Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotations on Violence

Non violence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence.
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Violence among young people is an aspect of their desire to create. They don’t know how to use their energy creatively so they do the opposite and destroy.
Anthony Burgess (1917–93) English Novelist, Critic, Composer

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.
Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader

Violence does even justice unjustly.
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist

Only a philosophy of eternity, in the world today, could justify non-violence.
Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author

I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence….I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour.But I believe that nonviolence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness is more manly than punishment. Forgiveness adorns a soldier…But abstinence is forgiveness only when there is the power to punish; it is meaningless when it pretends to proceed from a helpless creature….But I do not believe India to be helpless….I do not believe myself to be a helpless creature….Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader

There is a violence that liberates, and a violence that enslaves; there is a violence that is moral and a violence that is immoral.
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Italian Head of State, Politician

If you injure your neighbor, better not do it by halves.
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright

Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
Plutarch (c.46–c.120 CE) Greek Biographer, Philosopher

If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.
Malcolm X (1925–65) American Civil Rights Leader

All breathing, existing, living, sentient creatures should not be slain nor treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, nor driven away. This is the pure unchangeable law.
Buddhist Teaching

Rambo isn’t violent. I see Rambo as a philanthropist.
Sylvester Stallone (b.1946) American Actor, Screenwriter, Director

Violence commands both literature and life, and violence is always crude and distorted.
Ellen Glasgow (1873–1945) American Novelist

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) American Civil Rights Leader, Clergyman

Nonviolence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being.
Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader

Greatness is not achieved with violence.
African Proverb

Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but left to its own course it ends in power’s disappearance.
Hannah Arendt (1906–75) German-American Philosopher, Political Theorist

Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish Writer

Violence ever defeats its own ends. Where you cannot drive you can always persuade. A gentle word, a kind look, a god-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles. There is a secret pride in every human heart than revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you.
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist

One must do violence to the object of one’s desire; when it surrenders, the pleasure is greater.
Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) French Writer

Opinions founded on prejudice are always sustained with the greatest violence.
Hebrew Proverb

Under all conditions, well-organized violence seems to him the shortest distance between two points.
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Russian Marxist Revolutionary

Violent fires soon burn out themselves, small showers last long, but sudden storms are short; he tires betimes that spurs too fast.
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright

Perhaps I am still very much of an American. That is to say, naive, optimistic, gullible. In the eyes of a European, what am I but an American to the core, an American who exposes his Americanism like a sore. Like it or not, I am a product of this land of plenty, a believer in superabundance, a believer in miracles.
Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader

When violence comes into the house, law and justice leave through the chimney.
Turkish Proverb

Perhaps violence, like pornography, is some kind of an evolutionary standby system, a last-resort device for throwing a wild joker into the game?
J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) English Novelist, Short Story Writer

You forget that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence: and the kingdom of heaven is like a woman.
James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish Novelist, Poet

In America all too few blows are struck into flesh. We kill the spirit here, we are experts at that. We use psychic bullets and kill each other cell by cell.
Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American Novelist Essayist

Those who cling to the untrue doctrine that violence never settles anything would be advised to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Nations and peoples who forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–88) American Science Fiction Writer

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) American Civil Rights Leader, Clergyman

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