Daniel Berrigan Quotes

Nonviolence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed.

Nonviolence is not a thing that comes easily. You have to learn how to be nonviolent

In 'Healing the Soul of America,' I wrote about Gandhi's notion of soul force in politics and why it matters to stand on your truth.

A lot of us don't get a sense of our personal power. I know the vast difference that one person can make in changing things.

A little of true nonviolence acts in a silent, subtle, unseen way and leavens the whole society.

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

Nonviolence, when it becomes active, travels with extraordinary velocity, and then it becomes a miracle.

We have learned that change cannot come through war. War is not a feasible tool to use in fighting against the oppression we face. War has caused more problems. We cannot embrace that path.

Nonviolence is not a cloistered virtue, confined only to the rishi and the cave-dweller.

Nonviolence of the strong is infinitely braver than their violence.

A nonviolent struggle necessarily involves construction on a small scale. It cannot therefore lead to tamas or darkness or inertia.

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

The essence of nonviolence is love. Out of love and the willingness to act selflessly, strategies, tactics, and techniques for a nonviolent struggle arise naturally. Nonviolence is not a dogma; it is a process.

Nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation.

We are constantly being astonished these days at the amazing discoveries in the field of violence. But I maintain that far more undreamt of and seemingly impossible discoveries will be made in the field of nonviolence.

I never had come up with a really profound and strong gesture - nothing like Julia Butterfly's. So I figured the best thing I could do was live by my beliefs. That's probably the most profound thing that anybody can do.

The process of nonviolence is one that takes time and those of us who've suffered, who've been persecuted over the years, would like to see things change, you know, overnight.

Pray and seek for strength to change our circumstances rather than praying for our circumstances to be changed

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.

Great causes cannot be served by intellectual equipment alone, they call for spiritual effort of soul-force.

There are countless horrible things happening all over the world and horrible people prospering, but we must never allow them to disturb our equanimity or deflect us from our sacred duty to sabotage and annoy them whenever possible.

The war of good and evil is mightiest in mightiest souls, and even in the darkest time the heart will maintain its right against the hardest creed.

Nonviolence in politics is a new weapon in the process of evolution; its vast possibilities are yet unexplored.

One keeps healthy in wartime...by a vigorous assertion of values in which war has no part.

If you want to end war and stuff, you gotta sing loud.