Why is it that countries which we call strong are so powerful in creating wars but are so weak in bringing peace? Why is it that giving guns is so easy but giving books is so hard? Why is it, why is it that making tanks is so easy, but building schools is so hard?
If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere, what would it say and why?
Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.
Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, 4 February 1968 source ↗
Others on this question
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Malala Yousafzai
Education campaigner; co-founder of the Malala Fund; United Nations Messenger of Peace
Peter Doherty
Veterinary surgeon and immunologist; Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 1996
I share Alfred Nobel's conviction that war is the greatest of all human disasters. Infectious disease runs a good second.
Recorded
Laureate-written autobiography for Les Prix Nobel, Nobel Prize Outreach, 1 December 1996
source ↗
Jimmy Carter
39th President of the United States, 1977–1981; Governor of Georgia 1971–1975
War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.
Angela Merkel
Chancellor of Germany, 2005–2021; Leader of the Christian Democratic Union 2000–2018
Tear down walls of ignorance and narrow-mindedness, for nothing has to stay as it is.
Recorded
Tercentenary Theatre, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, The Harvard Gazette, Harvard University, 30 May 2019
source ↗
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