Peacebuilding Quotes

Our commitment to Afghanistan is a long-term one. We put a huge amount of resources into trying to make sure there is peace in that country, a huge amount of development assistance, a huge amount of political support for the government.

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...

We go to war only to make peace. We never went to war with any other design. We carry the national conscience wherever we go.

Peace will not come out of a clash of arms but out of justice lived and done by unarmed nations in the face of odds.

I am totally against the war but violence is part of mankind and it's going to happen, but as musicians I think we've got to step up and say 'come on'.

When you talk about humanitarian, it doesn't only mean to offer the people the help, the food, their necessary needs for their life. The first thing, if you ask the Syrian refugees, for example, the first thing they want is to go back to their country.

All violence is injustice. Responding to violence with violence is injustice, not only to the other person but also to oneself. Responding to violence with violence resolves nothing; it only escalates violence, anger and hatred. It is only with compassion that we can embrace and disintegrate violence. This is true in relationships between individuals as well as in relationships between nations.

War can protect; it cannot create.

Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable.

War is an act of force, and to the application of that force there is no limit. Each of the adversaries forces the hand of the other, and a reciprocal action results which in theory can have no limit.

Though we talk peace, we wage war. Sometimes we even wage war in the name of peace. Does that seem paradoxical? Well, war is not afraid of paradoxes.

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

If we can reduce the risk of friction likely to lead to war, this is probably all we can reasonably hope to achieve.

Against war one might say that it makes the victor stupid and the vanquished malicious. In its favor, that in producing these two effects it barbarizes, and so makes the combatants more natural. For culture it is a sleep or a wintertime, and man emerges from it stronger for good and for evil.

Food is a weapon. Food is a ... tool in the kit of American diplomacy.

The story of the human race is war. Except for brief and precarious interludes there has never been peace in the world; and long before history began murderous strife was universal and unending.

We should ever conduct ourselves towards our enemy as if he were one day to be our friend.

I'm a member of Societies of Former World Leaders. And I've always been sort of in favor of constructive engagement around the world. And Gary Johnson has influenced me on criminal justice reform. I think I had some influence in discussions with him about the approach to international affairs.

To Perpetual Peace

War is not won by victory.

The business of peace requires more than showing up with paint brushes, foodstuffs and an oil pipeline or two.

Peace is a desire, war is a fact; and history has never paid heed to human desires and ideals.

Six years ago today war was declared. Now we are starting again with officially declared peace the world in physical and spiritual chaos. History in the making can be most exhausting.

My dream for Israel is peace, external and internal peace. I want Israel to live in peace with its neighbors and in peace with itself.

I do have a very deep sense of regret that there was a conflict and that people lost their lives, and you know, many were responsible for that - and a lot of them wear pinstripe suits in London today.