Albert Camus: "Great ideas, it has been said, come into the world as gently as doves. Perhaps then, if we listen attentively, we shall hear amid the uproar of empires and nations, a faint flutter of wings, a gentle stirring of life and hope. Some will say that this hope lies in a nation; others, in a man. I believe rather that it is awakened, revived, nourished by millions of individuals whose deeds and works every day negate frontiers and the crudest implication of history. As a result, there shines forth fleetingly the ever-threatened truth that each and every man, on the foundation of his own sufferings and joys, builds for all."

William Sloane Coffin, Jr.: "Hope arouses, as nothing else can arouse, a passion for the possible."

George Fox: "I told them that I lived in that light and power that took away the occasion for all wars."

Barbara Miller: "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me."

Franklin D. Roosevelt: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Mark Twain: "Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not the absence of fear."

John Kerry: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

Thomas Merton: "Without a life of the spirit ... our whole existance becomes unsubstantial and illusory ... No Man is an Island."

Pope John XXIII - Pacem in Terris: "Peace on Earth - which man throughout the ages has so longed for and sought after - can never be established, never guaranteed, except by the diligent observance of the divinely established order --- each country's social progress, order, security and peace are necessarily linked with the social progress, order, security and peace of every other country."

The Dalai Lama: "The more we care for the happiness and welfare of others, the greater our own sense of well-being becomes."

Mohandas K. Gandhi: "We should carry on this struggle on the lines of strict non-violence, i.e., by suffering in our own persons..... I want you to feel like loving your opponents, and the way to do it is to give them the same credit for honesty of purpose which you would claim for yourself."

Anonymous: "War doesn't determine who is right - only who is left."

Adlai Stevenson: "We do not envision a world without conflict - we do envision a world without war."

Martin Lurher King, Jr.: "We must break the cycle of escalating violence. The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Dark cannot drive out darkness - only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate - only love can do that."

Benjamin Mays: "The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn't a calamity to die with dreams unfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not disgrace to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim, is a sin."

John F. Kennedy: "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you ... ask what you can do for your country ... ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man."

Lyndon Baines Johnson: “Let us put an end to the teaching and preaching of hate and evil and violence. Let us turn away from the fanatics of the far left and the far right, from the apostles of bitterness and bigotry, from those defiant of the law, and those who pour venom into the Nation’s bloodstream."

Dwight David Eisenhower: "We pray ... that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love."

Mohandas K. Gandhi: "It may be long before the law of love will be recognised in international affairs. The machineries of government stand between and hide the hearts of one people from those of another."

Jawaharlal Nehru: “Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people.”

John F. Kennedy: "World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor. It only requires that they live together with mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement."

Cesar Chavez: "Nonviolence is not inaction ... It is not for the timid or weak ... Nonviolence is hard work. It is the willingness to sacrifice. It is the patience to win."

Jimmy Carter: "It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our children to honor nature's gifts; the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever."

Martin Luther King, Jr.: "The choice is not between non-violence and violence, but between non-violence and non-existance."

Albert Schweitzer: "Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace."

A. J. Muste: "There is no way to peace. Peace is the way."

Joan Baez: "I would say that I am a nonviolent soldier. In place of weapons of violence, you have to use your mind, your heart, your sense of humor, every faculty available to you ... because no one has the right to take the life of another human being."

Reinhold Niebuhr: "Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.  Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.  Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.  Therefore we are saved by love."

Pogo / Walt Kelly: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Franco-American Pacifist: "Zut Alors, No More War."

The Holy Koran: "All people are a single nation."

Chinese Proverb: "When my heart is at peace, the world is at peace."

Helen Keller: "I do not want the peace that passeth all understanding. I want the understanding that bringeth peace."

Maria Schell: "Peace is when time doesn't matter as it passes by."

Anna Quindlin: "In a democratic society, the only treason is silence."

Dwight D. Eisenhower 4/16/53: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

Martin Luther King, Jr.: “A nation that spends more on military than on social programs and education is morally bankrupt."

Prayer of Peace - Satish Kumar - adapted from the Upanishads:

"Lead me from death to life, from falsehood to truth."
"Lead me from dispair to hope, from fear to trust."
"Lead me from hate to love, from war to peace."
"Let peace fill our heart, our world, our universe."

William Sloane Coffin, Jr.: "Peace does not come rolling in on the wheels of inevitability. We can't just wish for peace. We have to will it, fight for it, suffer for it, demand it from our governments as - if peace were God's most cherished hope for humanity --- as indeed it is."