User account | Beyond Intractability

War is, at first, the hope that one will be better off; next, the expectation that the other fellow will be worse off; then, the satisfaction that he isn't any better off; and, finally, the surprise at everyone's being worse off.

- Karl Kraus

I'm not really interested in persuading people, I don't want to and I try to make this point obvious. What I'd like to do is to help people persuade themselves.

- Noam Chomsky

If we divide reality into two camps the violent and the nonviolent and stand in one camp while attacking the other, the world will never have peace.

- Thich Nhat Hanh

Hatred injures the hater as well as the hated. Love blesses the lover as well as the loved. This is hard economics as well as good common sense.

- Kenneth Boulding

The...human race is characterized by efforts to get along much more than by violent disputes, although it's the latter that make the history books. Violence is actually exceptional. The human race has survived because of cooperation.

- Gerard Vanderhaar

No man is an island entire of itself ... any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

- John Donne

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

We are going to have to find ways of organizing ourselves cooperatively, sanely, scientifically, harmonically and in regenerative spontaneity with the rest of humanity around the earth.

- Buckminster Fuller

Conflict is inevitable, but combat is optional.

- Max Lucado

Don't be afraid of opposition. Remember, a kite rises against -- not with -- the wind.

- Hamilton Mabie

The soul of our country needs to be awakened... When leaders act contrary to conscience, we must act contrary to leaders.

- Veterans Fast for Life

Conflict is inevitable, but combat is optional.

- Max Lucado

No matter how big a nation is, it is no stronger that its weakest people, and as long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you might otherwise.

- Marian Anderson

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.

- Alfred Adler