Quotes about Coexistence

No doubt it was necessary to civilize man in relation to man. That work is already advanced and is making progress every day. But man must be civilized also in relation to nature.

I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another.

We have no right to prejudice another in his civil enjoyments because he is of another church.

It seems clear, from reading the daily news if nothing else, that there will always be some in this world who want their holy wars, who will discriminate, vilify, and even kill in the name of God. They have narrowed down the concept of neighbor to include only those like themselves, in terms of creed, caste, race, sex, or sexual orientation. But there is also much evidence that there are many who know that a neighbor might be anyone at all, and are willing to act on that assumption.

Living with people at close range over many years, as both monastics and small-town people do, is much more difficult than wearing a hair shirt. More difficult, too, I would add, than holding to the pleasant but unrealistic ideal of human perfectibility that seems to permeate much New Age thinking.

The polarization that characterizes so much of American life is risky business in a church congregation, but especially so in a monastic community. The person you're quick to label and dismiss as a racist, a homophobe, a queer, an anti-Semite, a misogynist, a bigoted conservative or bleeding-heart liberal is also a person you're committed to live, work, pray, and dine with for the rest of your life.

There is a science of war, but how strange that there isn't a science of peace. There are colleges of war; why can't we study peace?

Peace is more than just an absence of war. True peace is justice, true peace is freedom, and true peace dictates the recognition of human rights.

Humanity should question itself, once more, about the absurd and always unfair phenomenon of war.

War and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers.

There are a mix of good and bad people everywhere, be it Punjab, Delhi or Haryana.

I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace.