We must try to develop a more compassionate attitude and reduce hatred or ill feeling toward one another. That is something like inner disarmament. At the same time, external disarmament and internal disarmament should go together side by side. Internal and external disarmament in a combined way, step by step can change the world; the world can be safer, more peaceful, more harmonious. Then the world surely can become a happy human home.

HH the Dalai Lama, October, 1999

The most unskillful response to fear is when, perceiving dangers to our own life and property, we believe that we can gain strength and security by destroying the lives and property of others. The delusion pervading our fear makes us lose perspective. If other people (or countries) were to act in this way, we would know that they are wrong. But somehow, when we feel threatened, our standards change, our perspective warps, so that wrong seems right as long as we’re the ones doing it.

"Freedom from Fear," by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

 Let us pray for miracles of peace in the world.

 Let us bring forth miracles of peace.

 Let us be miracles of peace.

 from text for "Ah Nagasaki," a choral symphony being composed by Robert Kyr to be presented to the citizens of Nagasaki in August 2005 (by way of Kazuaki Tanahashi)

All tremble at violence,

Life is dear to all.

Comparing others with oneself

One should neither kill nor cause others to kill. 

 ~Dhammapada v. 130 

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism and militarisms ... We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace and justice throughout the world. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter -- but beautiful -- struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons and daughters of God.

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.