The only thing that's been a worse flop than the organization of non-violence has been the organization of violence.

You may not know it, but at the far end of despair, there is a white clearing where one is almost happy.

Action is the antidote to despair.

The only thing that's been a worse flop than the organization of non-violence has been the organization of violence.

You don't get to choose how you are going to die or when. You can only decide how you're going to live.

Nonviolence is a flop. The only bigger flop is violence.

I've never had a humble opinion. If you've got an opinion, why be humble about it?

Hypothetical questions get hypothetical answers.

That's all nonviolence is - organized love.

Instead of getting hard ourselves and trying to compete, women should try and give their best qualities to men - bring them softness, teach them how to cry.

It seems to me that those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do with the writing of them. The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on the page.

The easiest kind of relationship for me is with ten thousand people. The hardest is with one.

If it's natural to kill, how come men have to go into training to learn how?

As we know, forgiveness of oneself is the hardest of all the forgivenesses.

During the 'ballad' years for me, the politics was latent; I was just falling in love with the ballads and my boyfriend. And there was the beauty of the songs.

I didn't go through the routine of singing in small clubs and doing open mics and working so hard the way a lot of people do and did. It was just an overnight kind of thing.

I have hope in people, in individuals. Because you don't know what's going to rise from the ruins.

I see a young man playing 'Plaisir d'Amour' on guitar. I knew I didn't want to go to college; I was already playing a ukulele, and after I saw that, I was hooked. All I wanted to do was play guitar and sing.

I think music has the power to transform people, and in doing so, it has the power to transform situations - some large and some small.

I've never been an optimist.

If people have to put labels on me, I'd prefer the first label to be human being, the second label to be pacifist, and the third to be folk singer.

Mostly what I listen to when I turn on my little iPod is opera.

Someone had to change the world. And obviously I was the one for the job.

The foundation of my beliefs is the same as it was when I was 10. Non-violence.

The hardest song to write is a protest song, a topical song with meaning.

The longer you practice nonviolence and the meditative qualities of it that you will need, the more likely you are to do something intelligent in any situation.

We were raised with that discussion about violence and non-violence, and we all pretty much came up on the side of non-violence. That became my foundation with politics and my livelihood.

You don't get to choose how you're going to die, or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.

Noise is an imposition on sanity, and we live in very noisy times.

A fair observer only has to ask: If there is violence, who profits?

I wanted to make the violence beautiful in order to heighten our revulsion.

We shall not yield to violence. We shall not be deprived of union freedoms. We shall never agree with sending people to prison for their convictions.

I was grateful for the opportunity to make a difference. The political violence really started in 1970-1971. The political difficulties start a little bit beyond that.

Our job as writers and thinkers in the time is how to bring about the occasions that let people have that first-person experience - or the metaphoric experience that allows them to see human continuity as opposed to total threat, total willingness to do violence.

Kids shouldn't see all the violence they do these days. But the industry just doesn't care.

I found a religion that blended scientific reason with spiritual reality in a unifying faith far removed from the headlines of violence, destruction and terrorism.

The violence betwen women is unbelievable. Women try to make each other crawl so that their knees are bleeding.

Violence is for mugs. War is for mugs.

I think there's a natural system in your own head about how much violence the scene warrants. It's not an intellectual process, it's an instinctive process.

Violence is a tool of the ignorant.

I think movies glamorize violence, in the sense that they make it in a way that it's either cool or funny.

But transitions from the politics of violence to democratic compromise are always messy.

While the vast majority of hackers may be disinclined towards violence, it would only take a few to turn cyber terrorism into reality.

Poverty is the worst form of violence.

The drop of rain maketh a hole in the stone, not by violence, but by oft falling.

Random violence is incredibly infectious.

I think the suffering, violence and cruelty and Guantanamo and the rest is going to go on and on in Iraq.

Violence is always the last option, but if that time comes, it is the ONLY option.

God hates violence. He has ordained that all men fairly possess their property, not seize it.