Peter Maurer Quotes

Conflict is the beginning of consciousness.

Half of all civil wars are post conflict relapses.

Not enough countries, not enough armies, not enough armed groups are abiding by the fundamental human values enshrined in the Geneva Conventions.

I think we are challenged in how we define humanitarian action today and how we relate to long-term needs. We are also confronted with legitimate expectations from the people who want us to respond far more thoroughly to their basic pleas than we would have done in a much more contained form of conflict.

Abuse of human rights and international law demand resolution - whoever is responsible.

My only goal ever in a fight was to go in there and create chaos. Now, I want to control the chaos that hate's created. I want to fight in the right spots.

The first question is something immediate -- and immediately, we need humanitarian aid to be allowed into the Sudan before it becomes the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.

When human rights are systematically abused, it raises the question whether it may be legitimate in some circumstances for the international community to intervene within individual states as well as in conflicts between states.

War makes strange giant creatures out of us little routine men who inhabit the earth.

People do not want words - they want the sound of battle - the battle of destiny.

We wanted this war and now we've got it, and I'm not sure that we know what to do with it.

In the midst of fighting there is no place for public debate.

I'm interested in conflict and confrontation.

The only foreign policy advice I heard from China was when they said to Sudan, 'Don't go back to war.' That's all they said. They didn't push anything else.

There is a need to take advantage of the change that has taken place in the Congo, however tragic that has been in its coming.

There are no warlike people - just warlike leaders.

The main force used in the evolving world of humanity has hitherto been applied in the form of war.

Reconciliations are for after the violence has ended.

Reasoned arguments and suggestions which make allowance for the full difficulties of the state of war that exists may help, and will always be listened to with respect and sympathy.

The stakes in conflict do not change. Battle determines who will control the wealth or its equivalent.

You never want conflict. But sometimes conflict is inevitable.

The change began in Somalia, where we discovered that we were involved in an operation where there was no peace, so there was no more a peacekeeping operation because there was no peace.

Every State has the primary duty to protect its own population from grave and sustained violations of human rights, as well as from the consequences of humanitarian crises, whether natural or man-made.

All the aftermath that so frequently follows in the wake of war still confront the nation, and we now, as ever before, must hold fast to the ancient landmarks and see to it that all of these plagues that threaten so mightily shall be rendered harmless.

if you allow…for a civil war to happen between the Shiites and the Sunnis, Iraq is finished forever. It will be dismembered. It will not only be dismembered, it will cause so many conflicts in the region that it will bring the whole region into a turmoil that will be hard to resolve