Non-Retaliation Quotes

What should a wise person do when given a blow? Same as Cato when he was attacked; not fire up or revenge the insult., or even return the blow, but simply ignore it.

The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the wrong-doer.

Not only do I never lie, I never respond to lies, no matter how vicious, no matter how hurtful.

If you turn the other cheek, you will get a harder blow on it than you got on the first one. This does not always happen, but it is to be expected, and you ought not to complain if it does happen.

Die fearlessly at the hands of your neighbors without fighting back to shame Muslims by your moral example..

One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him.

Love your enemy. But don't forget he is not your friend

Even when people act nastily to you, don't condemn them or retaliate.

The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.

Abuse if you slight it, will gradually die away; but if you show yourself irritated, you will be thought to have deserved it.

I grew up under the sticks and stones rule. I didn't put my hands on you so why should you put your hands on me or my family.

So when Jesus says "Love your enemies," he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition.

Thank God I've always avoided persecuting my enemies.

The offender needs pity, not wrath; those who must needs be corrected, should be treated with tact and gentleness; and one must be always ready to learn better. 'The best kind of revenge is, not to become like unto them.'

The best manner of avenging ourselves is by not resembling him who injured us; and it is hardly possible for one man to be more unlike another than he that forbears to avenge himself of wrong is to him who did the wrong.

That's the secret of Jesus. You watch Jesus and you see he never did "withdraw" and then "attack." All of the time people wanted him to do it and in many ways, but he would not. Then to the body of believers he said, "This will show everyone that you are my disciples, if you love one another," but he had already said, "Love one another as I have loved you." So that's the model.

It won't mean you're weak if you turn the other cheek.

Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it.

Democracies that have achieved military victory ought to refrain from seeking revenge.

Merely to resist evil with evil by hating those who hate us and seeking to destroy them, is actually no resistance at all. It is active and purposeful collaboration in evil that brings the Christian into direct and intimate contact with the same source of evil and hatred which inspires the acts of his enemy. It leads in practice to a denial of Christ and to the service of hatred rather than love.

I must oppose any attempt that Negroes may make to do to others what has been done to them. . . . I know the spiritual wasteland to which that road leads . . . whoever debases others is debasing himself.

Jesus never mistreated anyone just because they mistreated Him. He confronted them in a spirit of gentleness and then continued to love them.

Bless them that persecute you.' If our enemy cannot put up with us any longer and takes to cursing us, our immediate reaction must be to lift up our hands and bless him. Our enemies are the blessed of the Lord. Their curse can do us no harm. May their poverty be enriched with all the riches of God, with the blessing of Him whom they seek to oppose in vain. We are ready to endure their curses so long as they redound to their blessing.

It is never right to do wrong or to requite wrong with wrong, or when we suffer evil to defend ourselves by doing evil in return.