.

To compromise simply means that you go a tiny bit below what you know is right.

No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one.

When your higher self is present, it always promotes peace.

I believe that in every country the people themselves are more peaceably and liberally inclined than their governments.

Where there is righteousness in the heart, there is harmony in the house; when there is harmony in the house, there is order in the nation; when there is order in the nation, there is peace in the world.