peace 2

Nothing can bring
you peace but yourself.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

   

Each of us seeks peace of mind, but we sometimes fear that it
means giving up excitement and ecstasy.  Peace sounds like
contentment, which sounds like settling, letting the fire go out.
Actually, peace of mind allows you to go more deeply into the
world and consequently to experience more excitement and ecstasy.
The fire burns brighter, fueled by awareness instead of anxiety.

Jennifer James

     

No one can get inner peace by pouncing on it, by vigorously willing to have it. 
Peace is a margin of power around our daily need. 
Peace is a consciousness of springs too deep for earthly droughts to dry up. 
Peace is the gift not of volitional struggle but of spiritual hospitality.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

   

Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace.

the Buddha
  
  
Peace is such a precious jewel that I would give anything for it but truth.

Matthew Henry

   

Only those to whom God is present in everything and who employ
their reason in the highest degree and have true enjoyment in it know
anything of true peace and have a real kingdom of heaven.

Meister Eckhart

   

Nothing can produce so great a serenity of life as a mind free
from guilt and kept untainted, not only from actions, but purposes
that are wicked.  By this means the soul will be not only unpolluted
but also undisturbed.  The fountain will run clear and unsullied.

Plutarch

   
   
   

We spend most of our time and energy in a kind of horizontal thinking.
We move along the surface of things going from one quick base to another,
often with a frenzy that wears us out. We collect data, things, people, ideas,
"profound experiences," never penetrating any of them. . . .
But there are other times. There are times when we stop.
We lose ourselves in a pile of leaves or its memory.
We listen and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper.

James Carroll

   

Quiet minds cannot be perplexed
or frightened, but go on in fortune
or misfortune at their own
private pace, like a clock
during a thunderstorm.

Robert Louis Stevenson
  
  
All our miseries derive from not
being able to sit in a quiet room alone.

Blaise Pascal

   

Whatever peace I know rests in the natural world,
in feeling myself a part of it, even in a small way.


May Sarton

   
Matthew Arnold counted as the greatest single line in all poetry
that saying of Dante's poetic insight: "In Thy will is our peace."

Philemon F. Sturges
    

   

Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large
areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and
to reflect it towards others.  And the more peace there is
in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.

Etty Hillesum

   

The most common use of the word peace is as the opposite of war.
This is understandable but unfortunate.  Peace is not just the opposite
of violence or turmoil but has a whole register of meanings all its own.
The peace of a quiet landscape nurtures us.  A calm moment to ourselves
renews our energies. Interior peace energizes us; exterior peace gives us direction.
A gentle sun, a calm ocean, the loving smile of a friend--all of these give us peace.
We are sustained in a sweet aerie of calm.
   The opposite of peace is war, but so are agitation, anxiety, and violence.

Edward J. Lavin, S.J.

   
The surface of life is also in a state of constant flux, with good days and bad, victory and defeat. To maintain, as the ocean does, a deep inner calm, while the storms of misfortune, reverses, fears and worries lash at the surface
of life, is to discover the secret of serenity.
   Years ago, when Thomas Edison's factory burned down, he wasted no time bemoaning his fate. Immediately after the disaster the reporters found a calm, quiet man already at work on plans for a new building.
   When Emerson's home was destroyed by fire and his precious books were being reduced to ashes, Louisa May Alcott came to console him. The great philosopher said, "Yes, yes, Louisa, they are all gone, but let us enjoy the blaze now. Isn't it beautiful!"
   Some people are ocean personalities. In their inner depths they are not defeated by what happens to them.
   The towering waves of circumstances cannot reach us when we go deep within to seek the peace that passes all understanding. While the surface of life is in turmoil we can find an inner calmness to see us through.

Wilferd A. Peterson

   

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.

Indira Gandhi

   

   

Lord, thou madest us for thyself, and we
can find no rest till we find rest in thee.

St. Augustine

All people desire peace; few desire
the things which make for peace.

Anon

   

peace 2

Calm soul of all things! make it mine
To feel, amid the city's jar,
That there abides a peace of thine,
Man did not make, and cannot mar!

The will to neither strive nor cry,
The power to feel what others give!
Calm, calm me more! nor let me die
Before I have begun to live.

Matthew Arnold

   

To be glad of life, because it gives you the chance to love and to work
and to play and to look up to the stars; to be satisfied with your possessions,
but not contented with yourself until you have made the best of them;
to despise nothing in the world except falsehood and meanness,
and to fear nothing except cowardice; to be governed by your admirations
rather than by your disgusts; to covet nothing that is your neighbors'
except their kindness of heart and gentleness of manners;
to think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends
and every day of Christ; and to spend as much time as you can
with body and spirit, in God's out-of-doors--
these are the little guideposts on the footpath of peace.

Henry van Dyke

    

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If you do not find peace in yourself,
you will never find it anywhere else.

Paula A. Bendry

   

Thinking about interior peace destroys
interior peace.  The patients who
constantly feel their pulse are
not getting any better.

Hubert van Zeller

In truth, to attain to interior peace,
one must be willing to pass through
the contrary to peace.

Swami Brahmananda

    
    
There may be those on earth who dress better or eat better,
but those who enjoy the peace of God sleep better.

L. Thomas Holdcroft
    

We have no freer or quieter place to which we may retire than into our own souls,
particularly when we have within us such thoughts that by looking into them we are
immediately in perfect tranquility. And I affirm that tranquility is nothing else
than the good ordering of the mind.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

   
   

Peace is not something you fight for
With bombs and missiles that kill,
Nor can it be won in a "battle of words"
One fashions by scheming and skill
For those who are greedy and warlike,
Whose avarice for power cannot cease,
Can never contribute in helping
To bring this world nearer to peace
For in seeking peace for all people
There is only one place to begin
And that is in each home and heart--
For the fortress of peace is within!

Helen Steiner Rice

   

Inner peace is not found by staying on the surface of life, or by attempting
to escape from life through any means.  Inner peace is found by facing life
squarely, solving its problems, and delving as far beneath the surface as
possible to discover its verities and realities.

Peace Pilgrim

   

There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace.
You will find that deep place of silence right in your room,
your garden or even your bathtub.

Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross

     

First keep peace within yourself,
then you can also bring peace to others.

Thomas à Kempis

   
    

   

When I think of peace, I think of a world where human beings are no longer brutalized on account of such accidents of birth as sex, race, religion, or nationality. For me, peace is a way of structuring human relations where daily acts of kindness and caring are tangibly rewarded. It is a way of thinking, feeling, and acting where our essential interconnection with one another is truly honored.

I pray for a world where we live in partnership rather than domination; where "man's conquest of nature" is recognized as suicidal and sacrilegious; where power is no longer equated with the blade, but with the holy chalice: the ancient symbol of the power to give, nurture, enhance life. And I not only pray, but actively work, for the day when it will be so.

Riane Eisler

peace 2

O God, grant us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed;
the courage to change what can be changed;
and the wisdom to know one from the other.

Reinhold Niebuhr
  

After a quarter of a century of personal experience and professional
observation, I have come to understand that peace of mind is the true goal
of the considered life.  I know now that the sum of all other possessions
does not necessarily add up to peace of mind; on the other hand, I have
seen this inner tranquility flourish without the material supports of property
or even the buttress of physical health.  Peace of mind can transform a
cottage into a spacious manor hall; the want of it can make a regal
residence an imprisoning shell.

Joshua Loth Lieberman