Nonviolence Quotes

“World peace”

“Harmlessness”

“Vegetarianism”

“Nonviolent resistance”

“There should be neither harming nor reciprocating harm.”

“By definition, civil society has to work within a framework of non-violence.”

“The power of unarmed nonviolence is any day far superior to that of armed force.”

“Wikipedia: Nonviolence”

“The imperative of nonviolence overrides the basic respect of trusting people to liberate themselves.”

“Nonviolence is not an absolute principle, but an open-ended struggle with violence and its countervailing forces.”

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

“To be a pragmatic pacifist, one need only consider that large-scale, organized, and systemic war violence is unacceptable in today's world.”

“We will never know whether there is a realistic moral alternative to violence unless we are willing to explore the potential of nonviolent action.”

“Nonviolence does not necessarily emerge from a pacific or calm part of the soul. Very often it is an expression of rage, indignation, and aggression.”

“We who advocate peace are becoming an irrelevance when we speak peace. The government speaks rubber bullets, live bullets, tear gas, police dogs, detention, and death.”

“Freedom as a concept sides with those who are struggling for theirs, whereas nonviolence as a concept sides with the enforcers of normality and the rulers of the status quo.”

“Nonviolence refuses to recognize that it can only work for privileged people, who have a status protected by violence, as the perpetrators and beneficiaries of a violent hierarchy.”

“Can the hungry go on a hunger strike? Non-violence is a piece of theatre. You need an audience. What can you do when you have no audience? People have the right to resist annihilation.”

“We must fight those who are committed to destruction, without replicating their destructiveness. Understanding how to fight in this way is the task and the bind of a nonviolent ethics and politics.”

“There is no practice of nonviolence that does not negotiate fundamental ethical and political ambiguities, which means that “nonviolence” is not an absolute principle, but the name of an ongoing struggle.”