THE OFFICIAL WEBPAGE
OF ROBERT D. WEST
PEACE PLAZA QUOTES
These quotes are from Peace Plaza at the Vern W. Miller Civic Center in Salem, Oregon. Not all of these quotes are from famous people, some are from member of the Salem community, including children.
Let us become one world,
Hand to hand, traveling in the footsteps
Of fellowship and peace.
--Hayes Bell
Why not dedicate the open space between City Hall and the Salem Public Library as Peace Plaza? Peace Plaza could be a natural rallying point for community gatherings. Peace Plaza makes a community statement.
--Statesman Journal Editorial, 24 November 1985
We can each work for Peace, step by step, by building trust, tolerance, and cooperation. We seek to solve disputes in our families, our communities, and in our world though peaceful means.
--Peace Plaza Board 1991-92
Neighbors living in harmony share in a neighborhood of peace:
Neighborhoods living in harmony share in a city of peace…
May Salem always be known as a city of peace.
--Bill Riegel
We can assure peace between nations only if the people in each country make in unlawful for their leaders to invade other nations.
--Chester and Florence Horn
Peace means
no wars,
friendship,
living together,
going anywhere,
helping each other,
not mattering what color we are.
--Heidi S. Berryman, age 12
Let there be peace on earth
And let it begin with me.
The only cure for nuclear war is prevention.
--Salem Chapter: Physicians for Social Responsibility
Peace through human reason, compassion, and endeavor.
--Humanist Association of Salem
The rule for individual behavior is: what you do not want others to do to you, do not do to them.
Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience… over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
--Colossians 3:12-14
I pledge allegiance to our planet and all its elements; to the welfare of the people, plants and animals who live here; to protecting our water air and land.
To all these, I pledge my resources to work for the benefit of the phenomena, ‘planet earth.’
--Robert J. Hansen
That long Canadian frontier… guarded only by neighborly respect and honorable obligations, is an example to every country and a pattern for the future of the world.
Don’t become your brother’s keeper; be your brother’s brother.
Buried was the bloody hatchet;
Buried was the dreaded warclub;
Buried were all warlike weapons,
And the war-cry was forgotten.
There was peace among the nations.
After all, there is but one race – humanity.
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
A child is a person who is going to carry on what you have started.
Hear me, my chiefs, I am tired.
My heart is sick and sad.
From where the sun now stands
I will fight no more forever.
This planet can never be at peace until we launch a journey into meditation in every young mind.
--Osho
Justice is always the foundation of peace.
--U.S. Bishops’ Peace Pastoral
The earth is one small precious planet.
Let’s celebrate it together.
Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
And remember what peace there may be in silence.
--Max Ehrmann, Desiderata
Abundance is scooped from abundance and yet abundance remains.
TRUST would settle every problem now!
For one who sees Me everywhere
and sees everything in Me,
I am never lost,
nor is he ever lost to me.
--Bhagavad-gita 6.30 (Sanskrit Text)
Look to this day,
for tomorrow is but a vision,
and yesterday a dream.
--Sanskrit Proverb
The first duty of love is to listen.
Ah! When shall all men’s good
Be each man’s rule, and universal Peace
Like a shaft of light across the land
And like a lane of beans athwart the sea?
El respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz. (Respect for the rights of others is peace.)
World peace starts right here.
I will not raise my child to kill your child.
--Barbara Choo
We have met the enemy, and he is us.
--Pogo
Every person is the right person to act.
Every moment is the right moment to begin.
Peace is not the product of terror or fear; peace is not the silence of cemeteries; peace is not the result of violent repression. Peace is generosity. It is right and duty.
Everything has carried forth,
Vast differentiation is taking place.
Our tendency to focus on the human
causes us to miss the whole story.
--Brian Swimme, Canticle to the Cosmos
“I believe in the sun even when it’s not shining.
I believe in love, even when I feel it not.
I believe in God, even when He is silent.”
--On a concentration camp wall
If you want peace, work for justice…
If humanity does not opt for integrity, we are through completely. The odds are so close, it is absolutely touch and go. Each one of us could make the difference.
First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others.
Peace is my parting gift to you,
my own peace,
such as the world cannot give.
Set your troubled heart at rest and banish your fears.
--John 14:27
I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible.
To those in whom love dwells, the whole world is but one family.
--Hindu Proverb
Live in the virtue of that life and power that takes away the occasion of all wars.
--George Fox, 1651
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.
Love is the most durable power in the world… Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.
Let there be Peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.
--Rev. Bill Hoffhines
Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in this world.
So long as you can sweeten another’s pain, life is not in vain.
Although the world is very full of suffering, it is also very full of the overcoming of it.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
--Matthew 5:9
And the only measure of your words and your deeds
Will be the love you leave behind when you’re done.
--Fred Small & Motherlode
“The future depends on what we do in the present.”
I pledge allegiance to the world,
To cherish every living thing,
To care for earth and sea and air,
With peace and freedom everywhere.
Faith, hope and love, these three – and the greatest of there is love.
--1 Corinthians 13
We make a living by what we get,
But we make a life by what we give.
May there always be Sunshine,
May there always be Blue Skies,
May there always be Mama,
May there always be me.
--From a Russian folksong
As we seek the way to an inner peace, remember that a peaceful day spent on a fishing stream brings benefits to more than the angler, for when we bring peace to ourselves, we help bring peace to all whom we meet.
--J.E. Hunt
It is never too late to give up our prejudices.
Peace is no longer the absence of war, but the unfolding of worldwide processes making for the nurture of human life.
Peace is liberty in tranquility.
--Cicero
Peace we want because there is another war to fight against poverty, disease, and ignorance.
To climb these coming crests
One word to you, to you and your children:
stay together
learn the flowers
go light
Working together we can build a world beyond war.
--Salem Beyond War Foundation
I do not want the peace which passeth understanding,
I want the understanding which bringeth peace.
The motive that should guide all of us, that should guide all mankind, is to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of the world.
The golden way is to be friends with the world and to regard the whole human family as one.
War is not healthy for children and other living things.
--Lorraine Schneider
The age of nations is past.
The task before us now,
If we would not perish,
Is to build the earth.
Of all victories the first and greatest is for a man to conquer himself.
--Plato
“Our most cogent diplomats cannot achieve peace without understanding, and understanding can only be reached through the hearts of the people.”
I complained because
I had no shoes
Until I met a man
Who had no feet.
--Anonynous
We must love one another or die.
The journey of Shalom
has no first step
or last step
for it is
the walk itself.
--Jim and Susan Kephart
I will act as if what I do makes a difference.
You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.
Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows…
We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.
If one would know a people,
Let him first consider their songs.
--Andrew Fletcher
Let us not deceive ourselves: we must elect world peace or world destruction.
There is a future for our children of peace.
“When you live on the earth, you owe rent…
I realize I can’t take on all the problems of the world, but I do nibble away at the ones I can.”
--Mary H. Zimmerman
When you go around it in an hour and a half, you begin to realize that your identity is with that whole thing… On that small spot is everything… all of history and music and poetry and art and birth and love…
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
--Lao-Tzu
Peace is what gives life to the WORLD.
--David and Erick Banks
It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.
For all that has been
Thanks
To all that will be
Yes
“The future depends on what we do in the present.”
A man’s true wealth is the good he does in the world.
--Muhammad
Determine that the thing can and should by done, and then we shall find the way.
Not to aid one in distress is to kill him in your heart.
--African proverb
Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.
The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.
If we want to survive we must love our children more than we hate and fear our enemies.
--Irene Brown
No one making any noise
Just me playing quietly
Without any noise
Everybody doesn’t attack people
Make friends with everybody
Peace is good; peace is blue
--Nicholas John Bradley, Feb. 2005
It is time for people to rise to their full moral and spiritual height…and to say, “I will save the earth.”
Love is All.
It is your Strength.
It is your Peace.
--NAB
The world rests on three things: on justice, on truth, on peace. Yet those three are one and the same thing. For if there is justice, there is truth, and there is peace.
-- Talmud
I destroy my enemy by making him my friend.
I have seen the world because of soccer and I have met many people. These people have made me have faith in the future of humankind. I believe that one day we will unite in a team… a great team called humanity.
--Pelé
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
“If there is compassion in the heart,
There will be love in the home.
If there is love in the home,
There will be wholeness in the community.
If there is wholeness in the community,
There will be harmony in the nation.
And if there is harmony in the nation,
There will be peace in the world.”
--Chinese Proverb
If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.
Knowledge is the preface to peace.
On earth, peace, good will toward men.
--Luke 2:14
People who develop the habit of thinking of themselves as world citizens are fulfilling the first requirement of sanity in our time.
Nothing of real value is ever accomplished in the world without enthusiasm and self-sacrifice.
Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, … But no one has the right to coerce others to act according to his own view of truth.
Nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure an the ends we seek.
Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right; not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this here in this hemisphere and around in the world.
Open heart and ear to peace!
Clench you fist against the leash,
Lest you cease to be.
Hear the Sphinx speak out the past,
See the future in atom blast,
And then be free.
Irene Powers Smith, Philos
Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
Visions and ideas are potent only when they are shared. Until then, they are merely a form of daydreaming.
There is no way to Peace. Peace is the way.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
War is an invention of the human mind.
The human mind can invent peace with justice.
Yasuraka ni nemutte kudasai;
Ayamachi wa kurikaeshimasenu kara.
Rest in peace;
For this mistake will not be repeated.
--Inscription at Hiroshima Peace Park, Hiroshima, Japan
Peace is better than war, because in peace the sons bury their fathers, but in war the fathers bury their sons.
Don’t walk ahead of me, I may not follow.
Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead.
Walk beside me, and just be my friend.
This will be a place where people – as individuals – can renew their commitment to making the world a better place to live.
--Polly Hare
We were born to unite with our fellow men, and to join in community with the human race.
--Cicero
Since wars began in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.
--Preamble to the UNESCO Charter
A general definition of civilization: a civilized society exhibits the five qualities of truth, beauty, adventure, art, peace.
All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become.
--Buddha
Peace rules the day
When love rules the mind.
--William and Arline Reynolds
To Love without role, without power plays, is revolution.
For it isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.
Friendship does not exist to criticize. Its function is to inspire confidence.
Do all the good you can
In all the ways you can
At all the times you can
As long as you ever can
By all the means you can
In all the places you can
To all the people you can.
--Anonymous
Peace is the freedom that an eagle feels as he soars over the mountaintops.
--Jack D. Kilcrease III, Age 9
Treat the earth well… It was not given to you by your parents… It was lent to you by your children.
--Kenyan Proverb
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
“The only way out of today’s misery is for people to become worthy of each other’s trust.”
The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love. Then for the second time in the history of the World we will have discovered fire.
Peace hath her victories, no less renowned than war.
As justice is a preserver, so it is a better procurer of peace than war.
--William Penn, 1693
Unable are the Loved to die,
For Love is Immortality.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is, for brethren to dwell together in unity.
--Psalm 133:1
The Peace of God,
which passeth all understanding,
keep your hearts and minds
in the knowledge and love of God…
This person is my own, that person is an alien,
Only the small minded thus reckon;
To those of a profound open heart, however,
The entire humanity is one family.
Om shanti, shanti, shanti
--Sanskrit saying from the Hitopadesha
Learn to look at other beings with the eyes of compassion.
Come into my joy!
Come into my pain!
Come you be a friend of mine-
I’ll be the same.
--From Peace Child
Man may and should shed his own blood for establishing what he considers to be his “right.” He may not shed the blood of his opponent who disputes his “right.”
Peace is in the indwelling
Spirit that blossoms
Like a rose when we call its name.
Tom Deighan
Be servants of peace.
Work at home as you have worked abroad,
humbly, persistently, intelligently…
For in the end it will be the servants
who save us all.
There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew.
Our goal must be, not peace in our time, but peace for all time.
Peace is: A line of love that will keep going through the hearts of people.
--Allegra Taylor Bradley
We believe…that the brotherhood of man transcends the sovereignty of nations…
--C. William Brownfield, 1946, from the Jaycee Creed
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy Peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light,
And where there is sadness, joy.
“And peace would be the road we walk
Each step along the way
And peace would be the way we work
And peace the way we play.”
Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.
The way to win an atomic war is to make certain it never starts.
All works of love are works of peace.
To live is so startling
It leaves little time for
Anything else.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Almost anything you do will seem insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.
For Christ Himself is our way of peace,
Who has made both one, and broken down
the middle wall of division between us.
--Ephesians 2:14
True Christians do not engage in strife. They are the children of peace who have beaten their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks and know of no war.
Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace.
--Romans 14:19
True Christians are the children of peace;
their hearts overflow with peace;
their mouths speak peace;
they are full of peace.
All website content, including graphics and pictures are © Robert D. West unless otherwise noted. Content is not to be used out of the context of this webpage without expressed permission. Any opinions expressed herein are mine and are not necessarily shared by the Milwaukee School of Engineering, or anyone else.
Questions? Comments? Critiques? Corrections? Concerns? Email me at westr@msoe.edu.