We saw the lightning and that was the guns and then we heard the thunder and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped.
—Harriet Tubman (c.1820–1913) American Abolitionist, Social Reformer
The positive effect of kindness on the immune system and on the increased production of serotonin in the brain has been proven in research studies. Serotonin is a naturally occurring substance in the body that makes us feel more comfortable, peaceful, and even blissful. In fact, the role of most anti-depressants is to stimulate the production of serotonin chemically, helping to ease depression. Research has shown that a simple act of kindness directed toward another improves the functioning of the immune system and stimulates the production of serotonin in both the recipient of the kindness and the person extending the kindness. Even more amazing is that persons observing the act of kindness have similar beneficial results. Imagine this! Kindness extended, received, or observed beneficially impacts the physical health and feelings of everyone involved!
—Wayne Dyer (1940–2015) American Self-Help Author
The natural principle of war is to do the most harm to our enemy with the least harm to ourselves; and this of course is to be effected by stratagem.
—Washington Irving (1783–1859) American Essayist, Biographer, Historian
War is not the continuation of politics with different means, it is the greatest mass-crime perpetrated on the community of man.
—Alfred Adler (1870–1937) Austrian Psychiatrist
Force, and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues.
—Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) English Political Philosopher
The most terrible job in warfare is to be a second lieutenant leading a platoon when you are on the battlefield.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American Head of State, Military Leader
After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.
—William S. Burroughs (1914–97) American Novelist, Poet, Short Story Writer, Painter
There is nothing that war has ever achieved we could not better achieve without it.
—Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British Sexologist, Physician, Social Reformer
It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
As far as I know, everyone feels fear as he or she moves forward through life. It is absolutely possible that there are some evolved souls in this world who never experience fear, but I have not met them.
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
They made the fatal decision: they’d chosen always the clear, safe course that leads ever downward into stagnation.
—Frank Herbert (1920–86) American Science Fiction Writer
War is a profession by which a man cannot live honorably; an employment by which the soldier, if he would reap any profit, is obliged to be false, rapacious, and cruel.
—Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Florentine Political Philosopher
He tries to show each person how much they are capable of achieving.
—Paulo Coelho (b.1947) Brazilian Songwriter, Novelist
A book glorifying war may be quite as anti-social, and to my mind quite as obscene, as one glorifying illicit love, but it is never suppressed, and seldom publicly denounced.
—J. B. S. Haldane (1892–1964) British Biologist, Geneticist
What war has always been is a puberty ceremony. It’s a very rough one, but you went away a boy and came back a man, maybe with an eye missing or whatever but godammit you were a man and people had to call you a man thereafter.
—Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
Named must your fear be before banish it you can.
—Yoda Character In ‘Star Wars’
The real and lasting victories are those of peace and not of war.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their way around a room, each believing himself in mortal peril from the other, whom he assumes to have perfect vision.
—Henry Kissinger (b.1923) American Diplomat, Academician
I abominate war as unchristian. I hold it to be the greatest of human crimes, and to involve all others—violence, blood, rapine, fraud—everything that can deform the character, alter the nature, and debase the name of man.
—Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778–1868) Scottish Jurist, Politician
Cast out envy; you can have all that you want, and you need not envy any man what he has. Above all things, see to it that you do not hold malice or enmity toward any one; to do so cuts you off from the mind whose treasures you seek to make your own. Lay aside all narrow personal ambition and determine to seek the highest good.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor… let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eye, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting.
—Mother Teresa (1910–97) Roman Catholic Missionary, Nun
In my experience, there’s only one thing that will always steer you toward success: That’s to have a vision and to stick with it… Once I have a vision for a new venture, I’m going to ride that vision until the wheels come off.
—Russell Simmons (b.1957) American Music Promoter
It is certain that the two World Wars in which I have participated would not have occurred had we been prepared. It is my belief that adequate preparation on our part would have prevented or materially shortened all our other wars beginning with that of 1812. Yet, after each of our wars, there has always been a great hue and cry to the effect that there will be no more wars, that disarmament is the sure road to health, happiness, and peace; and that by removing the fire department, we will remove fires. These ideas spring from wishful thinking and from the erroneous belief that wars result from logical processes. There is no logic in wars. They are produced by madmen. No man can say when future madmen will reappear. I do not say that there will be no more wars; I devoutly hope that there will not, but I do say that the chances of avoiding future wars will be greatly enhanced if we are ready.
—George S. Patton (1885–1945) American Military Leader
Five miles meandering with mazy motion,
Through dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank the tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
War is the trade of Kings.
—John Dryden (1631–1700) English Poet, Literary Critic, Playwright
If the intellectual has any function in society, it is to preserve a cool and unbiased judgment in the face of all solicitations to passion… . During the war, the ordinary virtues, such as thrift, industry, and public spirit, were used to swell the magnitude of the disaster by producing a greater energy in the work of mutual extermination.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times.
—Ulysses S. Grant (1822–85) American Civil War General, Head of State
Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives, I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
Let us pity and forgive those who urge increased armaments, for “they know not what they do.”
—Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) Scottish-American Industrialist
And such should be the outward biography of man in time, a putting off of dead circumstances day by day, as he renews his raiment day by day.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The monk that invented gunpowder did as much to stop war as did all the sermons of his brethren.
—Austin O’Malley (1858–1932) American Aphorist, Ophthalmologist
The moment that he begins to walk along it, the warrior of the light recognizes the path.
—Paulo Coelho (b.1947) Brazilian Songwriter, Novelist
Wars based on principle are far more destructive…the attacker will not destroy that which he is after.
—Alan Watts (1915–73) British-American Philosopher, Author
It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.
—William Tecumseh Sherman (1820–91) American Military Leader, Businessperson, Educator
Don’t try to be unafraid. That is impossible. Rather, go ahead while being afraid. That is the entire secret for abolishing fear. The Supermind teaches us to have no self-concern at all. Whatever happens to you, act as though it happened to someone else.
—Vernon Howard (1918–92) American Spiritual Teacher, Philosopher
The best armor is to keep out of gun shot.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him. He has faculties silently inviting him thither to endless exertion. He is like a ship in a river; he runs against obstructions on every side but one; on that side all obstruction is taken away, and he sweeps serenely over a deepening channel into an infinite sea. This talent and this call depend on his organization, or the mode in which the general soul incarnates itself in him. He inclines to do something which is easy to him, and good when it is done, but which no other man can do. He has no rival. For the more truly he consults his own powers, the more difference will his work exhibit from the work of any other. His ambition is exactly proportioned to his powers. The height of the pinnacle is determined by the breadth of the base. Every man has this call of the power to do somewhat unique, and no man has any other call. The pretence that he has another call, a summons by name and personal election and outward “signs that mark him extraordinary, and not in the roll of common men,” is fanaticism, and betrays obtuseness to perceive that there is one mind in all the individuals, and no respect of persons therein.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
A self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war.
—Simone Weil (1909–1943) French Philosopher, Political Activist
Awareness is half the battle.
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.
—Sun Tzu (fl. c.544–496 BCE) Chinese General, Military Theorist
If I wish to engage, then the enemy, for all his high ramparts and deep moat, cannot avoid engagement; I attack that which he is obliged to rescue.
—Sun Tzu (fl. c.544–496 BCE) Chinese General, Military Theorist
War has been the most convenient pseudo-solution for the problems of twentieth-century capitalism. It provides the incentives to modernization and technological revolution which the market and the pursuit of profit do only fitfully and by accident, it makes the unthinkable (such as votes for women and the abolition of unemployment) not merely thinkable but practicable. What is equally important, it can re-create communities of men and give a temporary sense to their lives by uniting them against foreigners and outsiders. This is an achievement beyond the power of the private enterprise economy when left to itself.
—Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) British Historian
I think it better that in times like these a poet’s mouth be silent, for in truth we have no gift to set a statesman right.
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) Irish Poet, Dramatist
Moving along the upward spiral requires us to learn, commit, and do on increasingly higher planes. We deceive ourselves if we think that any one of these is sufficient. To keep progressing, we must learn, commit, and do—learn, commit, and do—and learn, commit, and do again.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
Persistence prevails, like a stream that is temporarily blocked by boulders and then collects force enough to overflow onward.
—Vernon Howard (1918–92) American Spiritual Teacher, Philosopher
War does not determine who is right – only who is left.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victorymust follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battlebe Thou near them! With themin spiritwe also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with anavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied itfor our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Just as he had shown no signs of despair when prospects looked bleak, he now showed no elation in what he wrote or in his outward manner or comments.
—David McCullough (b.1933) American Historian
The focus in the Creator Orientation is on a Vision or an Outcome. You orient your thoughts and actions toward creating what you most deeply want to see or experience in life.
—David Emerald
The rewards are profound. Shadow-work enables us to alter our self-sabotaging behavior so that we can achieve a more self-directed life.
—Connie Zweig (b.1949) American Minister, Columnist, Psychotherapist