Antonio Guterres Quotes

If we don't manage to find not just a compromise but a lasting peace agreement, we know perfectly well what the scenario will be. It has a name, it's called war.

My actions to promote peace, the mediation missions which I carried out during many conflicts, which very often occurred between brothers of the same country, are not driven by any ulterior motives or any calculations based on personal ambitions.

If you want to bring an end to long-standing conflict, you have to be prepared to compromise.

Peacemaking and peacekeeping should run in parallel.

According to the “ripeness theory,” every conflict reaches a point when the parties are tired of confrontation and determine it is in their interest to make peace. With practical steps, principled leadership, and encouragement from the international community, the peace process still represents a win-win for both sides.

It is far easier and more effective - and not just in terms of cost - to prevent conventional conflicts than to intervene after an eruption of violence.

Peace is a question of will. All conflicts can be settled, and there are no excuses for allowing them to become eternal.

If you want peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.

I think most conflicts do end with negotiated settlements; some don't, but most do.

I think the day you start building the war plan is the day you start beginning the postwar plan.

The UN is ultimately going to be judged on its ability in conflict resolution and conflict prevention.

We have to develop preventive diplomacy.

I am not authorized to make peace.

There are universal traits and aspects of all these conflicts, and I think that all of them have bridgeable solutions. The only question is whether you are ready to take the challenge, to pay the price, to compromise in order to get more. This, I believe, is the challenge for all the peacemakers in the world.

There is never any military solution to any problem. Even when you have total victory you still have to go in and talk to people.

You don't make peace with your friends. That's the bottom line. You end conflicts by trying to find some political resolution.

We must fight terrorism as if there's no peace process and work to achieve peace as if there's no terror.

Mediation is one of the most effective tools of non-violence. It can turn parties away from conflict, towards compromise.

Our conflict is not likely to cease so soon as every good man would wish. The measure of iniquity is not yet filled; and unless we can return a little more to first principles, and act a little more upon patriotic ground, I do not know when it will-or-what may be the issue of the contest. Speculation-peculation-engrossing-forestalling-with all their concomitants, afford too many melancholy proofs of the decay of public virtue; and too glaring instances of its being the interest and desire of too many, who would wish to be thought friends, to continue the war.

To make peace, one must be an uncompromising leader. To make peace, one must also embody compromise.

I see this as the central issue of our time: how to find a substitute for war in human ingenuity, imagination, courage, sacrifice, patience... War is not inevitable, however persistent it is, however long a history it has in human affairs. It does not come out of some instinctive human need. It is manufactured by political leaders, who then must make a tremendous effort--by enticement, by propaganda, by coercion--to mobilize a normally reluctant population to go to war.

You'll get more from being a peacemaker than a warrior.

It is not a process of bargaining or give-and-take. The peace process is not about giving concessions. We will not allow any step which would hurt the memories of our martyrs.

There have always been people during periods of history that thought that we could get along with the enemy if only we would reach out. Peace in our time is a philosophy.

I fight terrorism as if there was no peace process, and I negotiate the peace process as if there was no terrorism.