Nonviolence

"The Buddha's Ahimsa is quite in keeping with his middle path. To put it differently, the Buddha made a distinction between Principle and Rule. He did not make Ahimsa a matter of Rule. He enunciated it as a matter of Principle or way of life. In this he no doubt acted very wisely. A principle leaves you freedom to act. A rule does not. Rule either breaks you, or you break the rule."

"The practice of ahimsa contributes greatly to the yoga of mind control... In the Vedic dharma the definition of ahimsa is the absence of ill-feeling in all action."

"Man cannot pretend to be higher in ethics, spirituality, advancement, or civilization than other creatures and at the same time live by lower standards than the vulture or hyena … The Pillars of Ahimsa indisputably represent the clearest, surest path out of the jungle, and toward the attainment of that highly desirable goal."

"Considering your specific duty as a kshatriya, you should know that there is no better engagement for you than fighting on religious principles; and so there is no need for hesitation."

"To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. I know that I have not in me as yet that triple purity, in spite of constant ceaseless striving for it. That is why the world's praise fails to move me, indeed it very often stings me. To conquer the subtle passions seems to me to be harder far than the physical conquest of the world by the force of arms. Ever since my return to India I have had experiences of the dormant passions lying hidden within me. The knowledge of them has made me feel humiliated though not defeated. The experiences and experiments have sustained me and given me great joy. But I know that I have still before me a difficult path to traverse. I must reduce myself to zero. So long as a man does not of his own free will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for him. Ahimsa is the farthest limit of humility."

"God is truth. The way to truth lies through ahimsa (nonviolence)."

"Ahimsa is an attribute of the brave. Cowardice and ahimsa don't go together any more that water and fire."

"Ahimsa is the highest ideal. It is meant for the brave, never for the cowardly. The highest religion has been defined by a negative word: Ahimsa."

"Dharma is one and only one. Ahimsa means moksha, and moksha is the realization of Truth."

"The most distinctive and largest contribution by Hinduism to India’s culture is the doctrine of Ahimsa."

"No power on earth can subjugate you when you are armed with the sword of ahimsa. It ennobles both the victor and the vanquished."

"My error! Why, I may be charged with having committed a breach of faith with the Hindus. I asked them to befriend Muslims. I asked them to lay their lives and their property at the disposal of the Mussulmans for the protection of their Holy Places. Even today I am asking them to practise Ahimsa, to settle quarrels by dying, but not by killing. And what do I find to be the result? How many temples have been desecrated? How many sisters come to me with complaints? As I was saying to Hakimji yesterday, Hindu women are in mortal fear of Mussulman goondas."

"A volunteer from Ahmedabad, who had been to Godhra, writes: You say that you must be silent over these quarrels. Why were you not silent over the Khilafat, and why did you exhort us to join the Muslims? Why are you not silent about your principles of Ahimsa? How can you justify your silence when the two communities are running at each other’s throats and Hindus are being crushed to atoms? How does Ahimsa come there? I invite your attention to two cases: A Hindu shopkeeper, thus, complained to me: Musalmans purchase bags of rice from my shop, often never paying for them. I cannot insist on payment, for fear of their looting my godowns. I have, therefore, to makean involuntary gift of about 50 to 70 maunds of rice every month? Others complained: Musalmans invade our quarters and insult our women in our presence, and we have to sit still. If we dare to protest, we are done for. We dare not even lodge a complaint against them. What would you advise in such cases? How would you bring your Ahimsa into play? Or, even here you would prefer to remain silent! “These and similar other questions have been answered in these pages over and over again, but as they are still being raised, I had better explained my views once more at the risk of repetition. “Ahimsa is not the way of the timid or the cowardly. It is the way of the brave ready to face death. He who perishes sword in hand is, no doubt, brave, but he who faces death without raising his little finger, is braver. But he who surrenders his rice bags for fear of being beaten, is a coward and no votary of Ahimsa. He is innocent of Ahimsa. He, who for fear of being beaten, suffers the women of his household to be insulted, is not manly, but just the reverse. He is fit neither to be a husband nor a father, nor a brother. Such people have no right to complain…”"

"All great saints and spiritual leaders who have appeared in the world have come to establish world peace and unity for humanity as a whole. Jealousy and hatred are the two causes by which humanity is ruined. In your lives these two vices should have no place. I want to weed out the prevailing non-violence in the world. It is a cause of apathy and idleness. This non-violence has cooled the blood of men so that it has become like cold water. This attitude of non-violence produces a lack of discrimination between good and evil. Everyone should lead a life of bravery and courage. A man without courage is like a dead man. Life without courage is no life. At present, many atrocities are being committed in the world. Human beings are treated like animals. No one has had the courage to stand up against these atrocities but everyone should be brave and resist them. Lethargy must have no place in your lives. Lethargy is the weakest trait in man."

"Mahavira, the Jain patriarch, surpassed the morality of the Bible with a single sentence: "Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being." Imagine how different our world might be if the Bible contained this as its central precept."

"Jainism actually is a religion of peace. The core principle of Jainism is non-violence. Gandhi got his non-violence from the Jains. The crazier you get as a Jain, the less we have to worry about you. Jain extremists are paralysed by their pacifism. Jain extremists can't take their eyes off the ground when they walk lest they step on an ant … Needless to say they are vegetarian."

"After looking at this building there appeared a white dome on the top of a hill, to which men were coming from all quarters. When I asked about this they said that a Jogi lived there, and when the simpletons come to see him he places in their hands a handful of flour, which they put into their mouths and imitate the cry of an animal which these fools have at some time injured, in order that by this act their sins may be blotted out. I ordered them to break down that place and turn the Jogi out of it, as well as to destroy the form of an idol there was in the dome."

"People try to excuse their brutality by saying that it is the custom; but a crime does not cease to be a crime because many commit it. Karma takes no account of custom; and the karma of cruelty is the most terrible of all. In India at least there can be no excuse for such customs, for the duty of harmlessness is well-known to all."

"The Hindu Mahasabha appreciates the need for Ahimsa. But it firmly believes Ahimsa born of fear or cowardice is not consistent with India's great heritage."

"Jinnah, at least in is later life put up a brave fight. It was, however, a fight not for the’ freedom of India, except in a very qualified sense, but for the freedom of the Muslims from the tyrannical yoke of the Hindus, as he put it. He won the fight; the cult of violence decided the issue. To what extent Gandhi's cult of non-violence may claim credit for the freedom of India is a matter of opinion. But there is no doubt that the creation of Pakistan was the triumph of violence— in its naked and most brutal form-and of the leadership of Jinnah. Nobody can reasonably doubt that India would have surely attained independence, sooner or later, even without Gandhi, but it is extremely doubtful whether there would have been a Pakistan without Jinnah. So, if we are to judge by the result alone, the events of 1946-7 testify to the superiority of violence to non-violence in practical politics, and of Jinnah to the leaders of the Congress. But this affords an illustration of the blunder that is often committed by hasty inference drawn from the immediate result, apparently flowing from a certain course of action, without weighing the force of other circumstances. It ought to serve as a corrective to those who look upon Gandhi as having wrested independence from the British by waving his magic wand of Satyagraha. (xxviii ff)"

"Pakistan can only be achieved through shedding blood of ourselves, and if need be, and if opportunity arose, by shedding blood of others. Muslims are no believers in Ahimsa."

"Einstein is also, and I think rightly, known as a man of very great goodwill and humanity. Indeed if I had to think of a single word for his attitude towards human problems, I would pick the Sanskrit word Ahimsa, not to hurt, harmlessness."

"परस्परोपग्रहो जीवानाम्"

"Māhavīra proclaimed a profound truth for all times to come when he said: "One who neglects or disregards the existence of earth, air, fire, water and vegetation disregards his own existence which is entwined with them." Jain cosmology recognizes the fundamental natural phenomenon of symbiosis or mutual dependence, which forms the basis of the modern day science of ecology. It is relevant to recall that the term "ecology" was coined in the latter half of the nineteenth century from the Greek word oikos, meaning "home", a place to which one returns. Ecology is the branch of biology which deals with the relations of organisms to their surroundings and to other organisms. The ancient Jain scriptural aphorism Parasparopagraho Jīvānām (All life is bound together by mutual support and interdependence) is refreshingly contemporary in its premise and perspective. It defines the scope of modern ecology while extending it further to a more spacious "home". It means that all aspects of nature belong together and are bound in a physical as well as a metaphysical relationship. Life is viewed as a gift of togetherness, accommodation and assistance in a universe teeming with interdependent constituents."

"All beings hate pains; therefore one should not kill them. This is the quintessence of wisdom; not to kill anything."

"In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self, and should therefore refrain from inflicting upon others such injury as would appear undesirable to us if inflicted upon ourselves. This is the quintessence of wisdom; not to kill anything. All breathing, existing, living sentient creatures should not be slain, nor treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, nor driven away. This is the pure unchangeable Law. Therefore, cease to injure living things. All living things love their life, desire pleasure and do not like pain; they dislike any injury to themselves; everybody is desirous of life and to every being, his life is very dear."

"Ahimsa is the best austerity [tapas]. Ahimsa is the greatest gift. Ahimsa is the highest self control. Ahimsa is the highest sacrifice. Ahimsa is the highest power. Ahimsa is the highest friend. Ahimsa is the highest truth. Ahimsa is the highest teaching."

"The purification of one who does ahimsa are inexhaustible. Such a one is regarded as always performing sacrifices, and is the father and mother of all beings."

"Ahimsa is the dharma. It is the highest purification. It is also the highest truth from which all dharma proceeds."

"Non-violence is the ultimate dharma. So too is violence in service of Dharma."

"That mode of living which is founded upon a total harmlessness towards all creatures or (in case of actual necessity) upon a minimum of such harm, is the highest morality."

"This practice of universal harmlessness hath arisen even thus. One may follow it by every means in one's power... It is sure to lead also to prosperity and heaven. In consequence of their ability to dispel the fears of others, men possessed of wealth and followers are regarded as foremost by the learned. They that are for ordinary happiness practise this duty of universal harmlessness for the sake of fame; while they that are truly skilled, practise the same for the sake of attaining to Brahma. Whatever fruits one enjoys by penances, by sacrifices, by practising liberality, by speaking the truth, and by paying court to wisdom, may all be had by practising the duty of harmlessness. That person who gives unto all creatures the assurance of harmlessness obtains the merit of all sacrifices and at last wins fearlessness for himself as his reward. There is no duty superior to the duty of abstention from injuring other creatures. He of whom, O great ascetic, no creature is frightened in the least, obtains for himself fearlessness of all creatures. He of whom everybody is frightened as one is of a snake ensconced within one's (sleeping) chamber, never acquires any merit..."

"Surely what was said by those astonished men of old was Ahimsa! Who in this world does not harm living beings? Having given it much consideration, no one in the world does ahimsa. Even ascetics (yatis) devoted to ahimsa surely do himsa, although by their effort it may be lessened."

"That the epic resists the universalization of ahimsa, however, is nowhere clearer than from a glance at the uncertain status it accords it among the "highest dharmas."... Of the fifty-four instances I have found in the Mahabharata, the tally for the different excellences said to be the "highest dharma" is anrsamsya (non-cruelty), 8; truth, 5; ahimsa, 4; "what is in the Veda", 2; offspring, 2; "following your guru", 2 ; "speaking what is applicable to dharma when one knows it", 2; Visnu-Narayana, 2 ; (....) and eleven more single entries... This counts only usages with para and parama; uttara, used more rarely for "highest" in this sense, gives only further variety.... The highest dharma seems to be knowing the highest dharma for whatever particular situation one is in, and recognizing that situation within an ontology that admits virtually endless variation and deferral in matters of formulating and approaching "the highest."."

"Ahimsa . . . is an ideal which is central to what is called the nivettimarga, the marga of samnydsa [the way of renunciation}. But the Mahabharata is, if anything, a great text of the pravrttimarga [the way of turning toward the world]. It argues for the pravrttimarga, though it is very much attracted by nivrttimarga and ahimsa. But total ahimsa cannot be practiced, because the human condition is such that some himsa has to be there for the practice of both the grhasthadharma (housebolder’s dharma] and the rajadharma [king’s dharma]. Therefore, what the Mahabharata preaches is not ahimsa but anrsamsya (non-cruelty). This latter is one of the most outstanding moral concepts of the epic. Anrsamsya is ahimsa adapted to the pravrttimarga."

"By definition, civil society has to work within a framework of non-violence."

"When the world presents as a force field of violence, the task of nonviolence is to find ways of living and acting in that world such that violence is checked or ameliorated, or its direction turned, precisely at moments when it seems to saturate that world and offer no way out."

"Nonviolence has now to be understood less as a moral position adopted by individuals in relation to a field of possible action than as a social and political practice undertaken in concert, culminating in a form of resistance to systemic forms of destruction coupled with a commitment to world building that honors global interdependency of the kind that embodies ideals of economic, social, and political freedom and equality."

"Nonviolence does not necessarily emerge from a pacific or calm part of the soul. Very often it is an expression of rage, indignation, and aggression."

"Nonviolent forms of resistance can and must be aggressively pursued. A practice of aggressive nonviolence is, therefore, not a contradiction in terms. Mahatma Gandhi insisted that ', or “soul force,” his name for a practice and politics of nonviolence, is a nonviolent force, one that consists at once of an “insistence on truth … that arms the votary with matchless power.” To understand this force or strength, there can be no simple reduction to physical strength. At the same time, “soul force” takes an embodied form. The practice of “going limp” before political power is, on the one hand, a passive posture, and is thought to belong to the tradition of passive resistance; at the same time, it is a deliberate way of exposing the body to police power, of entering the field of violence, and of exercising an adamant and embodied form of political agency. It requires suffering, yes, but for the purposes of transforming both oneself and social reality."

"Nonviolence is an ideal that cannot always be fully honored in the practice. To the degree that those who practice nonviolent resistance put their body in the way of an external power, they make physical contact, presenting a force against force in the process. Nonviolence does not imply the absence of force or of aggression. It is, as it were, an ethical stylization of embodiment, replete with gestures and modes of non-action, ways of becoming an obstacle, of using the solidity of the body and its proprioceptive object field to block or derail a further exercise of violence."

"There is no practice of nonviolence that does not negotiate fundamental ethical and political ambiguities, which means that “nonviolence” is not an absolute principle, but the name of an ongoing struggle."

"Nonviolence is less a failure of action than a physical assertion of the claims of life, a living assertion, a claim that is made by speech, gesture, and action, through networks, encampments, and assemblies; all of these seek to recast the living as worthy of value, as potentially grievable, precisely under conditions in which they are either erased from view or cast into irreversible forms of precarity. When the precarious expose their living status to those powers that threaten their very lives, they engage a form of persistence that holds the potential to defeat one of the guiding aims of violent power—namely, to cast those on the margins as dispensable, to push them beyond the margins into the zone of non-being, to use Fanon’s phrase. When nonviolent movements work within the ideals of , it is the equal claim to a livable and grievable life that serves as a guiding social ideal, one that is fundamental to an ethics and politics of nonviolence that moves beyond the legacy of individualism. It opens up a new consideration of social freedom as defined in part by our constitutive interdependency. An egalitarian imaginary is required for such a struggle—one that reckons with the potential for destruction in every living bond. Violence against the other is, in this sense, violence against oneself, something that becomes clear when we recognize that violence assaults the living interdependency that is, or should be, our social world."

"Nonviolence is perhaps best described as a practice of resistance that becomes possible, if not mandatory, precisely at the moment when doing violence seems most justified and obvious. In this way, it can be understood as a practice that not only stops a violent act, or a violent process, but requires a form of sustained action, sometimes aggressively pursued. So, one suggestion I will make is that we can think of nonviolence not simply as the absence of violence, or as the act of refraining from committing violence, but as a sustained commitment, even a way of rerouting aggression for the purposes of affirming ideals of equality and freedom."

"Nonviolence does not make sense without a commitment to equality. The reason why nonviolence requires a commitment to equality can best be understood by considering that in this world some lives are more clearly valued than others, and that this inequality implies that certain lives will be more tenaciously defended than others. If one opposes the violence done to human lives—or, indeed, to other living beings—this presumes that it is because those lives are valuable. Our opposition affirms those lives as valuable. If they were to be lost as a result of violence, that loss would be registered as a loss only because those lives were affirmed as having a living value, and that, in turn, means we regard those lives as worthy of grief."

"If nonviolence is to make sense as an ethical and political position, it cannot simply repress aggression or do away with its reality; rather, nonviolence emerges as a meaningful concept precisely when destruction is most likely or seems most certain."

"Nonviolence is not an absolute principle, but an open-ended struggle with violence and its countervailing forces."

"The ethical stand of nonviolence has to be linked to a commitment to radical equality. And more specifically, the practice of nonviolence requires an opposition to biopolitical forms of racism and war logics that regularly distinguish lives worth safeguarding from those that are not—populations conceived as collateral damage, or as obstructions to policy and military aims."

"The ethical and political practice of nonviolence can rely neither exclusively on the dyadic encounter, nor on the bolstering of a prohibition; it requires a political opposition to the biopolitical forms of racism and war logics that rely on phantasmagoric inversions that occlude the binding and interdependent character of the social bond. It requires, as well, an account of why, and under what conditions, the frameworks for understanding violence and nonviolence, or violence and self-defense, seem to invert into one another, causing confusion about how best to pin down those terms."

"We must fight those who are committed to destruction, without replicating their destructiveness. Understanding how to fight in this way is the task and the bind of a nonviolent ethics and politics."

"It is precisely because we can destroy that we are under an obligation to know why we ought not to do it, and to summon those countervailing powers that curb our destructive capacity. Nonviolence becomes an ethical obligation by which we are bound precisely because we are bound to one another; it may well be an obligation against which we rail, in which ambivalent swings of the psyche make themselves known, but the obligation to preserve the social bond can be resolved upon without precisely resolving that ambivalence. The obligation not to destroy each other emerges from, and reflects, the vexed social form of our lives, and it leads us to reconsider whether self-preservation is not linked to preserving the lives of others."

"Dr. King’s policy was, if you are nonviolent, if you suffer, your opponent will see your suffering and will be moved to change his heart. That’s very good. He only made one fallacious assumption. In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none."

"When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is "correct" or "wise," any more than a forest fire can be "correct" or "wise." Wisdom isn't the point tonight. Disrespect is. In this case, disrespect for the hollow law and failed order that so regularly disrespects the community."

"Nonviolence begins with the insights that all life is sacred, that all human beings are children of the God of peace, and that as God’s children, we are under certain obligations. Of course, we should never hurt or kill another human being, wage war, build nuclear weapons, or sit idly by while millions of human beings starve to death each year. Nonviolence invites us, also, to reevaluate the way we treat animals in our society. While we resist violence, injustice, and war, and while we practice nonviolence, seek peace, and struggle for justice for the poor, we are also invited to break down the species barrier, extending our belief in Christian compassion to the animal kingdom by, among other things, adopting a vegetarian diet."

"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages."

"There are different forms of anarchy and different currents in it. I must, first say very simply what anarchy I have in view. By anarchy I mean first an absolute rejection of violence."

"The power of unarmed nonviolence is any day far superior to that of armed force."

"Non-violence is not a cover for cowardice, but it is the supreme virtue of the brave. Exercise of non-violence requires far greater bravery than that of swordsmanship. Cowardice is wholly inconsistent with non-violence. Translation from swordsmanship to non-violence is possible and, at times, even an easy stage. Non-violence, therefore, presupposes ability to strike. It is a conscious deliberate restraint put upon one's desire for vengeance. But vengeance is any day superior to passive, effeminate and helpless submission. Forgiveness is higher still. Vengeance too is weakness. The desire for vengeance comes out of fear of harm, imaginary or real. A dog barks and bites when he fears. A man who fears no one on earth would consider it too troublesome even to summon up anger against one who is vainly trying to injure him."

"There is no principle worth the name if it is not wholly good. I swear by non-violence because I know that it alone conduces to the highest good of mankind, not merely in the next world, but in this also. I object to violence because, when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary, the evil it does is permanent."

"By its very nature, non-violence cannot ‘seize’ power, nor can that be its goal. But non-violence can do more; it can effectively control and guide power without capturing the machinery of government. That is its beauty."

"Time and again, people struggling not for some token reform but for complete liberation — the reclamation of control over our own lives and the power to negotiate our own relationships with the people and world around us — will find that nonviolence does not work, that we face a self-perpetuating power structure that is immune to appeals to conscience and strong enough to plow over the disobedient and uncooperative."

"Nonviolence refuses to recognize that it can only work for privileged people, who have a status protected by violence, as the perpetrators and beneficiaries of a violent hierarchy."

"The imperative of nonviolence overrides the basic respect of trusting people to liberate themselves."

"Put quite plainly, nonviolence ensures a state monopoly on violence. States survive by assuming the role of the sole legitimate purveyor of violent force within their territory. Any struggle against oppression necessitates a conflict with the state."

"Permitting nonviolent protest improves the image of the state. Whether they mean to or not, nonviolent dissidents play the role of a loyal opposition in a performance that dramatizes dissent and creates the illusion that democratic government is not elitist or authoritarian. Pacifists paint the state as benign by giving authority the chance to tolerate a criticism that does not actually threaten its continued operation."

"Instead of raising a fist, pacifists raise their index and middle fingers to form a V. That V stands for victory and is the symbol of patriots exulting in the peace that follows a triumphant war. In the final analysis, the peace that pacifists defend is that of the vanquishing army, the unopposed state that has conquered all resistance and monopolized violence to such an extent that violence need no longer be visible."

"Pacifism simply does not resonate in people’s everyday realities, unless those people live in some extravagant bubble of tranquility from which all forms of civilization’s pandemic reactive violence have been pushed out by the systemic and less visible violence of police and military forces."

"Freedom as a concept sides with those who are struggling for theirs, whereas nonviolence as a concept sides with the enforcers of normality and the rulers of the status quo."

"We will never know whether there is a realistic moral alternative to violence unless we are willing to explore the potential of nonviolent action."

"If one thinks of nonviolence as a way of life, then it works to the extent that one lives nonviolently and infuses everyday conduct with a nonviolent spirit...whether we act nonviolently, considerately, and respectfully of others in all that we do is within our control. Nonviolence in that sense cannot fail to work if we resolve to see that it works."

"To be a pragmatic pacifist, one need only consider that large-scale, organized, and systemic war violence is unacceptable in today's world."

"Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored."

"There are thousands of people who feel that it is useless and futile for us to continue talking peace and non-violence — against a government whose only reply is savage attacks on an unarmed and defenceless people. And I think the time has come for us to consider, in the light of our experiences at this day at home, whether the methods which we have applied so far are adequate."

"A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle, and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a point, one can only fight fire with fire."

"Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism – it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."

"Most anarchists believe the coming change can only come through a revolution, because the possessing class will not allow a peaceful change to take place; still we are willing to work for peace at any price, except at the price of liberty."

"You want to be nonviolent? That is good and noble. I think…I think I do, too. But I want you to understand what you’re asking of the people who take this necessary stance against white supremacy, the people who go to look evil in the face. You’re asking them to be beaten with brass knuckles, with bats, with fists. To be pounded into the ground, stomped on, and smashed. You’re asking them to bleed on the pavement and the grass. Some of them are going to die. And you’re asking them to do that without defending themselves."

"Can the hungry go on a hunger strike? Non-violence is a piece of theatre. You need an audience. What can you do when you have no audience? People have the right to resist annihilation."

"Non-violence is backed by the theory of soul-force in which suffering is courted in the hope of ultimately winning over the opponent. But what happens when such an attempt fails to achieve the object? It is here that soul-force has to be combined with physical force so as not to remain at the mercy of a tyrannical and ruthless enemy."

"There should be neither harming nor reciprocating harm."

"We who advocate peace are becoming an irrelevance when we speak peace. The government speaks rubber bullets, live bullets, tear gas, police dogs, detention, and death."

"According to Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence, the end is inherent in the means. If we’re hateful to each other now, we’re not going to be able to all come together in some kumbaya effort once the nominee is chosen. Anger weakens us. We can practice respectful disagreement now."

"Most Christians desire nonviolence, yes; but they are not talking about a nonviolent struggle for justice. They mean simply the absence of conflict. ... The church says to the lion and the lamb, "Here, let me negotiate a truce," to which the lion replies, "Fine, after I finish my lunch.""

"Historically, revolutions are bloody. Oh, yes, they are. They haven't never had a bloodless revolution, or a nonviolent revolution. That don't happen even in Hollywood. You don't have a revolution in which you love your enemy, and you don't have a revolution in which you are begging the system of exploitation to integrate you into it. Revolutions overturn systems. Revolutions destroy systems."

"Concerning non-violence: it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks."

"There is nothing in our book, the Qur'an, that teaches us to suffer peacefully. Our religion teaches us to be intelligent. Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone lays a hand on you, send him to the cemetery."

"Soyez résolus à ne plus servir, et vous voilà libres. Je ne vous demande pas de le pousser, de l'ébranler, mais seulement de ne plus le soutenir, et vous le verrez, tel un grand colosse dont on a brisé la base, fondre sous son poids et se rompre."

"My years of solitary, peaceful resistance against colonialism and genocide have finally brought the crimes of the Chinese regime to the attention of the Dutch justice system. This is the result of a Uyghur’s refusal to kneel before tyranny in a free democratic country. I am deeply grateful for the justice provided by the Dutch government. This outcome has inspired me and renewed my spiritual motivation. The Chinese government must understand that it cannot silence my voice through transnational repression, violence, or death threats. Although I suffered physical assault and trauma, I have shown the Dutch government, politicians, and the public that a Uyghur person can feel as if they are being dragged to a concentration camp even in a free country. This is the power of peaceful protest."

"What if men build a system on violence and injustice, on not doing good to those who hate them nor even to those who meekly obey and toil for them? And persist in this course through centuries of Christian history? ... In such a day, the pacifist is presumably not absolved from preaching to the rebels that they also shall reap what they sow; but assuredly not in such a wise as to leave the oppressors safely entrenched in their position."

"[L]et it be granted that non-violent resistance can be effective against one's own government, or against an occupying power: even so, how does one put it into practise internationally? Gandhi's various conflicting statements on the late war seem to show that he felt the difficulty of this. Applied to foreign politics, pacifism either stops being pacifist or becomes appeasement."

"Buddhism ... is not a culture but a critique of culture, an enduring nonviolent revolution or “loyal opposition” to the culture in which it is involved."

"Thoreau's disobedience is disobedience as refusal. I won't live in your world. I will live as if your world has ended, as indeed it deserves to end. I will live as if my gesture of refusing your world has destroyed it."

"Similar though Marx and Thoreau may be in their accounts of the consequences of living in a society defined by money, their suggestions for how to respond to it are poles apart. Forget the Party. Forget the revolution. Forget the general strike. Forget the proletariat as an abstract class of human interest. Thoreau's revolution begins not with discovering comrades to be yoked together in solidarity but with the embrace of solitude."

"The intellectual and moral satisfaction that I failed to gain from the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill, the revolutionary methods of Marx and Lenin, the social contract theory of Hobbes, the "back to nature" optimism of Rousseau, and the superman philosophy of Nietzsche, I found in the nonviolent resistance philosophy of Gandhi. I came to feel that this was the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom."

"When I went to Atlanta’s Morehouse College as a freshman in 1944 my concern for racial and economic justice was already substantial. During my student days at Morehouse I read Thoreau’s Essay on Civil Disobedience for the first time. Fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system, I was so deeply moved that I reread the work several times. This was my first intellectual contact with the theory of nonviolent resistance."

"Another way is to acquiesce and to give in, to resign yourself to the oppression... But there is another way. And that is to organize mass non-violent resistance based on the principle of love. It seems to me that this is the only way as our eyes look to the future. As we look out across the years and across the generations, let us develop and move right here. We must discover the power of love, the power, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that we will be able to make of this old world a new world. We will be able to make men better. Love is the only way"

"The non-violent Negro is seeking to create the beloved community. He directs his attack on the forces of evil rather than on individuals. The tensions are not between the races, but between the forces of justice and injustice; between the forces of light and darkness."

"The best way to solve any problem is to remove the cause... Whenever racial discrimination exists it is a tragic expression of man's spiritual degeneracy and moral bankruptcy. Therefore, it must be removed not merely because it is diplomatically expedient, but because it is morally compelling... Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere... We must resist all forms of racial injustice. This resistance must always be on the highest level of dignity and discipline. It must never degenerate to the crippling level of violence. There is another way-a way as old as the insights of Jesus of Nazareth and as modern as the methods of Mahatma Gandhi. It is a way not for the weak and cowardly but for the strong and courageous. It has been variously called passive resistance, non-violent resistance or simply Christian love. It is my great hope that as the Negro plunges deeper into the quest for freedom, he will plunge deeper into the philosophy of non-violence... Our aim must not be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding. We must never become bitter nor should we succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle, for if this happens, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness and our chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos."

"I feel that this way of non-violence is vital because it is the only way to reestablish the broken community. It is the method which seeks to implement the just law by appealing to the conscience of the great decent majority who through blindness, fear, pride or irrationality have allowed their consciences to sleep."

"The non-violent resistors can summarize their message in the following simple terms: we will take direct action against injustice without waiting for other agencies to act. We will not obey unjust laws or submit to unjust practices. We will do this peacefully, openly and cheerfully because our aim is to persuade. We adopt the means of non-violence because our end is a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts. We will always be willing to talk and seek fair compromise, but we are ready to suffer when necessary and even risk our lives to become witnesses to the truth as we see it."

"The beauty of non-violence is that is makes it possible for the individual to struggle to secure moral ends through moral means. Another thing about it is that is makes it possible for the individual to apply the love-ethic in the struggle for freedom and justice. It makes it possible for the individual to place love at the center of his life, and thereby transform a social situation. This is the beauty of non-violence, because hate is always injurious. It is as injurious to the hater as it is to the hated. Psychiatrists are telling us now of many of the strange things that have happened in the subconscious. Many of the inner conflicts are rooted in hate, and so they are saying now, love or perish. And the beauty of non-violence is that it is possible to fight war without violence, and it is possible to struggle for that which is right with love in one's heart."

"It is no longer a choice between violence and non-violence; it is either non-violence or non-existence. The alternative to disarmament, the alternative to suspension of nuclear tests, the alternative to strengthening the United Nations and disarming the whole world may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation."

"Everyman is somebody because he is a child of God. And so when we say Thou shalt not kill, we're really saying that human life is too sacred to be taken on the battlefields of the world. Man is more than a tiny vagary of whirling electrons or a wisp of smoke from a limitless smoldering. Man is a child of God, made in His image, and therefore must be respected as such. Until men see this everywhere, until nations see this everywhere, we will be fighting wars. One day somebody should remind us that, even though there may be political and ideological differences between us, the Vietnamese are our brothers, the Russians are our brothers, the Chinese are our brothers; and one day we've got to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. But in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile. In Christ there is neither male nor female. In Christ there is neither Communist nor Capitalist. In Christ, somehow, there is neither bound nor free. We are all one in Christ Jesus. And when we truly believe in the sacredness of human personality, we won't exploit people, we won't trample over people with the iron feet of oppression, we won't kill anybody."

"Harmful magnetic conditions, as the result of man's wrong handling of force, are the causes of evil in the world... How can we, as individuals, change this? By the development in ourselves of Harmlessness. Therefore, study yourself from this angle. Study your daily conduct and words and thoughts so as to make them utterly harmless. Set yourself to think those thoughts about yourself and others which will be constructive and positive, and hence harmless in their effects. Study your emotional effect on others, so that by no mood, no depression, and no emotional reaction can you harm a fellow-man. Remember in this connection, violent spiritual aspiration and enthusiasm, misplaced or misdirected, may quite easily harm a fellow-man, so look not only at your wrong tendencies but at the use of your virtues. If harmlessness is the keynote of your life, you will do more to produce right harmonious conditions in your personality than any amount of discipline along other lines. The drastic purgation brought about by the attempt to be harmless will go far to eliminate wrong states of consciousness... Therefore, I say to you at this time, I – an older and perhaps more experienced disciple and worker in the great vineyard of the Lord – practice harmlessness with zest and understanding, for it is (if truly carried out) the destroyer of all limitation."

"Harmfulness is based on selfishness, and on an ego-centric attitude. It is the demonstration of forces concentrated for self-enforcement, self-aggrandisement, and self-gratification. Harmlessness is the expression of the life of the man who realises himself to be everywhere, who lives consciously as a soul, whose nature is love, whose method is inclusiveness, and to whom all forms are alike, in that they veil and hide the light, and are but externalisations of the One Infinite Being. This realisation, let me remind you, will demonstrate in a true comprehension of a brother's need, divorced from sentiment and expediency. It will lead to that silence of the tongue that grows out of non-reference to the separate self. It will produce that instantaneous response to true need which characterises the Great Ones who (passing beneath the outer appearance) see the inner cause which produces the conditions noted in the outer life, and so, from that point of wisdom, true help and guidance can be given. Harmlessness brings about in life caution in judgment, reticence in speech, ability to refrain from impulsive action, and the demonstration of a non-critical spirit. So, free passage can be given to the forces of true love, and to those spiritual energies which seem to vitalise the personality, leading consequently to right action. Let harmlessness, therefore, be the keynote of your life."

"I have so emphatically impressed the need of harmlessness upon all of you, for it is the scientific method, par excellence, and esoterically speaking, of cleaning house, and of purifying the centres. Its practice clears the clogged channels and permits the entrance of the higher energies."

"What shall I say concerning harmlessness? It is not easy for me to show or prove to you the effectiveness of the higher aspect... The harmlessness with which I have earlier dealt, has relation to the imperfections with which humanity is wrestling, and is difficult for you to apply in and under all circumstances, as well you know. The harmlessness to which I refer in connection with you is not negative, or sweet, or kindly activity, as so many believe; it is a state of mind and one which in no way negates firm or even drastic action; it concerns motive and involves the determination that the motive behind all activity is goodwill. That motive might lead to positive and sometimes disagreeable action or speech, but as harmlessness and goodwill condition the mental approach, nothing can eventuate but good."

"I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves."

"The first step with which to counter the forces of evil is by confronting it with an attitude of 'harmlessness'. When the daily thoughts, words and activities are positive, and based on love and goodwill, no evil can gain entry into the mind and the results can only be constructive and harmless. It will therefore also be readily understood that if harmlessness is the keynote of life, more will be done to obtain harmonious conditions in the personality than by any other form of discipline. The life of the man who consciously lives as the soul is expressed by its quality of harmlessness. This is one of the most potent forces in the world today and will demonstrate in daily living as right motive, goodwill, discriminative judging, reticence in speech, ability to refrain from impulsive action, and the manifestation of an uncritical spirit."

"People try to excuse their brutality by saying that it is the custom; but a crime does not cease to be a crime because many commit it. Karma takes no account of custom; and the karma of cruelty is the most terrible of all. In India at least there can be no excuse for such customs, for the duty of harmlessness is well-known to all. The fate of the cruel must fall also upon all who go out intentionally to kill God's creatures, and call it "sport"."