Lao Tzu Quotes

I don't think anyone should grow up wanting to go around killing people. I don't think anyone should grow up wanting to be a secret agent.

It is not right to exult over slain men.

War would end if the dead could return.

Do you not see, first, that - as a mental abstract - physical force is directly opposed to morality; and secondly, that it practically drives out of existence the moral forces?

In the ever-evolving society we live in, it is the responsibility of all of us, as individuals and as Americans, to rid ourselves of this culture of violence.

We can't afford to be killing one another.

Even in war, everyone deserves to be treated humanely.

It is the law of love that rules mankind. Had violence, i.e. hate, rules us we would have become extinct long ago. And yet, the tragedy of it is that the so-called civilised men and nations conduct themselves as if the basis of society was violence.

The main goal of the future is to stop violence. The world is addicted to it.

I know that war and mayhem run in our blood. I refuse to believe that they must dominate our lives. We humans are animals, too, but animals with amazing powers of rationality, morality, society. We can use our strength and courage not to savage each other, but to defend our highest purposes.

What is more immoral than war?

Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?

Until we have created a romance of peace that would equal that of war, violence will not disappear from people's lives.

As a person, I'm anti-violence.

All that violence in the world, we need to stop that.

We live in a world of guns, bombs and terror. To conquer hate seems a nigh-impossible task.

War is idiocy. We live on a small, small planet, and what we do to others is what we do to ourselves.

War is a beastly business, it is true, but one proof we are human is our ability to learn, even from it, how better to exist.

I want to be optimistic because I don't think man is intrinsically violent.

It is my contention that most people are not mugged every day, that most people in this world do not encounter violence every day. I think we prepare people for violence, and I think just as importantly we prepare people for the definition of being gentle.

The cause of violence is not ignorance. It is self-interest. Only reverance can restrain violence - reverance for human life and the environment.

No society that feeds its children on tales of successful violence can expect them not to believe that violence in the end is rewarded

No doubt it requires two to fight. But both of them need not necessarily be fighters. It is, all the same, a fight, even if one goes on beating and the other gets beaten. There is no guarantee that others would behave properly with us even if we remain peaceful and cordial with them.

The right things to do are those that keep our violence in abeyance; the wrong things are those that bring it to the fore.

It is my contention that most people are not mugged every day, that most people in this world do not encounter violence every day. I think we prepare people for violence, and I think it just as important that we prepare people for the definition of being gentle. ... for so many years gentle has been equated with weakness but it requires more strength to be gentle. So it's the every day encounters of life that I think we prepare children for and prepare them to be good to other people and to consider other people.