Salman Rushdie Quotes

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

If there are sound reasons or bases for the points you demand, then there is no need for violence. On the other hand, when there is no sound reason that concessions should be made to you but mainly your own desire, then reason cannot work and you have to rely on force. Thus using force is not a sign of strength but rather a sign of weakness.

I get the reason that you should be willing to negotiate sometimes. But you also ought to be willing to throw a punch.

We discovered that peace at any price is no peace at all.

I hate to be a kicker, I always long for peace, But the wheel that does the squeaking, is the one that gets the grease.

If you are negotiating you must do so in a spirit of reconciliation, not from the point of view of issuing ultimatums.

General, unless he offers us honorable terms, come back and let us fight it out!

Our reluctance for conflict should not be misjudged as a failure of will.

There should be an honest attempt at the reconciliation of differences before resorting to combat.

Engagement is not appeasement. Engagement is not surrender.

Number one, that it is smart to communicate and negotiate with your enemy instead of just waging war with bombs and weapons of mass destruction.

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

I try to avoid conflict. I don't want people to be unhappy.

It is highly probable that in most cases, war could be avoided or ended. For discussions allow passion to subside, and to persuade alienated neighbors, or at least one of them, to listen to the voice of a conciliator is a step in the direction of peace.

Nowadays, if you are afraid of confrontation, you are not going to do very well.

Sometimes you need conflict in order to come up with a solution. Through weakness, oftentimes, you can't make the right sort of settlement, so I'm aggressive, but I also get things done, and in the end, everybody likes me.

You have to pick your battles on set.

There never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword.

Societies can easily talk themselves into conflict and misery. But they can also talk, and act, their way out.

I like to win without fighting. But if I can't, then I'm prepared to fight.

If we don't stop somewhere, if we don't accept an unhappy compromise, unhappy for both sides, if we don't learn how to unhappily coexist and contain our burned sense of injustice - if we don't learn how to do that, we end up in a doomed state.

I labored hard to avoid trouble and bloodshed.

I'm still conflict-averse. I don't like to argue.

I try not to deal with people's hostility, though I must if they have something I need from them, as the professors did at Columbia or my landlord did.

Peace at any price