Believe In Peace ::: Peace like charity, begins at home

The reality today is that we are all interdependent and we have to co-exist on this small planet. Therefore, the only sensible and intelligent way of resolving differences, whether between individuals, peoples or nations, is through a political culture of non-violence and dialogue.

— The Dalai Lama

Your first duty is to find the peace in you. If you root yourself in your peace and then lend your hand, you will certainly bring peace. If not, you will only add more and more to the peaceless condition.

Violence cannot stop violence. A war can never really be won be violence alone. The mind must be changed. A violent victory only means that you have handicapped your enemy. He is still your enemy and the peace is only temporary. You have covered the fire so it doesn't show now, but it is still inside and one day it will flare up again.

When you win a war with your power, your enemy simply retreats and waits for an opportunity to strike back at you. You have won the war but not the heart. Real victory is to win the heart, not just the land or the political power.

Yoga tells you that your own peaceful thoughts will bring results. In the name of Yoga, we try to collect the mind and send out peaceful vibrations. A sincere thought will travel all over the world. It is more than an atomic bomb, it's more than a missile.

Even if you don't believe in God or prayer, sit and say, "Let there be peace. Let the minds of the people who want war be changed." We believe in thought force. Because it is the very same thought force that creates war. Remember that. It is the human mind that creates all these bombs, all these wars.

If you still want a war, fight it against undesirable thinking, not against a nation of people. And to fight such a war, you have to send out beautiful thoughts. Make every thought a powerful anti missile. Sit quietly and send out powerful peaceful thoughts. I'm not joking—it is possible. Even one minute spent in peace is valuable. Don't think, "When our brother are dying, how can we sit quietly and think of peace?" This crazy world is, in a way, stabilized because of people sitting for a few minutes in meditation every day. Know that.

Don't ever think that by raising your hand or throwing a bomb or shouting something you can help the situation. Do it in a nonviolent way. Don't hurt anybody, don't hate anybody. As long as you have hatred in your mind, you are unfit to talk of peace."

— Sri Swami Satchidananda, excerpt from Beyond Words

The evil lot who did that thing on September 11 did it because they wanted to create a war between America and Islam. And by invading Iraq, we gave them what they hoped for.

— Billy Bragg

Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush; anxious for greater developments and greater wishes and so on; so that children have very little time for their parents; Parents have very little time for each other; and the home begins the disruption of the peace of the world.

— Mother Terresa

Children copy their parents, friends, and teachers. They will develop the habits of the people around them. So if you want your child to be honest, peaceful and happy you should be that way first.

— Baba Hari Dass

By running away from the world no one can get peace. Anywhere you go the problems will go with you, because the problems are inside you and not outside. Outside is simply a projection of inside.

— Baba Hari Dass

Many people fear nothing more terribly than to take a position which stands out sharply and clearly from the prevailing opinion. The tendency of most is to adopt a view that is so ambiguous that it will include everything and so popular that it will include everybody. Not a few men who cherish lofty and noble ideas hide them under a bushel for fear of being called different.

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is impossible to understand me, because to understand me you will have to drop your memory. Your memory interferes. Drop your memory...Consciousness is a continuous river...When I say drop your memory, I mean psychological memory: I don't mean factual memory. Buddha [in this story] remembers perfectly that yesterday this man spat on him, but he also remembers that [today] neither is this man the same nor is he—Buddha—the same. That chapter is closed; it is not worth carrying it your whole life. But you go on carrying. Somebody has said something to you ten years before and you are still carrying it. Your mother was angry when you were a child and you are still carrying it. Your father slapped you when you were just small and you are still carrying it, and you may be seventy years old. These psychological memories go on burdening you. They destroy your freedom, they destroy your aliveness, they encage you.

— Osho

As soon as a man stands up and says he is right or his church is right, and all others are wrong, he is himself all wrong. He does not know that upon the proof of all the others depends the proof of his own. Love and charity for the whole human race, that is the test of true religiousness. I do not mean the sentimental statement that all men are brothers, but that one must feel the oneness of human life.

— Swami Vivekananda

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction....The chain reaction of evil--hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars--must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., (from Strength to Love, 1963)

I have found that life persists in the midst of destruction. Therefore there must be a higher law than that of destruction. Only under that law would well-ordered society be intelligible and life worth living.

If that is the law of life we must work it out in daily exisitance. Wherever there are wars, wherever we are confronted with an opponent, conquer by love. I have found that the certain law of love has answered in my own life as the law of destruction has never done.

— Mahatma Ghandhi

There are two ways of meeting difficulties: you alter the difficulties, or you alter yourself to meet them.

— Phyllis Bottome

One man with courage makes a majority.

— Andrew Jackson

Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Peace, like charity, begins at home.

— Franklin D. Roosevelt, U.S. President

At times our scientific power outruns our common sense. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

— George Washington, first U.S. President & Military General

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

— Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. President & Military General

Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right.

— Henry Ford

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path
and leave a trail.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.

— John F. Kennedy

There never was a good war or a bad peace.

— Benjamin Franklin

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.

— Mark Twain

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The non-violent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them a new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage that they did not know they had. Finally it reaches the opponent and so stirs his conscience that reconcilation becomes a reality.

— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

This earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons and daughters of the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons and daughters of the earth. We did not weave the web of life, we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web we do to ourselves.

— Chief Seattle

A man who has to go to the village to get the news hasn't heard from himself in a long time.

— Henry David Thoreau

You have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour. Now you must go back and tell the people that it is the Hour. And there are things to be considered: Where are you living? What are you doing? Are you in the right relations? Where is your water? Know your garden. It is time to speak your truth! Create your community. Be good to each other. And do not look outside your self for the leader! This could be a good time. The river is flowing very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will know they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open and our heads above water. And I say, see who is there with you and celebrate! At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all our selves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

— A Hopi Elder

It is only through inner peace that we can have true outer freedom.

— Sri Chinmoy

Keep my words positive. Words become my behaviors. Keep my behaviors positive. Behaviors become my habits. Keep my habits positive. Habits become my values. Keep my values positive. Values become my destiny.

— Mahatma Ghandhi

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

— John Donne

When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds; Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed to be.

— Patanjali

It is possible to move a mountain by carrying away small stones.

— Chinese proverb

The heart is wiser than the mind. There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as if everything is.

— Albert Einstein

In this life, we can not do great things. We can only do small things with great love.

— Mother Teresa

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

— Confucius

Those who say it can not be done should not interrupt those doing it.

— Chinese proverb

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.

— Buddha

Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.

— William James

Your imagination is your preview of lifeís coming attractions.

— Albert Einstein

It is easier to go down a hill than up, but the view is from the top.

— Arnold Bennett

The sole meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

— Nelson Henderson

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of god that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

— Nelson Mandela

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.

— Goethe

There should be less talk; a preaching point is not a meeting point. What do you do then? Take a broom and clean someone's house. That says enough.

— Mother Teresa