Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes

The problem with revenge is that it never evens the score. It ties both the injured and the injurer to an escalator of pain. Both are stuck on the escalator as long as parity is demanded, and the escalator never stops.

When you say something really unkind, when you do something in retaliation your anger increases. You make the other person suffer, and he will try hard to say or to do something back to get relief from his suffering. That is how conflict escalates.

An eye for an eye only leads to more blindness.

Answer a violent action with another action still more violent.

The reason I can't follow the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy is that it ends up leaving everyone blind.

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.

In moments of pain, we seek revenge.

Answer violence with violence. If one of us falls today, five of them must fall tomorrow.

An eye for any eye makes the whole world blind.

Some day we may be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our children, but we will never forgive them for making us kill some of theirs.

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.

Force does not heal old wounds; it opens new ones.

Injustice begets injustice.

We do have to retaliate but the problem is that every retaliation produces a counter-retaliation…

Violence is a great breeder of violence.

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.

It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge.

Violence does not resolve. It always leads to more violence.

You must understand that if you indulge in revenge exclusively, it will come back to you, because those who are revenged upon - even if the whole world believes they deserve it - will in some way express exactly what was expressed towards them. Why perpetuate suffering, no matter how justified it may seem to be, if it only perpetuates suffering in the future for future generations?

An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.

The potential beauty of human life is constantly made ugly by man's ever recurring song of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever rising tides of revenge. Man has never risen above the injunction of the lex talionis: "Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." In spite of the fact that the law of revenge solves no social problems, men continue to follow its disastrous leading. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path.

We can forgive you for killing our children, but we can never forgive you for making us kill your children.

Silence is the tortured man's revenge.

The problem with revenge is that it never gets what it wants; it never evens the score. Fairness never comes. The chain reaction set off by every act of vengeance always takes its unhindered course. It ties both the injured and the injurer to an escalator of pain...Why do family feuds go on and on?...the reason is simple: no two people, no two families, ever weigh pain on the same scale.

If a person offends you, and you are in doubt as to whether it was intentional or not, do not resort to extreme measures; simply watch your chance, and hit him with a brick.