Pope Francis Quotes

We can forgive [the Arabs] for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with [the Arabs] when they love their children more than they hate us...

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.

Even in waging war, cherish the spirit of peace-maker; that, by conquering those whom you attack, you may lead them back to the advantages of peace.

I think nonviolence and the mediation of conflict by means of respecting civility must be promoted. But being the kind of beings we [peoplep] are - wrestling with greed, and wrestling with fears and security, anxieties, wrestling with hatred that's shot through all of us - wars are here to stay.

What’s so civil about war anyway?

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.

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

War is not its own end, except in some catastrophic slide into absolute damnation. It's peace that's wanted. Some better peace than the one you started with.

May the God of peace arouse in all an authentic desire for dialogue and reconciliation. Violence cannot be overcome with violence. Violence is overcome with peace.

I was reminded as I was reviewing my life, that I have been in too many conflicts, too many wars, political battles, military battles, civil strifes in government. And always one lesson stands out and that is, those whom you fight most passionately often turn out to be your best friends.

The present war is the saturation point in violence. It spells, to my mind, also its doom.

When we seek reconciliation with our enemies, it is commonly out of a desire to better our own condition, a being harassed and tired out with a state of war, and a fear of some ill accident which we are willing to prevent.

I think anything is better than war. The extent to which one can negotiate with fanatics, I have no idea. I don't know.

People notice peacemakers because they dress funny. We know how the people who make war dress - in uniforms and medals, or in computers and clipboards, or in absoluteness, severity, greed, and cynicism. But the peacemaker is dressed in righteousness, justice, and faithfulness - dressed for the work that is to be done.

Lord, with so much violence in Iraq, may we persevere in our prayer and generosity.

War is the rule of force, and peace is the reign of law.

The main goal of the future is to stop violence. The world is addicted to it.

War is not the answer, because only love can conquer hate.

We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.

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.

You can’t have peace without a war.

All forms of violence, especially war, are totally unacceptable as means to settle disputes between and among nations, groups and persons.

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

If peace is equated simply with the absence of war, it can become abject pacifism that turns the world over to the most ruthless.

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