Joan Baez Quotes

People who talk about peace are very often the most quarrelsome.

Some people say, therefore, that violence and war are inevitable. I say rubbish: Our brains are fully capable of controlling instinctive behavior.

Peace is hard work and we must not allow people to forget it.

Citizens across the United States are now uniting in a great cause to establish a Department of Peace, seeking nothing less than the transformation of our society, to make non-violence an organizing principle, to make war archaic through creating a paradigm shift in our culture for human development, for economic and political justice and for violence control.

[Peace praxis is] a peace process that deals with conflict integratively.

As a nation, this is the moment to start seriously investing our time, energy and resources into proven methods of reducing violence, both within our nation as well as internationally. The cost of violence to our culture and our children is simply not sustainable.

Gun control is not the answer. Culture control is the answer.

Unfortunately, we have warring in the world, so the youngest minds, the brilliant minds, are sent off to war. I think that, you know, you have brilliant people with great possibilities and that's why I really am not really for war. I really am not.

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.

War is a ritual, a deadly ritual, not the result of aggressive self-assertion, but of self-transcending identification. Without loyalty to tribe, church, flag or ideal, there would be no wars.

Nowadays you don't go around on the street kicking people, punching people - because if you do (makes gun shape with hand), well that's it - I don't care how good you are.

It is triple ultra forbidden to respond to criticism with violence. There are a very few injunctions in the human art of rationality that have no ifs, ands, buts, or escape clauses. This is one of them. Bad argument gets counterargument. Does not get bullet. Never. Never ever never for ever.

Many powerful people don't want peace, because they live off war.

Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.

It is clear that military force and our policy of preemption are alone insufficient to make us safe. But help is on the way. Legislation has been proposed to create a US Department of Peace. In the propsed Department of Peace it would organize our present system into one conscious effort to improve humanity in achieving peace, where true safety lies.

So many in our world today are suffering from isolation, war and oppression. So much money is spent on the construction of armaments. Many, many young people are in despair because of the danger.

Together, we can make a U.S. Department of Peace into a reality, and leave a gift of peace for generations to come.

Peace has never come from dropping bombs. Real peace comes from enlightenment and educating people to behave more in a divine manner.

To reach peace, teach peace.

Violence is the easy way out and it only leads to more violence. We need people in this world who are willing to find solutions through peace, through communication, honesty and diplomacy. World peace may seem impossible, but it's worth aiming for.

Working for peace in the future is to work for peace in the present moment.

I go to places and I see all these people working on peace education and on a culture of nonviolence and non-killing. You look at all these different movements going on: the environment movement, the interfaith movement, the human rights movement, the youth movement, and the arts movement.

When people go at war they cheapen things.

You must fight others, but through peace, and through dialogue, and through education.