Muriel Rukeyser Quotes

I feel that non-violence is really the only way that we can follow because violence is just so self-defeating. A riot ends up creating many more problems for the negro community than it solved. We can through violence burn down a building, but you can't establish justice. You can murder a murderer, but you can't murder murder through violence. You can murder a hater, but you can't murder hate. And what we're trying to get rid of is hate, injustice, and all of these other things that continue the long night of man's inhumanity to man.

Opposition doesn't mean to take arms and kill people and destroy everything.

Non-violence ... is the only thing that the atom bomb cannot destroy. I did not move a muscle when I first heard that the atom bomb had wiped out Hiroshima. On the contrary, I said to myself, Unless now the world adopts non-violence, it will spell certain suicide for mankind.

What is wanted is a deliberate giving up of violence out of strength.

Non-violence is a very powerful weapon. Most people don't understand the power of non-violence and tend to be amazed by the whole idea. Those who have been involved in bringing about change and see the difference between violence and non-violence are firmly committed to a lifetime of non-violence, not because it is easy or because it is cowardly, but because it is an effective and very powerful way.

Please be peaceful. We believe in law and order. We are not advocating violence, I want you to love your enemies... for what we are doing is right, what we are doing is just -- and God is with us.

The fragrance of nonviolence was never sweeter than it was today amidst the stink of violence of the most cowardly type that was being displayed in the cities of India.

The modern choice is between non-violence or non-existence.

Violence can only be effectively met by nonviolence. This is an old established truth.

With God as witness, I want to proclaim this truth, that the way of violence cannot bring Swaraj, it can only lead to disaster.

Wars aren't stopped by fighting wars, any more than you can fight fire with fire. You fight fire with water. You fight violence with nonviolence.

Mankind has to get out of violence only through non-violence.

Pacifism in the face of war is not only irresponsible - it is immoral. Refusing to meet force with force in the name of peace will beget not peace, but further death and destruction, the very violence the pacifists seek to avoid.

The strength to kill is not essential for self-defense; one ought to have the strength to die. When a man is fully ready to die, he will not even desire to offer violence. Indeed, I may put it down as a self-evident proposition that the desire to kill is in inverse proportion to the desire to die. And history is replete with instances of men who by dying with courage and compassion on their lips converted the hearts of their violent opponents.

I knew A.J. Muste very well. I tried for a while to be like he was, and that is a total pacifist. But then Margot [my wife] hit me hard in the stomach one day to prove to me that I wasn't as perfect a pacifist as I thought I was.

Unless we learn the lesson of nonviolence fully, we shall never do away with the deadly feuds which have been the curse of the Frontier people.

The votaries of nonviolence cannot harbour violence even in thought, let alone the question of doing it.

Non -violence is infinitely superior to violence , forgiveness is more manly than punishment. Forgiveness is the ornament.

Non-violence does not signify that man must not fight against the enemy, and by enemy is meant the evil which men do, not the human beings themselves.

It is because peaceful agitation and passive resistance are effective that I uphold them, and it is because force strengthens tyranny that I condemn it. War and Authority are companions; Peace and Liberty are companions. It is foolish in the extreme not only to resort to force before necessity compels, but especially to madly create the conditions that will lead to this necessity.

...people think non-violence is really weak and non-militant. These are misconceptions that people have because they don't understand what non-violence means. Non-violence takes more guts, if I can put it bluntly, than violence. Most violent acts are accomplished by getting the opponent off guard, and it doesn't take that much character, I think, if one wants to do it.

Refraining from violence is not a sign of weakness in one's faith but a sign that one's faith is unshakeable

If intellect plays a large part in the field of violence, I hold that it plays a larger part in the field of nonviolence.

The trouble is that nonviolence is so often defined as refusal to fight, and that is the American definition of cowardice. In fact, marching unarmed against the guns and dogs of the police requires more courage than does aggression. The perverted idea of manhood coming from the barrel of a gun is what keeps people from understanding nonviolence.