Dona Nobis Pacem

‘Dona nobis pacem’ means ‘grant us peace’. It’s the slogan of the annual Blog Blast for Peace, which takes place today, November 4.

I found out about this event from RWA chapter mate and blogger extraordinaire Julia Smith. It’s an opportunity for bloggers all over the world to raise their voices for peace. Participants post about peace on their blogs and fly a peace globe for the day.

There’s nothing I can say about peace that hasn’t already been said, so I’ve chosen a series of quotes on the subject. I hope you find them inspiring. I’ll leave you with Vince Gill’s version of ‘Let There Be Peace on Earth”.






War does not determine who is right - only who is left. ~Bertrand Russell

It'll be a great day when education gets all the money it wants and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy bombers. ~Author unknown, quoted in You Said a Mouthful edited by Ronald D. Fuchs

I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, "Mother, what was war?" ~Eve Merriam

The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker. ~Albert Einstein

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations. ~David Friedman

"There are no atheists in foxholes" isn't an argument against atheism, it's an argument against foxholes. ~James Morrow

Sometimes I think it should be a rule of war that you have to see somebody up close and get to know him before you can shoot him. ~M*A*S*H, Colonel Potter

If we do not end war - war will end us. Everybody says that, millions of people believe it, and nobody does anything. ~H.G. Wells, Things to Come (the "film story"), Part III, adapted from his 1933 novel The Shape of Things to Come, spoken by the character John Cabal (Thanks Bill!)

A great war leaves the country with three armies - an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves. ~German Proverb

The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living. ~Omar Bradley

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 16 April 1953

What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world. ~Robert E. Lee, letter to his wife, 1864

Everyone's a pacifist between wars. It's like being a vegetarian between meals. ~Colman McCarthy

Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education. Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both. ~Abraham Flexner

Draft beer, not people. ~Attributed to Bob Dylan

The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today. ~John F. Kennedy

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. ~Ernest Hemingway

You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. ~Jeanette Rankin

You are not going to get peace with millions of armed men. The chariot of peace cannot advance over a road littered with cannon. ~David Lloyd George

Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come. ~Carl Sandburg

In war, there are no unwounded soldiers. ~José Narosky

We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage. ~James Russell Lowell

If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war. ~Pentagon official explaining why the U.S. military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War

I have no doubt that we will be successful in harnessing the sun's energy.... If sunbeams were weapons of war, we would have had solar energy centuries ago. ~Sir George Porter, quoted in The Observer, 26 August 1973

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. ~Voltaire, War