Joshua Oppenheimer Quotes

As a person, I'm anti-violence.

It is absolutely forbidden to repay evil with evil.

As a result of my philosophy, I wasn't even upset about Hitler. I was willing to go to war to knock him off, but I didn't hate him. I hated what he was doing.

The foundation of my beliefs is the same as it was when I was 10. Non-violence.

One can imagine nonviolent or minimally violent ways to reduce or eliminate hatred, but there's no mollifying evil.

The best way to win against the intolerable is to tolerate them, for this they have seldom dealt with. Your indulgence may soften their malice and open their eyes to more honorable ways.

Dignity does not come from avenging insults, especially from violence that can never be justified. It comes from taking responsibility and advancing our common humanity.

True ahimsa should wear a smile even on a deathbed brought about by an assailant. It is only with that ahimsa that we can befriend our opponents and win their love.

You hate evil, but you don't hate the people that do evil. So, hate has to go out the window.

Humankind has to get out of violence only through non-violence. Hatred can be overcome only by love. Counter - hatred only increases the surface as well as the depth of hatred.

We do not need guns and bombs to bring peace, we need love and compassion.

Yes, always avoid violence. In this age of charity and kindliness, the time has gone by for such things. Leave dynamite to the low and unrefined.

Just bring love. Everybody keeps bringing violence, let's bring love.

I don't feel bitterness, I don't feel anger towards anybody. Fighting is never emotional to me.

If your heart is large enough to envelop your adversaries, you can see right through them and avoid their attacks. And once you envelop them, you will be able to guide them along the path indicated to you by heaven and earth.

I have never been attracted to any kind of violence.

I don't support violence, period.

It's never right to fight terror with terror.

Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.

I had the honor to meet Nelson Mandela, and I heard him explain his forgiveness of his captors of 27 years by saying hatred and bitterness is destructive - the power is in love and forgiveness.

To repay evils with kindness is the religion I was taught to practise, and this will forever be my rule.

War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.

I did not want bloodshed. I did not want my people killed. I did not want anybody killed....I said in my heart that, rather than have war, I would give up everything rather than have the blood of white men upon the hands of my people.

The right things to do are those that keep our violence in abeyance; the wrong things are those that bring it to the fore.