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Thought & Quotes

on Peace and Justice

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those whom he favors.
^{Luke 2:14}
Blessed are the peacemakers!
^{Matthew 5:9}

Your faith has saved you, go in peace.
^{Luke 7:50}
My peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.
^{John 14:2}

No need for us to despair. No need for us to be discouraged. No need, if we have understood the tenderness of God's love. You are precious to Him. He loves you, and He loves you so tenderly that He has carved you on the palm of His hand. When your heart feels restless, when your heart feels hurt, when your heart feels like breaking, remember, "I am precious to Him. He loves me. He has called me by my name. I am His. He loves me. God loves me."
^{Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta}

Where do we go from here – chaos or community?
^{The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.}

If we are to reach real peace in this world and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.
^{Mahatma Gandhi}

Each time one stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of the rest, or strikes out against injustice, once sends forth a ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.
^{Robert F. Kennedy}

Our present challenge is to change the culture of conflict itself within our families, our workplaces, our communities and our world. It is to create a culture where even the most serious disputes are handled on the basis not of force and coercion but of mutual interest and coexistence. Far from eliminating differences, our challenge is to make the world safe for differences.
^{William L. Ury, Getting to Peace}

I’ve come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or honor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or de-humanized.
^{Haim Ginott, teacher, child psychologist and psychotherapist}

While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your hearts.
_{^{St. Francis of Assisi}}