Nonviolence Quotes

Anything Freed with Guns will Go Back Eventually.

~ Vineet Raj Kapoor

In a democracy, when the traffic light is red for freedoms, don’t ever stop, don’t ever wait! Refuse the red light, ignore it, break the rules and move forward! It is always legitimate to challenge fascism for every nation in the world as long as this challenge is nonviolent! Because violence means using the same vulgar, the same evil methods of fascism! Don’t behave like a dog when fighting against a dog!

~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Violence only attacks the body, but it is non-violence that has the power to influence the soul and reshape it towards a peaceful future.

~ Abhijit Naskar

I thought of you when I read this quote from A Farewell to Mars: An Evangelical Pastor's Journey Toward the Biblical Gospel of Peace by Brian Zahnd -Jesus is introduced. (Standing ovation.) He stands before Congress and begins to deliver his speech. “Blessed are the poor …the mourners … the meek.” “Love your enemies.” “Turn the other cheek.” After a few perfunctory applauses early on, I’m pretty sure there would be a lot of squirming senators and uncomfortable congressmen. The room would sink into a tense silence. And when Jesus concluded his speech with a prophecy of the inevitable fall of the house that would not act upon his words (Matt. 7:26–27), what would Congress do? Nothing. They would not act. They could not act. To act on Jesus’s words would undo their system. The Sermon on the Mount doesn’t work in Cain’s system—no matter how noble or sophisticated. In the end, the US Congress would no more adopt the policies Jesus set out in the Sermon on the Mount than they were adopted by the Jewish Sanhedrin or the Roman Senate.

~ Brian Zahnd

Nonviolence is only for the brave men and women of the world because it requires courage – courage to love the beauty of life, beauty of humanity and the beauty of the world.

~ Amit Ray

We ache with the yearningthat turns half into wholeand offer no excusesfor the beauty of our souls.

~ Aberjhani

Let everyone evolve fast and understand humanity. Let the heart of stones be converted into heart of love.

~ Amit Ray

Non-violence is more powerful than violence. Nature eliminates violent animals bit by bit.

~ Amit Ray

The more we practice nonviolence in our words, thoughts and actions the more peaceful will be our inner state.

~ Amit Ray

Only the brave men and women can bring peace to the world, not by practicing war but by practicing nonviolence.

~ Amit Ray

Meditation is not thinking about the image of a person of the past. It is more about focusing and channelizing the power of your emotions and imagination for fulfilling a bigger dream - the dream that will bring more life, energy peace, happiness and meaning to you and the society.

~ Amit Ray

Veganism is about nonviolence. It is about not engaging in harm to other sentient beings; to oneself; and to the environment upon which all beings depend for life. In my view, the animal rights movement is, at its core, a movement about ending violence to all sentient beings. It is a movement that seeks fundamental justice for all. It is an emerging peace movement that does not stop at the arbitrary line that separates humans from nonhumans.

~ Gary L. Francione

Welfare reforms and the whole “happy” exploitation movement are not “baby steps.” They are big steps–in a seriously backward direction.

~ Gary L. Francione

We cannot justify treating any sentient nonhuman as our property, as a resource, as a thing that we an use and kill for our purposes.

~ Gary L. Francione

We should not be surprised that more and more people feel comfortable about consuming animal products. After all, they are being assured by the “experts” that suffering is being decreased and they can buy “happy” meat, “free-range” eggs, etc.. These products even come with labels approved of by animal organizations. The animal welfare movement is actually encouraging the “compassionate” consumption of animal products.Animal welfare reforms do very little to increase the protection given to animal interests because of the economics involved: animals are property. They are things that have no intrinsic or moral value. This means that welfare standards, whether for animals used as foods, in experiments, or for any other purpose, will be low and linked to the level of welfare needed to exploit the animal in an economically efficient way for the particular purpose. Put simply, we generally protect animal interests only to the extent we get an economic benefit from doing so. The concept of “unnecessary” suffering is understood as that level of suffering that will frustrate the particular use. And that can be a great deal of suffering.Killing Animals and Making Animals Suffer | Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach

~ Gary L. Francione

The real challenge of compassion, nonviolence and mindfulness is to love in adverse situation.

~ Amit Ray

John Lewis said, You have to be taught the way of peace, the way of love, the way of nonviolence. In the religious sense, in the moral sense, you can say that in the bosom of every human being, there is a spark of the divine. So you don’t have a right as a human to abuse that spark of the divine in your fellow human being. From time to time, we would discuss that, if you have someone attacking you, beating you, spitting on you, you have to think of that person. Years ago that person was an innocent child, an innocent little baby. What happened? Did something go wrong? Did someone teach that person to hate, to abuse others? You try to appeal to the goodness of every human being and you don’t give up. You never give up on anyone.

~ Krista Tippett

The fall of communism had more to do with prayer meetings in Poland than bombs dropped on Cambodia. War is, among other things, impatience.

~ Brian Zahnd

With a few exceptions, the media have phrased the past five months as a contest of wills between Bush and Saddam Hussein, not as a moment of deragement between two armed madmen willing to order their young to slaughter each other. Analysis -endless analysis- has been offered about the two men's tactics, as if they were coaches preparing for the Super Bowl.

~ Colman Mccarthy

Bush spoke of another principle, that a just war must support a just cause. In the Persian Gulf, he said, our cause could not be more noble. What nation has ever said its war was not noble?

~ Colman Mccarthy

If peace is what every government says it seeks, and peace is the yearning of every heart, why aren't we studying it and teaching it in schools?

~ Colman Mccarthy

Nonviolence is kindling light of love into the dark places and budding trust from the threshold of hopelessness.

~ Amit Ray

The objective of nonviolence is to create a beloved world community.

~ Amit Ray

Nonviolence is a way of life, where the task is to awaken the underlying goodness of every human being.

~ Amit Ray

The female warrior knows how to fight without violence. She knows when not to raise her sword, but instead hold up her heart. Her shield is not a defense against others but a shelter for all.

~ Riitta Klint

Nonviolence is power, but it is the right and good use of power.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream was a manifestation of hope that humanity might one day get out of its own way by finding the courage to realize that love and nonviolence are not indicators of weakness but gifts of significant strength.

~ Aberjhani

When you are grateful,' Brother Steindl-Rast explained, 'you are not fearful, and when you are not fearful, you are not violent. When you are grateful, you act out of a sense of enough and not out of a sense of scarcity, and you are willing to share. If you are grateful, you are enjoying the differences between people and respectful to all people. The grateful world is a world of joyful people. Grateful people are joyful people. A grateful world is a happy world.

~ Douglas Carlton Abrams

On either side of a potentially violent conflict, an opportunity exists to exercise compassion and diminish fear based on recognition of each other's humanity. Without such recognition, fear fueled by uninformed assumptions, cultural prejudice, desperation to meet basic human needs, or the panicked uncertainty of the moment explodes into violence.

~ Aberjhani

Without basic human values guiding us, we become morally bankrupt. Without love as our purpose, we become empty. Without understanding of both of these, we become lost.

~ Milan Labrey

Non Violence and Religion: Both designed to keep the oppressed from murdering their oppressors.

~ Darnell Lamont Walker

Violence promises us something we all deeply desire, something we genuinely want; violence promises us peace. Violence promises us, that in the end, when the last battle is fought, the last bomb is dropped, and the last enemy is slain, we will have what we always dreamed of – safety, a world without suffering, death or bloodshed; a world at rest. Yet, these are the very things Christ offers with the Kingdom of God. A world where the lamb will lay down with the lion, where swords are beaten into plowshares, where mercy and justice flow down like the waters, where every tear will be wiped away from our eyes, and where there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. Christ and violence seem to offer the same final result, the two being competitors for our allegiance.

~ Ronnie Mcbrayer

Love is an energy that is addictive, contagious and free. Earn it, chase it, give it to those in need.

~ Aaron Lauritsen

Nonviolence aims at doing no harm to living being. Compassion aims at doing good to all being.

~ Amit Ray

Compassion stands on the pillars of trust, love, awareness and detachment.

~ Amit Ray

Compassion means removal of suffering – suffering of the self and the others.

~ Amit Ray

The universe is not for man alone, but is a theater of evolution for all living beings. Live and let live is its guiding principle. 'Ahimsa Paramo Dharmah' - Non-injury is the highest religion.

~ Virchand Gandhi

Nonviolence is supremely the weapon of the dispossessed, the underprivileged, and the egalitarian, not those who are still addicted to private profit, commercial values, and great wealth.

~ David T. Dellinger

Suffering, though, can be nothing more than a sad and sorry thing without the presence on the part of the sufferer of a graceful heart, an accepting and open heart, a heart that holds no malice toward the inflictors of his or suffering This is a difficult concept to understand, and it is even more difficult to internalize, but it has everything to do with the way of nonviolence. We are talking about love here....This is a broader, deeper, more all-encompassing love. It is a love that acepts and embraces the hateful and the hurtful. It is a love that recognizes the spark of the divine in each of us, even in those who would raise their hand against us, those we might call our enemy.

~ John Lewis

we shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will. And we shall continue to love you.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.