Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time. It will then have been proved that, among free men, there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case, and pay the cost.
Quotations about:
peace
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.
[Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.]
Tacitus (c.56-c.120) Roman historian, orator, politician [Publius or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus]
Agricola, ch. 30 (AD 98) [tr. Oxford Revised]
(Source)
Speech about Rome by the Caledonian chieftain Calgacus to his assembled warriors. See Byron.
- "They plunder, they slaughter, and they steal: this they falsely name Empire, and where they make a wasteland, they call it peace." [Loeb Classical Library edition]
- "To plunder, butcher, steal, these things they misname empire: they make a desolation and they call it peace." [tr. William Peterson]
- "They rob, kill and plunder all under the deceiving name of Roman Rule. They make a desert and call it peace."
The hope of the world is that wisdom can arrest conflict between brothers. I believe that war is the deadly harvest of arrogant and unreasoning minds.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Speech, National Education Association, Washington, D.C. (4 Apr 1957)
For it isn’t enough to talk of peace. One must believe it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45), politician, diplomat, activist
Voice of America (11 Nov 1951)
We will have to want peace, want it enough to pay for it, pay for it in our own behavior and in material ways. We will have to want it enough to overcome our lethargy and go out and find all those in other countries who want it as much as we do.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45), politician, diplomat, activist
This Troubled World (1938)
We have borne patiently a great deal of wrong, on the consideration that if nations go to war for every degree of injury, there would never be peace on earth. But when patience has begotten false estimates of it’s motives, when wrongs are pressed because it is believed they will be borne, resistance becomes morality.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Anne-Louise-Germaine Necker, Baronne de Staël-Holstein (16 Jul 1807)
(Source)
Europe […] have totally mistaken our character. Accustomed to rise at a feather themselves, and to be always fighting, they will see in our conduct, fairly stated, that acquiescence under wrong, to a certain degree, is wisdom & not pusillanimity, and that peace and happiness are preferable to that false honor which, by eternal wars, keeps their people in eternal labor, want and wretchedness.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to James Madison (23 Mar 1815)
(Source)
But to those who expect us to calculate whether a compliance with unjust demands will not cost us less than a war we must leave as a question of calculation for them also whether to retire from unjust demands will not cost them less than a war. We can do to each other very sensible injuries by war, but mutual advantages of peace make that the best interest of both.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
State of the Union Message (8 Nov 1804) [ME 3:369]
(Source)
The crisis in which [our country] is placed cannot but be unwelcome to those who love peace, yet spurn at a tame submission to wrong.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to the New York Tammany Society (29 Feb 1808)
(Source)
Sent to Jacob Van Dervoort, and addressed to "the Society of Tammany or Columbian order No. 1 of the city of New York."
My hope of preserving peace for our country is not founded in the quaker principle of non resistance under every wrong, but in the belief that a just and friendly conduct on our part will procure justice and friendship from others, and that, in the existing contest, each of the combatants will find an interest in our friendship.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to the Earl of Buchan (10 Jul 1803)
(Source)
Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it. But the temper and folly of our enemies may not leave this in our choice.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to C. W. F. Dumas (6 May 1786)
(Source)
Peace means something different from “not fighting.” Those aren’t peace advocates, they’re “stop fighting” advocates. Peace is an active and complex thing and sometimes fighting is part of what it takes to get it.
Jo Walton (b. 1964) Welsh-Canadian writer and poet
(Attributed)
You may either win your peace or buy it: win it, by resistance to evil; buy it, by compromise with evil.
John Ruskin (1819-1900) English art critic, painter, writer, social thinker
The Two Paths, Lecture 5 (1859)
War would end if the dead could return.
Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947) British Conservative politician, Prime Minister
(Attributed)
Wars can be prevented just as surely as they can be provoked, and we who fail to prevent them must share the guilt for the dead.
Omar Bradley (1893-1981) American general
(Attributed)
Yes, we love peace, but we are not willing to take wounds for it, as we are for war.
John Andrew Holmes (1874-1937) American physician and writer
Wisdom in Small Doses (1927)
Always a friend to peace, & believing it to promote eminently the happiness & prosperity of mankind, I am ever unwilling that it should be disturbed, as long as the rights & interests of the nation can be preserved. but whensoever hostile aggressions on these require a resort to war, we must meet our duty, & convince the world that we are just friends & brave enemies.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Andrew Jackson (3 Dec 1806)
(Source)
War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Letter to a Navy friend (1945)
(Source)
Letter to a past PT-boat crew mate, responding to a question about his experiences at the United Nations founding in San Francisco (Jun 1945). Quoted in Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House, ch. 4, sec. 4 (1965).
One of the fondest expressions around is that we can’t be the world’s policeman. […] But guess who gets called when suddenly someone needs a cop?
Colin Powell (1937-2021) American military leader, politician, diplomat
Interview, New York Times (1990)
Is it not strange that men are so keen to fight for a religion and so unkeen to live according to its precepts?
All of us realize that war requires action. What is sometimes harder for us to realize is that peace and neutrality also require action.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Speech (1939-11-11), Armistice Day, Brenham, Texas
The staircase that leads to God. What does it matter if it is make-believe, if we really climb it? What difference does it make who builds it, or if it is made of marble or word, of brick, stone, or mud? The essential thing is that it be solid and that in climbing it we feel the peace that is inaccessible to those who do not climb it.
Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées (1838) [ed. Auster (1983)]
It is not enough to say ‘We must not wage war.’ It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? ch. 6 (1967)
(Source)
The lion and the lamb may, possibly, sumtime lay down in this world together for a fu minnits, but when the lion kums tew git up, the lamb will be missing.
[The lion and the lamb may, possibly, sometime lay down in this world together for a few minutes, but when the lion comes to get up, the lamb will be missing.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, ch. 134 “Affurisms: Slips of the Pen” (1874)
(Source)
A reference (using the more common phrasing) to Isaiah 11:6.
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
(Attributed)
Churchill reportedly used used this phrase frequently prior to WWII, but it has not been found per se by Churchill scholars in his writings, speeches, press conferences, radio addresses, or parliamentary debates.
However, on a radio broadcast (20 Jan 1940), speaking of the neutral states standing by while Germany (and Russia) swallowed them up (referencing Finland fighting against Russia in particular), "Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear -- I fear greatly -- the storm will not pass. It will rage and it will roar, even more loudly, even more widely."
Also attributed to Franklin Roosevelt.
More discussion of this quotation: An Appeaser Is One Who Feeds a Crocodile, Hoping It Will Eat Him Last – Quote Investigator.
Leisure is the mother of Philosophy; and Common-wealth, the mother of Peace, and Leisure: Where first were great and flourishing Cities, there was first the study of Philosophy.
Croesus said to Cambyses: That peace was better than war; because in peace the sons did bury their fathers, but in wars the fathers did bury their sons.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
Apophthegms, #149 (1625)
See Herodotus.
Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.
The soul that knows it not knows no release
From little things.
The greatest of human problems, and the greatest of our common tasks, is to keep the peace and to save the future. All that we have built in the wealth of nations, and all that we plan to do toward a better life for all, will be in vain if our feet should slip, or our vision falter, and our hopes ended in another worldwide war. If there is one commitment more than any other that I would like to leave with you today, it is my unswerving commitment to the keeping and to the strengthening of the peace. Peace is a journey of a thousand miles and it must be taken one step at a time.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Speech (1963-12-17), United Nations General Assembly
(Source)
John Kennedy had used the same "journey" phrase from Lao-tzu early that year, before his assassination.
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
The Bible (The Old Testament) (14th - 2nd C BC) Judeo-Christian sacred scripture [Tanakh, Hebrew Bible], incl. the Apocrypha (Deuterocanonicals)
Isaiah 11:6 [KJV (1611)]
(Source)
Alternate translations:
Wolves and sheep will live together in peace,
and leopards will lie down with young goats.
Calves and lion cubs will feed together,
and little children will take care of them.
[GNT (1976)]
The wolf will live with the lamb, the panther lie down with the kid, calf, lion and fat-stock beast together, with a little boy to lead them.
[NJB (1985)]
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
The leopard lie down with the kid;
The calf, the beast of prey, and the fatling together,
With a little boy to herd them.
[JPS (1985)]
The wolf shall live with the lamb;
the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the lion will feed together,
and a little child shall lead them.
[NRSV (1989 ed.)]
For myself, I would see the White Tree in flower again in the courts of the kings, and the Silver Crown return, and Minas Tirith in peace: Minas Anor again as of old, full of light, high and fair, beautiful as a queen among other queens; not as a mistress of many slaves, nay, not even a kind mistress of willing slaves. War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend: the city of the Men of Númenor, and I would have her loved for her memory, her ancientry, her beauty, and her present wisdom. Not feared, save as men may fear the dignity of a man, old and wise.
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 2: The Two Towers, Book 4, ch. 5 “The Window on the West” [Faramir] (1954)
(Source)
All men want peace, but all do not seek those things that bring true peace.
[Pacem omnes desiderant: sed quæ ad veram pacem pertinent, non omnes curant.]
Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380-1471) German-Dutch priest, author
The Imitation of Christ [De Imitatione Christi], Book 3, ch. 25, v. 1 (3.25.1) [Christ] (c. 1418-27) [tr. Sherley-Price (1952)]
(Source)
(Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:
All men desire peace, but all men will not do that belongeth to peace.
[tr. Whitford/Raynal (1530/1871)]
All men desire peace, but all will not do what pertains to peace.
[tr. Whitford/Gardiner (1530/1955)]
All doe desire peace, but all care not for those things that appertain unto true peace.
[tr. Page (1639), 3.25.2]
But, though Peace be in every Man's Wishes, yet the Qualifications and Predispositions, necessary for procuring and preserving it, are the Care of very few.
[tr. Stanhope (1696; 1706 ed.), 3.29]
Peace is what all desire; but the things that belong to peace, few regard.
[tr. Payne (1803), 3.20]
Peace is what all desire, but all do not care for the things that pertain unto true peace.
[ed. Parker (1841)]
Peace is what all desire; but the things that belong to true peace, few regard.
[tr. Dibdin (1851), 3.23]
Peace is what all desire: but all care not for those things which appertain to true peace.
[ed. Bagster (1860)]
All men desire peace, but all do not care for the things which belong unto true peace.
[tr. Benham (1874)]
Peace is what all desire, but all do not care for the things that pertain unto true peace.
[tr. Anon. (1901)]
All men desire peace but all do not care for the things that go to make true peace.
[tr. Croft/Bolton (1940)]
All long for peace, but all do not care for what leads to true peace.
[tr. Daplyn (1952)]
Peace is something everyone longs for, but it is not everyone who troubles to find out what brings true peace.
[tr. Knox-Oakley (1959)]
Everyone desires peace, but not everyone cares for the things that bring real peace.
[tr. Knott (1962)]
Everybody wants peace; but not everybody cares about what really brings peace.
[tr. Rooney (1979)]
Everyone wants peace, but not all care for what leads to true peace.
[tr. Creasy (1989)]
All men desire peace, but few desire the things that make for peace.
[Common translation]
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Self-Reliance,” Essays: First Series (1841)
True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Stride Toward Freedom, ch. 2 “Montgomery Before the Protest” (1958)
(Source)
Response to a Montgomery resident who complained that race relations had been so "peaceful and harmonious" before King and other protesters arrived.
Be at War with your Vices, at Peace with your Neighbours, and let every New-Year find you a better Man.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard’s Almanack (1755)
More information on this quotation here.
To be glad of life because it gives you to chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars — to be satisfied with your possessions but not content with yourself until you have made the best of them — to despise nothing in the world except falsehood and meanness, and to fear nothing except cowardice — to be governed by you admirations rather than by your disgusts — to covet nothing that is your neighbors except his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners — to think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends, and every day of Christ; to spend as much time as you can in God’s out-of doors — these are the little guideposts on the foot-path to peace.
Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933) American clergyman and writer
“The Foot-path to Peace,” Tacoma Times (1 Jan 1904)
(Source)
Often shortened to: "Be glad for life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to look up at the stars."
But it must be remembered that, in spite of the proverb, it takes in reality only one to make a quarrel. It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion.
William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“Patriotism,” Outspoken Essays: First Series (1915)
Sometimes quoted as "while wolves remain of a different opinion."
In War: Resolution.
In Defeat: Defiance.
In Victory: Magnanimity.
In Peace: Goodwill.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
The Second World War, Vol. 1: The Gathering Storm, Epigram, “Moral of the Work,” (1948)
(Source)
The most famous use of the quote, though it can be found as far back as 21 Jan 1921 in Churchill's own hand, and Edward Marsh, his private secretary, suggested it dated back to just after WW I, as a possible war memorial.
More information here: CHURCHILL, Sir Winston Spencer (1874-1965). Autograph sentiment signed and dated, 21 January 1921, 'In War - Resolution , In Defeat - Defiance , In Victory - Magnanimity , In Peace - Goodwill', one page, 4°, in a commonplace book further inscribed and signed 'To Nell from Winston S. Churchill 21.1.21', and with one other inscription, contemporary marbled calf, front cover panelled in gilt and blind. Provenance: Roy A. Dalton; and by descent..
Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody.
Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) English diarist, naval administrator
Diary (1665-11-09)
It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation, which give happiness.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Anna Jefferson Marks (12 Jul 1788)
(Source)
The salutation is "My dear Sister," and is a congratulations for her marrying Hastings Marks. Some copies, and filings of the letter, make it out to "Anna Scott Marks," her birth name was Anna Scott Jefferson.
You don’t promote the cause of peace by talking only to people with whom you agree.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
News conference (20 Jan 1957)
Peace indeed is both sweet in name and wholesome in reality; but there is all the difference in the world between peace and slavery. Peace is the calmness of freedom, slavery the worst of all evils, to be kept off at a the cost not only of war, but even of life itself.
[Et nomen pacis dulce est et ipsa res salutaris; sed inter pacem et servitutem plurimum interest. Pax est tranquilla libertas, servitus postremum malorum omnium, non modo bello sed morte etiam repellendum.]
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Philippicae [Philippics], No. 2, ch. 44 / sec. 113 (2.113) (24 October AD 44) [tr. King (1867)]
(Source)
(Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:
The name of peace is sweet, the thing itself is most salutary. But between peace and slavery there is a wide difference. Peace is liberty in tranquillity; slavery is the worst of all evils, -- to be repelled, if need be, not only by war, but even by death. [tr. Yonge (1903)]
And the name of peace is sweet, and the thing itself wholesome, but between peace and servitude the difference is great. Peace is tranquil liberty, servitude the last of all evils, one to be repelled, not only by war but even by death.
[tr. Ker (1926)]
The name of peace is sweet, and the thing itself is beneficial, but there is a great difference between peace and servitude. Peace is freedom in tranquility, servitude is the worst of all evils, to be resisted not only by war, but even by death.
