#nonviolence

We often forget that calling for peace is the most courageous act we can take. It’s easy to call for revenge, to claim injustice, and to launch an attack. It’s much more difficult to forgive, to call for peace, to lay down weapons. ↗

— Dillon Burroughs

#peace #courage

My definition of democracy is - A form and a method of Government whereby revolutionary changes in the social life are brought about without bloodshed. That is the real test. It is perhaps the severest test. But when you are judging the quality of the material you must put it to the severest test. ↗

— B.R. Ambedkar

#government #nonviolence #social-life #change

Peace requires something far more difficult than revenge or merely turning the other cheek; it requires empathizing with the fears and unmet needs that provide the impetus for people to attack each other. Being aware of these feelings and needs, people lose their desire to attack back because they can see the human ignorance leading to these attacks; instead, their goal becomes providing the empathic connection and education that will enable them to transcend their violence and engage in cooperative relationships. ↗

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

#nonviolence #peace #relationships #violence #change

Now, with regard to the people who have done things we call "terrorism," I'm confident they have been expressing their pain in many different ways for thirty years or more. Instead of our empathically receiving it when they expressed it in much gentler ways -- they were trying to tell us how hurt they felt that some of their most sacred needs were not being respected by the way we were trying to meet our economic and military needs -- they got progressively more agitated. Finally, they got so agitated that it took horrible form. ↗

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

#empathy #gentleness #nonviolence #peace #terrorism

You cannot live a nonviolent life as long as you are consuming violence. Please consider going vegan. ↗

— Gary L. Francione

#abolitionist #ahimsa #animals #education #exploitation

If you are not vegan, please consider going vegan. It’s a matter of nonviolence. Being vegan is your statement that you reject violence to other sentient beings, to yourself, and to the environment, on which all sentient beings depend. ↗

— Gary L. Francione

#abolitionist #ahimsa #animals #education #exploitation

[Nonviolence] is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who happen to be doing the evil. It is evil that the nonviolent resister seeks to defeat, not the persons victimized by evil. ↗

— Martin Luther King Jr.

#nonviolence #freedom

I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before any one even at the cost of your life. ↗

— Mahatma Gandhi

#satyagraha #life

Christ furnished the spirit and motivation while Gandhi furnished the method. ↗

— Martin Luther King Jr.

#nonviolence #motivational

Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood. ↗

— Mahatma Gandhi

#liberty