Peace is a nursing-mother to the land. Hesiod, Works and Days, c 700 B.C
They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. Micah, IV, 3, c. 700 B.C.
Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. Proverbs III, 17, c. 350 B.C.
Peace becomes mankind; fury is for beasts. Ovid, Ars amatoria, III, c. 2, B.C.
If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Romans, XII, 18, c. 55
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. Matthew, 34, c. 75
They make a solitude and call it peace. Ascribed to Calgacus, a Caledonian chief defeated by the Romans under Julius Agricola, c. 85
Peace is our final good. St. Augustine, The City of God, xv, 427
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife.
--Shakespeare, Othello, III, 1604
The first and fundamental law of nature . . . is to seek peace and follow it. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, I, 1651
That it may please thee to give to all nations unity, peace, and concord, we beseech thee to hear us, good Lord. The Book of Common Prayer, 1601.
'Tis safest making peace with sword in hand. George Farquhar, Love and a Bottle, V, 1699
Peace implies reconciliation. Edmund Burke, Speech on Conciliation, March 22, 1775
When will the world know that peace and propagation are the two most delightful things in it? Horace Walpole, Letter to Horace Mann, July 7,1778
Peace is seldom denied to the peaceful. J.C.F. Schiller, Wilhelm Tell, I, 1804
If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon-shots. Napoleon I: To the Czar Alexander at Tilsit, June 22, 1807
The war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
In the parliament of man, the federation of the world.
--Alfred Tennyson, Locksley Hall, 1842
Buried was the bloody hatchet;
Buried was the dreadful war-club;
Buried were all warlike weapons,
And the war-cry was forgotten,
Then was peace among the nations.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hiawatha, XIII, 1855
Peace is better than a place in history. Justo Pastor Benitez, Foreign Minister of Paraguay, 1935
Source: Mencken, Dictionary of Quotations
