Jim Henson Quotes

We have to start from the fact that there are always alternatives to violence.

Practically every violent conflict or social change has proved that violence unleashes violence in return.

I do not like violence, but ours is a violent time, and there are some men who understand nothing else.

I consider violence an uneconomical way of attaining an end. There are always better substitutes, though they may sometimes be a little less direct.

If the time comes when our culture tires of the endless homicidal feuds, despairs of the use of force and war as a means of bringing peace, becomes discontent with the half-lives that its members are living - only then will our culture seriously look for alternatives.

The only way to end a culture of violence is to proactively create a culture of peace.

I am not afraid of taking risks. We have to take risks for peace.

I think that the effort to continue to look for some law to somehow make violence go away is missing the point.

I don't have much time for real violence at all. I think there are infinitely better ways of changing the world than using violence. Sitting round a table talking is a pretty good start.

The absence of strife does not necessarily indicate the presence of peace.

Peace produced by suppression is neither natural nor desirable.

What’s so civil about war anyway?

War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life.

I have been apt to think that there has never been, nor ever will be, any such thing as a good war, or a bad peace.

They won't give peace a chance, that's just a dream some of us had

War is the antithesis of all our teaching. It breaks all the commandments; it makes rich men poor, and strong men weak. It makes well men sick, and by it living men are changed to dead men.

To have world peace, we all have to have a healthy understanding of what is necessary to bring World Peace. It's not something that will be dropped on our laps. We have to work for it. Until we get World Peace, I think my strongest passion stays in the effort to get it.

Sometimes peace looks like war, you cannot tell them apart.

War is an act of force, and to the application of that force there is no limit. Each of the adversaries forces the hand of the other, and a reciprocal action results which in theory can have no limit.

I am constantly challenged by pessimists who insist that military solutions are the only way to go. This was true in the 1980s, and it is true today. You should know that I do not consider myself a pacifist; there are times, in my view, when military action may be necessary.

We are not going to deal with the violence in our communities, our homes, and our nation, until we learn to deal with the basic ethic of how we resolve our disputes and to place an emphasis on peace in the way we relate to one another.

Violence and war lead only to death.

The whole human race loses by every act of personal vengeance.

Violence is not inevitable. I mean, the only inevitable form of violence is the kind that we understand, the only legitimate (if there can ever be legitimate violence) and that's self-defense.

Let us ask Mary to help us respond to violence, to conflict and to war, with the power of dialogue, reconciliation and love. She is our mother: may she help us to find peace; all of us are her children!