Quotes for a Culture of Peace

...Any definition of a culture of peace must address the problem of achieving justice for communities and individuals who do not have the means to compete or cope without structured assistance and compassionate help.
-- Mahnaz Afkhami
We have the ability to achieve, if we master the necessary goodwill, a common global society blessed with a shared culture of peace that is nourished by the ethnic, national and local diversities that enrich our lives.-- Mahnaz Afkhami

War is not inherent in human beings. We learn war and we learn peace. The culture of peace is something which is learned, just as violence is learned and war culture is learned.
-- Elise Boulding
Peace cultures thrive on and are nourished by visions of how things might be, in a world where sharing and caring are part of the accepted lifeways for everyone.
-- Elise Boulding

Sexual, racial, gender violence and other forms of discrimination and violence in a culture cannot be eliminated without changing culture.
-- Charlotte Bunch

We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing we set back the progress of humanity.
--Rachel Carson

"You know, if people are not pacifists, it's not their fault. It's because society puts them in that spot. You've got to change it. You don't just change a man - you've got to change his environment as you do it."
-- Cesar Chavez

War is an invention of the human mind. The human mind can invent peace.
-- Norman Cousins

"We must inoculate our children against militarism, by educating them in the spirit of pacifism... Our schoolbooks glorify war and conceal its horrors. They indoctrinate children with hatred. I would teach peace rather than war, love rather than hate."
-- Albert Einstein

I believe that a culture of peace must be the essential foundation of our efforts for peace.
-- Daisaku Ikeda
Let us join our efforts toward building the unshakable foundations for a culture of peace.
-- Daisaku Ikeda

We have really got to create a culture in our world today where we recognize that every human life is sacred and precious and we have no right to take another human life.
-- Mairead Corrigan Maguire

A universal renunciation of violence requires the commitment of the whole of society. These are not matters of government but matters of State; not only matters for the authoirities, but for society in its entirety, including civilian, military, and religious bodies. The mobilization which is urgently needed to effect the transition within two or three years from a culture of war to a culture of peace demands co-operation from everyone. In order to change, the world needs everyone.
-- Federico Mayor

It is a good moment to repeat that a war is never won. Never mind that history books tell us the opposite. The psychological and material costs of war are so high that any triumph is a pyrrhic victory. Only peace can be won and winning peace means not only avoiding armed conflict but finding ways of eradicating the causes of individual and collective violence: injustice and oppression, ignorance and poverty, intolerance and discrimination. We must construct a new set of values and attitudes to replace the culture of war which, for centuries, has been influencing the course of civilization. Winning peace means the triumph of our pledge to establish, on a democratic basis, a new social framework of tolerance and generosity from which no one will feel excluded.
-- Federico Mayor

"We must have research for peace... It would embrace the outstanding problems of morality. The time has come for man's intellect, his scientific method, to win over the immoral brutality and irrationality of war and militarism … Now we are forced to eliminate from the world forever this vestige of prehistoric barbarism, this curse to the human race."
-- Linus Pauling

"I believe that love, kindness, compassion, tolerance, and peace can be implanted in the psyche of man only when fear, paranormal illusion and ignorance are removed. We can then shift our attention more to matters of peace, rather than to matters of war."
-- Peter Retzinger

If all we hear is violence, all we will know is violence — personally or globally. If we hear stories of people rising above hatred to build a better life, we can all find the courage to create peace.
-- Barbara Simmons

The improvement of life was only accomplished to the extent to which it was based on a change of consciousness, that is, to the extent to which the law of violence was replaced in men's consciousness by the law of love.
-- Leo Tolstoy

Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed
-- Constitution of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)

Wars are not acts of God. They are caused by man, by man-made institutions, by the way in which man has organized his society. What man has made, man can change.
-- Frederic Moore Vinson

Time itself becomes subordinate to war. If only we could celebrate peace as our various ancestors celebrated war; if only we could glorify peace as those before us, thirsting for adventure, glorified war; if only our sages and scholars together could resolve to infuse peace with the same energy and inspiration that others have put into war.
Why is war such an easy option? Why does peace remain such an elusive goal? We know statesmen skilled at waging war, but where are those dedicated enough to humanity to find a way to avoid war>
Every nation has its prestigious military academies - or so few of them - that reach not only the virtues of peace but also the art of attaining it? I mean attaining and protecting it by means other than weapons, the tools of war. Why are we surprised whenever war recedes and yields to peace?
-- Elie Wiesel