Peace & Justice quotes

Compiled here are some of our member’s favorite quotes, which are also displayed around the site. Which ones resonate with you?

“True peace is not merely the absence of war, it is the presence of justice.”

― Jane Addams 

“The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.”

― Jane Addams 

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”

― Jimi Hendrix 

“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.”

― Albert Einstein 

“The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.”

― Mahatma Gandhi 

“Dad, how do soldiers killing each other solve the world’s problems?”

― Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes: Sunday Pages 1985-1995: An Exhibition Catalogue 

“You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.”

― William Wilberforce 

“It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”
― Assata Shakur

Those who do not move do not notice their chains – Rosa Luxumberg


We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society – Angela Davis

“Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.” – Maya Angelou


There is at least one thing more brutal than the truth, and that is the consequence of saying less than the truth.
Ti-Grace Atkinson

“The greatest mistake of the movement has been trying to organize a sleeping people around specific goals. You have to wake the people up first, then you’ll get action.” — Malcolm X

“To realize a nuclear weapons- free world, we must first acknowledge that nuclear weapons serve no legitimate, lawful purpose.” — Archbishop Desmond Tutu

” You can’t win a war any more than you can win an earthquake.” — Jeanette Rankin

“Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without trust, we have no shared reality, no democracy, and it becomes impossible to deal with our world’s existential problems: climate, coronavirus, the battle for truth,” — Maria Ressa

“It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.”

― Aristotle 

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

― Arundhati Roy, War Talk 

“World peace must develop from inner peace. Peace is not just mere absence of violence. Peace is, I think, the manifestation of human compassion.”

― Dali Lama 

“Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars… Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

― Martin Luther King Jr. 

“Our ultimate objective in learning about anything is to try to create and develop a more just society.” – Yuri Kochiyama

“Never do anything against conscience, even if the state demands it.”

~ Albert Einstein ~

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

~ Edmund Burke (1729 1797) ~

Shirin Ebadi: ‘If books had been thrown at the Taliban instead of bombs … we would not have Isis’ 

“Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love” – MLK Jr

“It takes no compromising to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no survey to remove repressions.” — Harvey Milk

“Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.”

― Assata Shakur

Desmond Tutu: “Forgiving and being reconciled to our enemies or our loved ones are not about pretending that things are other than they are. … ‘only an honest confrontation with reality can bring real healing. Superficial reconciliation can bring only superficial healing.”

Dali Lama: “My religion is very simple – My religion is Kindness.

I pledge allegiance to the world -To cherish every living thing –
To care for the earth, the seas and the air,
With peace and justice for all. — unknown author