Nonviolence Quotes

“If all poor people refused to fight, he argued, the rich would have no army and there would be no war.”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“In times of war prices of the necessaries of life are generally very much increased, but the prices of labor of the poor do not usually rise.”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“nonviolent force is a moral argument. The lesson is that if the nonviolent side can be led to violence, they have lost the argument and they are destroyed.”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“The adversary must first be made into a demon before people will accept the war. This was why during the Cold War, the U.S. government became infuriated at any”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“History teaches over and over again that a conflict between a violent and a nonviolent force is a moral argument. The lesson is that if the nonviolent side can be led to violence, they have lost the argument and they are destroyed.”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“One of history's greatest lessons is that once the state embraces a religion, the nature of that religion changes radically. It loses its nonviolent component and becomes a force for war rather than peace. The state must make war, because without war it would have to drop its power politics and renege on its mission to seek advantage over other nations, enhancing itself at the expense of others. And so a religion that is in the service of a state is a religion that not only accepts war but prays for victory. From Constantine to the Crusaders to the contemporary American Christian right, people who call themselves Christians have betrayed the teachings of Jesus while using His name in the pursuit of political power. But this is not an exclusively Christian phenomenon. Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism—all the great religions have been betrayed in the hands of people seeking political power and have been defiled and disgraced in the hands of nation-states.”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“Active practitioners of nonviolence are always seen as a threat, a direct menace, to the state. The state maintains the right to kill as its exclusive and jealously guarded privilege. Nothing makes this more clear than capital punishment, which argues that killing is wrong and so the state must kill killers.”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“The only possible explanation for the absence of a proactive word to express nonviolence is that not only the political establishments but the cultural and intellectual establishments of all societies have viewed nonviolence as a marginal point of view, a fanciful rejection of one of society's key components, a repudiation of something important but not a serious force in itself. It is not an authentic concept but simply the abnegation of something else. It has been marginalized because it is one of the rare truly revolutionary ideas, an idea that seeks to completely change the nature of society, a threat to the established order. And it has always been treated as something profoundly dangerous.”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“The true expression of nonviolence is compassion, which is not just a passive emotional response, but a rational stimulus to action.”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“It is always easier to promote war than peace, easier to end the peace than end the war, because peace is fragile and war is durable.”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: Twenty-Five Lessons from the History of a Dangerous Idea

“General Motors, ITT, and Ford come most readily to mind as having plants protected by Hitler,”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“Peace at Once,”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“One result of the tea boycott was that Americans very quickly became coffee drinkers.”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“The indigenous people of five continents were facing an intractable enemy from a sixth continent that was convinced that they had the right to steal the land on other”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“history's greatest lessons is that once the state embraces a religion, the nature of that religion changes radically. It loses its nonviolent component”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“while every major language has a word for violence, there is no word to express the idea of nonviolence”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“Wars never end warfare, they lay the groundwork for the next.”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: Twenty-Five Lessons from the History of a Dangerous Idea

“Then in the fifth century an Algerian bishop, Augustine of Hippo, wrote the enduring apologia for murder on the battlefield, the concept of “just war.” Augustine, considered one of the fathers of the Catholic Church, declared that the validity of war was a question of inner motive. If a pious man believed in a just cause and truly loved his enemies, it was permissible to go to war and to kill the enemies he loved because he was doing it in a high-minded way.”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“Jesus was seen as dangerous because he rejected not only warfare and killing but any kind of force. Those in authority saw this as a challenge. How could there be authority without force?”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“If someone were to come along who would not compromise, a rebel who insisted on taking the only moral path, rejecting violence in all its forms, such a person would seem so menacing that he would be killed, and after his death he would be canonized or deified, because a saint is less dangerous than a rebel. This has happened numerous times, but the first prominent example was a Jew named Jesus.”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“El hinduismo y Gandhi insisten en que la no violencia no debe proceder jamás de la debilidad, sino de la fuerza, y que solo las personas más fuertes y disciplinadas pueden alcanzarla. Quienes”
― Mark Kurlansky, No violencia: 25 lecciones sobre una idea peligrosa

“La no violencia, exactamente igual que la violencia, es una forma de persuadir, una técnica para el activismo político, un sistema para prevalecer. La”
― Mark Kurlansky, No violencia: 25 lecciones sobre una idea peligrosa

“la violencia es real y la no violencia no lo es. Pero cuando la no violencia se hace real es una fuerza poderosa.”
― Mark Kurlansky, No violencia: 25 lecciones sobre una idea peligrosa

“All Quiet on the Western Front,”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“International League of Peace and Freedom, was formed in 1867 in Geneva. Its”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“The first pan-European peace organization was established in Geneva in 1830, but”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“Garrison”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“An Appeal”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“Hobomok:”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea

“Te Whiti”
― Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea