There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism… The one absolutely certain way of brining this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.

I wish no explanation made to our enemies. What they want is a squabble and a fuss; and that they can have if we explain; and they cannot have if we don’t.

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act. . . . Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon the definition of liberty.

Howsoever you may repair it, a rift is a rift.

Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character.

No house should ever be on any hill or on anything. It should be of the hill, belonging to it, so hill and house could live together each the happier for the other.

How could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?

Beware of allowing a tactless word, a rebuttal, a rejection to obliterate the whole sky.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

Our task must be to free ourselves…by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.

The overwhelming importance of the atmosphere means that there are no longer any frontiers to defend against pollution, attack, or propaganda. It means, further, that only by a deep patriotic devotion to one’s country can there be a hope of the kind of protection of the whole planet, which is necessary for the survival of the people of other countries.

As the traveler who has once been from home is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own.

Wherever there is injustice, war, discrimination against women, gays and the disadvantaged, I did my best to show up and exert moral persuasion.

Isn’t it amazing that we are all made in God’s image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people?

Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization.

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.

I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

Nowadays the world is becoming increasingly materialistic, and mankind is reaching toward the very zenith of external progress, driven by an insatiable desire for power and vast possessions. Yet by this vain striving for perfection in a world where everything is relative, they wander even further away from inward peace and happiness of the mind.

I hate who steals my solitude without, in exchange, offering me true company.

We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. This may well be mankind's last chance between chaos and community.

Those who are free of resentful thoughts surely find peace.

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster.

We have more machinery of government that is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.

Why has government been instituted? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason & justice without constraint.

All that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle.

Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.

If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion.

Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various “party lines.”

We know of no culture that has said, articulately, that there is no difference between men and women except in the way they contribute to the creation of the next generation.

The higher you soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.

There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.