Leo Tolstoy Quotes

I came to carry out the struggle, not to kill people.

I used to be very revolutionary, but now I think that nothing can be gained by brute force. People must be drawn to good by goodness.

We are nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us.

We set ourselves the ultimate aim of abolishing the state, i.e., all organized and systematic violence, all use of violence against people in general.

I can't remember any text of mine where I said that one should fight Hitler without violence; I'm not an idiot.

The lyrics stand today (1980). They're still my feeling about politics. I want to see the plan. I want to know what you're going to do after you've knocked it all down. I mean, can't we use some of it? What's the point of bombing Wall Street? If you want to change the system, change the system. It's no good shooting people.

Not those who shout 'satyagraha', 'satyagraha' will do satyagraha, but those who will work for it.

We are a people with no army, no navy, no air force, no arms. It's people, thousands of people, who are feeling, sensing the sense of urgency, fearing for the president of their life - the life of their president, trying to protect their democratic choice, because Arafat is the elected leader of the Palestinian people.

We will not permit the triumph of violence in the affairs of men; free people will set the course of history.

There's no reason to be non-violent. There's no challenge unless you are living for people.

One of the great things about our democracy is it expresses itself in all sorts of ways. And that includes people protesting. I've been the subject of protests during the course of my eight years and I suspect that there's not a president in our history that at some point hasn't been subject to these protests.

In the face of brutality I was prudent. Before injustice I held my peace. I sacrificed the things in hand for the good of the hypothetical whole. I believed in the tongue instead of the fist. As an armor against oppression I taught patience and faith in the human soul. I know now how wrong I was. I have been a traitor to myself and to my people. All that is rot.

Concerning non-violence: it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.

My wife is a saint. She's Gandhi. She walks around in diapers and won't eat.

If Gandhism means simply mechanically turning the spinning wheel, it deserves to be destroyed.

I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed, without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government.

[People] don't see that there's a great deal of a difference between nonresistance to evil and nonviolent resistance.

India unarmed would not require to be destroyed through poison gas or bombardment.

A peaceful man must fight For that which peace demands,— Freedom and faith, honor and right, Defend with heart and hands.

I talked to Shailene Woodley the next day [after arrest]. She was fine, and she was very happy. She knew that it brought attention to a cause that she cared very much about. She was in high spirits and knew that was a possibility when she was protesting. The people who arrested her, if they were trying to prove a point of not to protest, they only helped the cause.

I myself am a very, very peaceful person. Throughout our history, from our own American revolution to the resistance against apartheid in South Africa, to labor strikes in the US, people have resorted to violence to achieve a more progressive society, from time to time.

Nonviolence is the most potent technique for oppressed people. Unearned suffering is redemptive.

Please be peaceful. We believe in law and order. We are not advocating violence, I want you to love your enemies... for what we are doing is right, what we are doing is just -- and God is with us.

I do not wish to shed a drop of blood, but 'I must fight the course.' Tis all that's left to me.

There is no one to talk to since Mahatma Gandhi died.