Peter Maurer Quotes

We must understand the factors that cause fragility, violence, and conflict in order to develop solutions that will meaningfully reduce instability at its roots rather than merely addressing the symptoms.

The world today is anything but trouble-free.

Chiapas has had its problems for many centuries. The different Indian tribes that live there have always fought among themselves.

Almost half of the population of the world lives in rural regions and mostly in a state of poverty. Such inequalities in human development have been one of the primary reasons for unrest and, in some parts of the world, even violence.

Of course I am frustrated with regard to extreme poverty, to violence that never seems to cease.

It is conflict overall that mires people in poverty. That is the first law of development.

Poverty is the parent of revolution.

Halve the income of the country and you double the risk of civil war.

Today, the worst conflicts, the most deep-rooted violence, and those likely to emerge in the coming years are due to disparities in development.

Violence arises not out of superfluity of power but out of powerlessness.

Disparity is Australia's worst social problem. Thousands of lives are slowly being crushed, while billions are wasted on thousands of little initiatives trying to 'close the gap.'

Violence in Mexico has its origins in the lack of development and corruption.

We need to start talking about inequality again; we need to start talking about the inequities and unfairnesses and the injustices of an excessively divided society, divided by wealth, by opportunity, by outcome, by assets and so forth.

I am afraid that if you don't find peaceful domestic solutions to our inequality and social problems, then it's always tempting to find other people responsible for our problems.

Today continuing poverty and distress are a deeper and more important cause of international tensions, of the conditions that can produce war, than previously.

Experience has shown how deeply the seeds of war are planted by economic rivalry and social injustice.

If you look in general at people who live in anarchy, they have quite high rates of death from either homicide or warfare or both. Anarchy is one of the main reasons for violence, and it may be the most important.

Many developing countries continue to be burdened by high percentages of their population living in poverty. Yet, instead of addressing this root cause of conflict, many states, ironically, increase their military might in order to control increasingly desperate populations.

Life has become terribly insecure. It's on the vortex of civil war. It's difficult to know how America will bring it back from the brink and build up good will.

As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest.

It's not my fault that there is this gap between rich and poor, it is the fault of governments. I want a different world. One where I don't wake up thinking I'm so lucky to be able to feed my daughter.

If we continue to create a world where there is poverty and disrespect, there will continue to be terrorism.

I want to eliminate the basis of problems and basis of crime, and basis of terrorism.

This country is going to implode, or put another way, it's going to get crushed under the weight of poverty. You can't have one percent of the people who own and control more wealth than the other 90 percent of the population.

Revolution applies a local anaesthetic to one class of society and operates on the other.