This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"By annihilating the desires, you annihilate the mind. In moderating, no in satisfying desires, lies peace." - Reginald Heber
"Our religious needs are our deepest needs. There is no peace till they are satisfied an contented. The attempt to stifle them is in vain. If their cry be drowned by the noise of the world, they do not cease to exist. They must be answered." - Isaac Thomas Hecker
"The Kaddish is not a prayer for the dead, but a mandate for the living... It bids man rise above his sorrow... and fixes his view upon the welfare of mankind. It lifts his hope and vision to a day... when mankind shall at last inhabit the earth as children of the one God and Father, and justice reign supreme in peace." - R. Hertz, fully Rabbi Joseph Herman Hertz
"Desire of knowledge, and arts of peace, inclineth men to obey a common power: for such desire containeth a desire of leisure, and consequently protection from other power than their own." - Thomas Hobbes
"If we are to succeed, we must think success. If we are to be happy, we must think happily. If we are to be well, we must think healthful, constructive thoughts. If we are to get over confusion, we must think peace. The mind can never accept what it rejects." - Ernest Shurtleff Holmes
"Of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is thy bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world; all things do her homage, the very least as feeling her care; and the greatest as not exempted from her power; both angels and men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy." - Richard Hooker
"You cannot extend the mastery of the government over the daily working life of a people without at the same time making it the master of the people’s souls and thoughts. Every expansion of government in business means that government in order to protect itself from the political consequences of its errors and wrongs is driven irresistibly without peace to greater and greater control of the nation’s press and platform. Free speech does not live many hours after free industry and free commerce die." - Herbert Hoover, fully Herbert Clark Hoover
"We are not only made in God’s image, but that we are made to image God - to reflect His freedom, joy, compassion and peace in our lives... When religion becomes reduced to an outward observation of rules and ceremonies and an intolerance toward the beliefs of others, we are mistaking the oyster for the pearl. The oyster is certainly valuable, but it is of infinitely greater value when it promotes the growth of the pearl... We cannot reason our way back to the roots of religion. We cannot trap God in stale dogmas or narrow creeds. Our purpose is to make religion a continuous living experience, to lead us toward a resurrection not of the dead but of the living who are dead to their own truth. Then religion becomes a thread that can both link us to the past and guide us to our future." - Arianna Huffington, born Arianna Stassinopoulos
"The things of the world are ever rising and falling, and in perpetual change; and this change must be according to the will of God, as he has bestowed upon man neither the wisdom nor the power to enable him to check it. The great lesson in these things is, that man must strengthen himself doubly at such times to fulfill his duty and to do what is right, and must seek his happiness and inward peace from objects which cannot be taken away from him." -
"Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; the preservation of General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad... freedom of religion, freedom of the press; freedom of person under the protection of habeas corpus; and trials by juries impartially selected, these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation." - Thomas Jefferson
"Every man wishes to pursue his occupation and to enjoy the fruits of his labors and the produce of his property in peace and safety, and with the least possible expense. When these things are accomplished, all the objects for which government ought to be established are answered." - Thomas Jefferson
"We are reluctant to admit that we owe our liberties to men of a type that today we hate and fear - unruly men, disturbers of the peace, men who resent and denounce what Whitman called “the insolence of elected persons” - in a word, free men... Freedom is always purchased at a great price, and even those who are willing to pay it have to admit that the price is great." -
"If we are to live together in peace, we must come to know each other better." - Lyndon Johnson, fully Lyndon Baines Johnson, aka LBJ
"In this age when there can be no losers in peace and no victors in war - we must recognize the obligation to match national strength with national restraint." - Lyndon Johnson, fully Lyndon Baines Johnson, aka LBJ
"The mere absence of war is not peace." - John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy
"World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor - it requires that they live together with mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement." - John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy
"It is very dangerous to go into eternity with possibilities which one has oneself prevented from becoming realities. A possibility is a hint from God. One must follow it. In every man there is latent the highest possibility; one must follow it. If God does not wish it, then let Him prevent it, but one must not hinder oneself. Trusting to God I have dared, but I was not successful; in that is to be found peace, calm, a confidence in God. I have not dared; that is woeful thought, a torment in eternity." - Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard
"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"I believe that the fewer the laws in a home the better; but there is one law which should be as plainly understood as the shining of the sun is visible at noonday, and that is, implicit and instantaneous obedience from the child to the parent, not only for the peace of the home, but for the highest good of the child." - Abbott Elliot Kittredge
"I am a man of peace, God knows how I love peace; but I hope I shall never be such a coward as to mistake oppression for peace." - Louis Kossuth, also Lajos Kossuth, fully Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva
"Feeding the people of the world is no longer a philanthropic project for the missionaries. There will be no peace in this world, until the worst imbalances around the world are eliminated." - Hans-Broder Krohn
"Many afflictions will not cloud and obstruct peace of mind so much as one sin: therefore, if you would walk cheerfully, be most careful to walk holily. All the winds about the earth make not an earthquake, but only that within." - Robert Leighton
"Study to follow His will in all, to have no will but His. This is thy duty and thy wisdom. Nothing is gained by spurring and struggling, but to hurt and vex thyself; but by complying all is gained, sweet peace." - Robert Leighton
"Avoid popularity, if you would have peace." - Abraham Lincoln
"For as long as a time as we can see into the future, we shall be living between war and peace, between a war that cannot be fought and a peace that cannot be achieved. The great issues which divide the world cannot be decided by a war that could be won, and they cannot be settled by a treaty that can be negotiated... the power which used to deal with the division and conflicts of the past, namely, organized war, has become an impossible instrument to use." - Walter Lippmann
"There is but one bond of peace that is both permanent and enriching: the increasing knowledge of the world in which experiment occurs." - Walter Lippmann
"Peace is indivisible." - Maxim Litvinov, fully Maksim Maksimovich Litinov, born Meir Walach
"Better a certain peace than a hoped for victory." - Livy, formally Titus Livius, aka Titus Livy NULL
"In time of peace we should think of war." - Lucian, aka Lucian of Samosata or Lucianus Samosatensis NULL
"True piety is this: to be able to survey all things with a mind of peace." - Lucretius, fully Titus Lucretius Carus NULL
"He who makes war his profession cannot be otherwise than vicious. War makes thieves, and peace brings them to the gallows." - Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
"To look fearlessly upon life; to accept the laws of nature, not with meek resignation, but as her sons, who dare to search and question; to have peace and confidence within our souls - these are the beliefs that make for happiness." - Maurice Maeterlinck, fully Count Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck
"War appears to be as old as mankind, but peace is a modern invention." - Henry Maine, fully Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
"War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace." - Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann
"To be at peace with self, to find company and nourishment in self - this would be the test of the free and productive psyche." - Marya Mannes
"Peace without truth is a false peace." - Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, fully Menachem Mendel Morgensztern of Kotzk, known as the Kotzker Rebbe
"Not merely an absence of noise, Real Silence begins when a reasonable being withdraws form the noise in order to find peace and order in his inner sanctuary. The exodus from slavery toward the possession of the Kingdom." - Peter Minard
"It takes a lot of self-love and presumption to have such esteem for one’s own opinions that to establish them one must overthrow the public peace and introduce so many inevitable evils, and such a horrible corruption of morals, as civil wars and political changes bring with them in a matter of such weight - and introduce them into one’s own country." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
"Peace is the natural effect of trade. Two nations who traffic with each other become reciprocally dependent; for if one has an interest in buying, the other has an interest in selling; and thus their union is founded on their mutual necessities. But if the spirit of commerce unites nations, it does not in the same manner unite individuals. We see that in countries where the people move only by the spirit of commerce, they make a traffic of all the humane, all the moral virtues; the most trifling things, those which humanity would demand, are there done, or there given, only for money." - Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
"As Syria gave to the world through its kings and armies the principle of world-conquest, world-empire, and world-exploitation. In direct answer and refutation, Israel gave to the world, through the mouth of its inspired prophets, the principle of world-justice, world-peace, world-brotherhood." - Christian Morgenstern
"Solitude is important to man. It is necessary to his achievement of peace and contentment. It is a well into which he dips for refreshment for his soul. It is his laboratory in which he distills the pure essence of worth from the raw materials of his experiences. It is his refuge when the very foundations of his life are being shaken by disastrous events." - Margaret E. Mulac
"Peace is produced by war." - Cornelius Nepos
"Rendering oneself unarmed when one has been the best-armed, out of a height of feeling - that is the means to real peace, which must always rest on a peace of mind." - Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"Obsessed by a fairy tale, we spend our lives searching for a magic door and a lost kingdom of peace." - Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
"Can a man control his future? Yes. Despite the system they live under, men everywhere have, I believe, more power over the future than ever before. The important thing is that we must choose to exercise it. What we do today determines how the world shall go, for tomorrow is made up of the sum total of today's experiences... Far from feeling hopeless or helpless, we must seize every opportunity, however small, to help the world around us toward peace, productivity and human brotherhood." - Bons (Leonidovich) Pasternak