Quotes About Violence

All violence is injustice. Responding to violence with violence is injustice, not only to the other person but also to oneself. Responding to violence with violence resolves nothing; it only escalates violence, anger and hatred. It is only with compassion that we can embrace and disintegrate violence. This is true in relationships between individuals as well as in relationships between nations.

Non-violence and cowardice are contradictory terms. Non-violence is the greatest virtue, cowardice the greatest vice. Non-violence springs from love, cowardice from hate. Non-violence always suffers, cowardice would always inflict suffering. Perfect non-violence is the highest bravery. Non-violent conduct is never demoralising; cowardice always is.

Domestic violence can be so easy for people to ignore, as it often happens without any witnesses and it is sometimes easier not to get involved. Yet, by publicly speaking out against domestic violence, together we can challenge attitudes towards violence in the home and show that domestic violence is a crime and not merely unacceptable.

I've always been terrified of violence which is probably why I keep making violent films - I'm trying to exorcise some demons or something. My mum ended up bringing me up on the edge of a big estate in south London, so I was on the periphery of violence - a lot of football violence and stuff because I was a Millwall supporter. So I've always had a very healthy fear of it, yet at the same time a fascination. I think in all of my films that's a really strong subtext... people who are terrified by violence but are yet compelled by it as well.

I will not tire of declaring that if we really want an effective end to violence we must remove the violence that lies at the root of all violence: structural violence, social injustice, exclusion of citizens from the management of the country, repression. All this is what constitutes the primal cause, from which the rest flows naturally.

Personally, I can't stand violence. In any standard American mainstream movie, there's 20 times more violence than in any one of my films, so I don't know why those directors aren't asked why they're such specialists for violence.

I've never trained anyone that I haven't known as a child. I knew Kirkland when he was 12. Every one of them I started training when they were kids. This is not about just the fight game for me. It is a sport for troubled children that are drawn to violence and that type of life. Boxing has that violence part in it, but it also has structure and dedication and the whole nine yards. You get that little bit of violence that you were drawn towards, but it can save a lot of kids.

May the God of peace arouse in all an authentic desire for dialogue and reconciliation. Violence cannot be overcome with violence. Violence is overcome with peace.

We were raised with that discussion about violence and non-violence, and we all pretty much came up on the side of non-violence. That became my foundation with politics and my livelihood.

Preliminary research-most of it published outside the medical literature-indicates that a significant number of our patients have experienced some form of violence and abuse during their lifetime, including elder abuse, child abuse, gang-related violence, sexual abuse, and domestic violence.

He had heard her say, so many times, that a society that approved of making abortion illegal was a society that approved of violence against women; that making abortion illegal was simply a sanctimonious, self-righteous form of violence against women- it was just another way of legalizing violence against women, Nurse Caroline would say.

Just as one must learn the art of killing in the training for violence, so one must learn the art of dying in the training for non-violence. Violence does not mean the emancipation from fear, but discovering the means of combating the cause of fear. Nonviolence, on the other hand, has no cause for fear. The votary of nonviolence has to cultivate the capacity for sacrifice of the highest type in order to be free from fear. He recks not if he should lose his land, his wealth, his life.

Democracy is an imperfect way of steering between the violence of anarchy and the violence of tyranny, with the least violence you can get away with.

War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing... but controlled and purposeful violence.

For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is a slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.

I think it's likely that the civilizing effect of literature has done most of the work, and still continues to do. Look at Steven Pinker's book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. It proves beyond any shadow of doubt that violence has declined dramatically throughout the centuries. There are various reasons for it: the rise of the state, Leviathan, the monopoly of violence, children's rights, animal rights. They're all positive signs.

The vision I see is not only a movement of direct democracy, of self- and co-determination and non-violence, but a movement in which politics means the power to love and the power to feel united on the spaceship Earth... In a world struggling in violence and dishonesty, the further development of non-violence - not only as a philosophy but as a way of life, as a force on the streets, in the market squares, outside the missile bases, inside the chemical plants and inside the war industry - becomes one of the most urgent priorities.

Some studies have shown close to 70 percent of men who are in prison have one of two things in common: One, they can't read. And two, they witnessed violence or were victims of violence as a child. You would think that if you had seen your mother get beaten when you were 10 years old, you'd never raise your hand to a woman. Not true. The prospect that you will increases dramatically if you witness violence. So it's so much bigger than just about women. It's about our society. It's about our culture. It's about who the hell we are.

Peace is not just the mere absence of violence or disturbance. It's when there is a possibility of conflict, but you deliberately avoid violence and adopt methods to solve the problem through peaceful means. That is real peace.

The violence perpetrated by men against women must stop - and it's up to men to stop it. It is up to men to speak up and step in when they witness violence against women, and it is up to men to condemn the indefensible actions of the few and assert the will of the many.

I like violence because I like looking at it and I like understanding emotional and physical violence and how they work with one another... It's operating in all these levels of hopefully - Oedipus is one of my favorite stories, that's like falling down a well when you read that - so that would be the hope, that each thing causes the next.

Government and state can never be perfect because they owe their raison d'être to the imperfection of man and can attain their end, the elimination of man's innate impulse to violence, only by recourse to violence, the very thing they are called upon to prevent.

You can't answer violence with counter violence ... The answer is love. The best sabotage is love.

If there is violence, it will certainly be crushed because violence can only end in a disgraceful rout.

The schools play an important role when it comes down to protecting children against violence.Violence is one of the principal reasons why children don't go to school. It's also one of the causes of the alarming school dropout rates.

It is through truth & non-violence that I can have some glimpse of God. Truth & non-violence are my God. They are the obverse and reverse of the same coin.

No other form of violence is legitimate. It is never acceptable to use violence to solve a problem. Whether personal or political.

Every reform by violence is to be deprecated, because it does little to correct the evil while men remain as they are, and because wisdom has no need of violence.

To end the crisis [of gun violence], we have to regulate -or, in the case of handguns and assault weapons, completely ban -the product. We are far past the [point] where registration, licensing, safety training, background checks, or waiting periods will have much effect on firearms violence.

Obviously these conditions [violence, poverty] predate the [Barack] Obama presidency and the president has limited ways to dent this violence. But funding war weapons in cities, as opposed to more community policing, is not the solution.

In the secret of my heart I am in perpetual quarrel with God that He should allow such things [as the war] to go on. My non-violence seems almost impotent. But the answer comes at the end of the daily quarrel that neither God nor non-violence is impotent. Impotence is in men. I must try on without losing faith even though I may break in the attempt.

The most dangerous thing I've ever encountered was a run-in with Boko Haram around 2007 in a small town in Nigeria. I got caught along with the photographer I was working with, the same one I worked with on the Afghanistan book, Seamus Murphy. We were caught in an attack by a mob after Friday prayers. And the level of violence was so extreme. It was more violent than any other mob violence I have ever seen.

In Chicago, which has the toughest gun laws in the United States, probably you could say by far, they have more gun violence than any other city. So we have the toughest laws, and you have tremendous gun violence.

Firstly, as a Buddhist monk, I hold that violence is not good. Secondly, I am a firm believer in the Gandian ethic of passive resistance. And thirdly, in reality, violence is not our strength.

If you love with violence and you hate with violence, there's nothing that can be questioned. People say, 'Oh, you'd better work through your resentments.' Yeah, no. I'm gonna hang on to them, and they're gonna fuel my attack. And they're going to fuel the battle cry of my deadly and dangerous and secret and silent soldiers. Because they're all around you. Sorry, you thought you were just messing with one dude. Winning.

History has different yardsticks for the cruelty of the Northerners and the cruelty of the Southerners in the Civil War. A slave-owner who through cunning and violence shackles a slave in chains, and a slave who through cunning or violence breaks the chains – let not the contemptible eunuchs tell us that they are equals before a court of morality!

Mental violence is as bad as physical violence. You don't see that very often in movies, so it was a good subject to tackle.

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.

The Violence Against Women Act protects the lives of tens of thousands of domestic violence victims. But the U.S. must also support gender equality around the world, and that means acknowledging that some nations we consider to be our friends are no friends to women.

Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.

We are spectators to violence, and therefore are, how well we don't know and make sure we don't know the difference of real violence to that of simulation.

I'm far from believing that we've solved the problem of violence in the 20th century and that's why I'm not discouraged that we still have the Biafras and the Northern Irelands and the East Pakistans and, for that matter, violence in American or Canadian cities.

He who trusts has never yet lost in the world. A suspicious man is lost to himself and the eworld.... Suspicion is of the brood of violence. Non-violence cannot but trust.

When we speak about a culture of violence in the American society, we're not just talking about the mass killers. We're also talking about that we, as a society, and many of us as individuals accept violence as part of life because we have become numb to it, being so exposed to it in various forms of media.

The natives of England are closing their doors to relationships with Asians and Africans or, for that matter, Turks and Spaniards. While the Africans and Asians on their part are increasingly closing their doors too and resentment at both sides is increasing. This trend can be dangerous. It can lead, sooner or later, to violence - even in this country, which is traditionally an opponent of violence.

Obviously, there are political operatives that are playing a role. It doesn't mean it shouldn't be denounced. All candidates should say, we want to have - be able to have nonviolent, peaceful speaking events. Do not hurt people, do not hit. Do not break the law, no one is encouraging violence. That's what should be stated very clearly. Denounce any violence that occurs. Be honest to say exactly also, what is behind this. They are trying to elicit and produce a specific response to try to discredit and to paint Donald Trump in a particular light. That is - that's what's happening.

The world is ruled by violence, or at least the imminent threat of violence. It always has been.

Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.