Dalai Lama Quotes

Through Gandhi and my own life experience, I have learned about nonviolence. I believe that human life is a very special gift from God, and that no one has a right to take that away in any cause, however just. I am convinced that nonviolence is more powerful than violence.

I'm telling Palestinians don't use violence. We're going to use the civilized means of international law to achieve our goals, our independence, our freedom.

It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.

It is clear that no one will achieve any kind of objective through the force of violence, and that no one will make Spaniards yield to threats of guns, whoever may be holding them

Our aim is not to do things by violence to opponents.

The force generated by nonviolence is infinitely greater than the force of all the arms created by man's ingenuity.

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.

Indeed the very word, nonviolence, a negative word, means that it is an effort to abandon the violence that is inevitable in life.

Pacifists should stress more and more that it is the rule of law for which they are fighting.

Nonviolence to be worth anything has to work in the face of hostile forces.

People.. .love to say that 'Violence never solved anything.' But what solved Hitler? Was It a team of social workers? Was it putting daisies into the gun barrels of Nazi Panzer divisions? Was it a commission that tried to understand what made Hitler sorry? ?No. What solved Hitler was violence.

Violence is not the only means of persuasion.

Nonviolence is the only way. Even if you achieve your goal by violent means there are always side effects, and these can be worse than the problem. Violence is against human nature.

I can think about what [Mahatma] Gandhi said or [Martin Luther] King said about violence begetting violence, and still be true to my job by asking myself the question whenever we're confronted with a situation where some may be arguing for military action: Will this actually result in America being safer, or the most lives being saved?

The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.

I wasn't born to be a fighter. The causes I have fought for have invariably been causes that should have been gained by a delicate suggestion. Since they never were, I made myself into a fighter.

Nonviolence becomes meaningless if violence is permitted for self-defence.

Nonviolence is a universal principle and its operation is not limited by a hostile environment.

The point on nonviolence is to build a floor, a strong new floor, beneath which we can no longer sink.

I would go to war with words, not weapons. I would die talking before I lifted a weapon.

Those who were not taught to fight, have naturally inclined in favor of any other mode of settling differences rather than that of fighting.

You cannot sit down at the negotiating table and still preach violence in the streets.

You must know, then, that there are two methods of fighting, the one by law, the other by force: the first method is that of men, the second of beasts; but as the first method is often insufficient, one must have recourse to the second.

Read about some squirrelly guy who claims that he just don't believe in fighting, and I wonder how long the rest of us can count on being free.

The power of unarmed nonviolence is any day far superior to that of armed force.