Elise M. Boulding Quotes

A meal, however simple, is a moment of intersection. It is at once the most basic, the most fundamental, of our life's activities, maintaining the life of our bodies; shared with others it can be an occasion of joy and communion, uniting people deeply.

Storytelling bridges the generational gaps in ideology.

We're never going to have respectful and reverential relationships with the planet- and sensible policies about what we put in the air, the soil, the water - if very young children don't begin learning about these things literally in their houses, backyards, streets and schools. We need to have human beings who are oriented that way from their earliest memories.

When three generations are present in a family, one of them is bound to be revolutionary.

Fasting and feasting are universal human responses, and any meal, shared with love, can be an agape.

For the real difference between happiness and joy is that one is grounded in this world, the other in eternity. Happiness cannot encompass suffering and evil. Joy can. Happiness depends on the present. Joy leaps into the future and triumphantly creates a new present out of it.

We must look towards societies that set a high value on nonaggression and noncompetitive ness, and therefore handle conflicts by nonviolent means. We can see how child rearing patterns produce nurturing adult behaviors.

The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things.

Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyous words in the language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying.

I have long been convinced that families are the primary agents of social change in any society.

War is not inherent in human beings. We learn war and we learn peace. The culture of peace is something which is learned, just as violence is learned and war culture is learned.

There is no time left for anything but to make peace work a dimension of our every waking activity.

Why is it that we are born remembering, and live forgetting?

Peace cultures thrive on and are nourished by visions of how things might be, in a world where sharing and caring are part of the accepted lifeways for everyone.