Martin McGuinness Quotes

We have to make sure the Good Friday Agreement works.

The only people that can make peace are the parties to the conflict, and just as they are responsible for the conflict and its consequences, so should they be given responsibility and recognition for the peace.

Waging war we understand, but not waging peace, or at any rate less consciously so.

I think the day you start building the war plan is the day you start beginning the postwar plan.

Peacemaking and peacekeeping should run in parallel.

Peace is not made with friends. Peace is made with enemies.

A peace deal requires agreements, and you don't make agreements with your friends, you make agreements with your enemies.

It... is the best opportunity we've had in the last 25 years to bring about a settlement in Northern Ireland, and I think we should leave no stone unturned to achieve that.

Intervention only works when the people concerned seem to be keen for peace.

Peace is a question of will. All conflicts can be settled, and there are no excuses for allowing them to become eternal.

Military hardliners called me a 'security threat' for promoting peace in South Asia and for supporting a broad-based government in Afghanistan.

It is neither my intention to depart from the route of John Garang nor to change the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

As they say, one thing led to another, and, ultimately, the British and Irish governments asked me to serve as chairman of the peace negotiations, which ironically began six years ago this week.

Funnily enough, Northern Ireland is a great example of where politics can win over conflict. The decision to down arms and follow a political path would have been unthinkable once. It shows just what is possible.

The really big challenge is delivering the social justice agenda in the Belfast Agreement, which hasn't been delivered.

My actions to promote peace, the mediation missions which I carried out during many conflicts, which very often occurred between brothers of the same country, are not driven by any ulterior motives or any calculations based on personal ambitions.

The last months, weeks and days have seen accelerating discussions, involving the DUP for the first time, about a comprehensive agreement which would see all outstanding matters dealt with and the Good Friday Agreement implemented in full.

Very few conflicts in the history of the world have been satisfactorily concluded according to a published timetable, because you lose all flexibility in dealing with your opponents.

Along with that ongoing process Sinn Fein took a decision to establish a peace commission which had the responsibility to travel around the country to receive submissions from the general public, also our opponents.

We now have a political process, we've had a period of parties that have been fighting each other quite literally with bombs and bullets, talking to each other, and having sat together in the assembly and sharing government with each other.

I want to say a simple thing, that the dividing line exists not between Jordan and Israel, but between the proponents of peace and the opponents of peace.

Such problems are not solved in one day but there is a great step toward peace and security in the region.

Everyone I have spoken with so far recognises the need for the IRA to respond positively and every has said sooner is better than later and I think there is some concern if it does continue to delay much longer that the situation isn't going to remain the same.

If you want to bring an end to long-standing conflict, you have to be prepared to compromise.

Well I think it has always been a mistake to reduce the peace process in Ireland to a decommissioning process.