#Conflict Resolution Quotes

“If you meet a sectary, or a hostile partisan, never recognize the dividing lines; but meet on what common ground remains,--if onlythat the sun shines, and the rain rains for both; the area will widen very fast, and ere you know it the boundary mountains, on which the eye had fastened, have melted into air.”

“Though your views are in straight antagonism to theirs, assume an identity of sentiment, assume that you are saying precisely thatwhich all think, and in the flow of wit and love roll out your paradoxes in solid column, with not the infirmity of a doubt.”

“The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.”

“When the choice is to be right or to be kind, always make the choice that brings peace”

“With empathy you know in your heart that it's not a sign of weakness to attempt to understand that the people we call terrorists have placed the same label on us, and that the use of force will create a counter force, a never-ending saga of killing and hate. Ending war involves cultivating empathy in our policies and the love of God in our hearts. As the Native Americans reminded us: No tree has branches so foolish as to fight among themselves.”

“When someone we love is having difficulty and is giving us a bad time, it's better to explore the cause than to criticize the action.”

“The problem with using force in our lives is that we always create a counterforce. For example, If you're with a child and the child says, "I hate you," which is a very low energy, and you respond with, "I hate you too," you have lowered the collective energy that you are both in, and both of you will he weakened. Whereas, if you respond to, "I hate you," with love, which is what, instinctively, we know what to do, then we can dissolve and dissipate that hatred.”

“To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.”

“I recoil with horror at the ferociousness of man. Will nations never devise a more rational umpire of differences than force? Are there no means of coercing injustice more gratifying to our nature than a waste of the blood of thousands and of the labor of millions of our fellow creatures?”

“When you're in the Middle of an Argument, ask yourself: Do I want to be Right or be Happy?”

“The way to go from discord to harmony is to go from concentrating on differences to concentrating on similarities.”

“By going one step further back in thought, discordant opinions are reconciled by being seen to be two extremes of one principle, and we can never go so far back as to preclude a still higher vision.”

“The ally we must cultivate is the part of our enemy which knows the truth.”

“Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.”

“If two friends ask you to judge a dispute, don't accept, because you will lose one friend; on the other hand, if two strangers come with the same request, accept because you will gain one friend.”

“Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.”

“I've always believed that a lot of the trouble in the world would disappear if we were talking to each other instead of about each other.”

“I contend that non-violent acts exert pressure far more effective than violent acts, for the pressure comes from goodwill and gentleness.”

“The next time you're mad at me, talk to me,' he said. 'Don't shut me out. I don't like playing games. And by the way, I had a great time, too.”

“It is the acid test of nonviolence that in a nonviolent conflict there is no rancor left behind, and in the end the enemies are converted into friends.”

“Our aim is not to do things by violence to opponents.”

“...music is sometimes the only benign avenue of communication between antagonists.”

“Where people of goodwill get together and transcend their differences for the common good, peaceful and just solutions can be found even for those problems which seem most intractable.”

“When we dehumanise and demonise our opponents, we abandon the possibility of peacefully resolving our differences, and seek to justify violence against them.”

“Intervention only works when the people concerned seem to be keen for peace.”

“Negotiation and discussion are the greatest weapons we have for promoting peace and development.”

“I learned to have the patience to listen when people put forward their views, even if I think those views are wrong. You can't reach a just decision in a dispute unless you listen to both sides.”

“Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love.”

“No problem is so deep that it cannot be overcome, given the will of all parties, through discussion and negotiation rather than force and violence.”

“Leaders will have to give clear and decisive leadership towards a world of tolerance and respect for difference, and an uncompromising commitment to peaceful solutions of conflicts and disputes.”

“I realized the true function of a lawyer was to unite parties riven asunder. The lesson was so indelibly burnt into me that a large part of my time during the twenty years of my practice as a lawyer was occupied in bringing about private compromises of hundreds of cases. I lost nothing thereby -- not even money, certainly not my soul.”

“It is my conviction that nothing enduringcan be built on violence.The only safe way to overcome an enemyis to make of that enemy a friend.”

“Continuously, we have to fight to defeat the primitive tendency towards the glorification of arms, the adulation of force, born of the illusion that injustice can be perpetuated by the capacity to kill, or that disputes are necessarily best resolved by resort to violent means.”

“Nonviolence is a good policy when the conditions permit.”

“If that is the law of life we must work it out in daily exisitance. Wherever there are wars, wherever we are confronted with an opponent, conquer by love. I have found that the certain law of love has answered in my own life as the law of destruction has never done.”

“This is the unusual thing about nonviolence -- nobody is defeated, everybody shares in the victory.”

“There are leaders who know that however furious the debate, there are good men and women in all population groups - amongst blacks, amongst whites, and amongst Afrikaans and English speaking people.”

“One effect of sustained conflict is to narrow our vision of what is possible. Time and time again, conflicts are resolved through shifts that were unimaginable at the start.”

“Through violence, you may murder the hater, but you do not murder the hate.”

“Violence can only be effectively met by nonviolence. This is an old established truth.”

“Ahimsa magnifies one's own defects, and minimizes those of the opponent. It regards the mole in one's own eye as a beam and the beam in the opponent's eye as a mole.”

“What kind of victory is it when someone is left defeated?”

“If you are negotiating you must do so in a spirit of reconciliation, not from the point of view of issuing ultimatums.”

“When I meet a new person, I don’t see race or religion. I look deeper. We must learn to satisfy our conflicts peacefully and to respect one another.”

“If you sit down and talk to a person, it's easy to convince him that apartheid can never save a country and will lead to the slaughtering of innocent people - including his own people.”

“You negotiate in bad faith if you do not forgive your adversary.”

“Our efforts to counter hatred, intolerance, and indifference must continue simultaneously at individual and structural levels. We must try to influence for good the minds and hearts of individual people through dialogue and confidence building. These efforts must be reinforced by our efforts to create just structures in society to support the ongoing work of negotiations in the human community. Only then will we have a chance to negate the terrible consequences of the tremendous conflicts facing humankind today.”

“The best weapon is to sit down and talk.”

“We win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party.”

“If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.”