Nonviolence is the use of peaceful means, not force, to bring about political or social change.

1. I plan to demonstrate nonviolence through napping.
Anonymous

2. All my experiments in Ahimsa have taught me that nonviolence in practice means common labour with the body.
Mahatma Gandhi

3. All society is held together by nonviolence even as the earth is held in her position by gravitation.
Mahatma Gandhi

4. An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so. Now the law of nonviolence says that violence should be resisted not by counter-violence but by nonviolence. This I do by breaking the law and by peacefully submitting to arrest and imprisonment.
Mahatma Gandhi

5. Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is a monster that swallows it up.
Mahatma Gandhi

6. At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

7. At the centre of nonviolence is a force which is self-acting.
M. K. Gandhi

8. But nonviolence was never for the oppressor, it was for the oppressed.
Nikki Giovanni

9. Creation of effective public opinion depends on the cultivation of true courage, born of truthfulness and nonviolence.
Mahatma Gandhi

10. I am for violence if non-violence means we continue postponing a solution to the American black man's problem just to avoid violence.
Malcolm X

11. I do not hold to non-violence for moral reasons, but for political and practical reasons.
Aung San Suu Kyi

12. I hold that without truth and non-violence there can be nothing but destruction for humanity.
M. K. Gandhi

13. If we want to reap the harvest of peace and justice in the future, we will have to sow seeds of nonviolence, here and now, in the present.
Mairead Corrigan

14. In some cases non-violence requires more militancy than violence.
Cesar Chavez

15. It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.
Mahatma Gandhi

16. It is much more difficult to live for nonviolence than to die for it.
Mahatma Gandhi

17. Mahatma Gandhi was a man of peace and non-violence and lived by the Hindu principle of ahimsa, action based on refusal to do harm. As his war-strewn presidency shows, George Bush knows nothing about ahimsa and non-violence. Bush should reconsider this cynical, disrespectful display of symbolism.
Kevin Martin

18. My nonviolence is made of stern stuff. It is firmer than the firmest metal known to the scientists.
M. K. Gandhi

19. Non-violence and truth are inseparable and presuppose one another.
Mahatma Gandhi

20. Nonviolence being the mightiest force in the world and also the most elusive in its working, demands the greatest exercise of faith.
Mahatma Gandhi

21. Nonviolence does not require any outside or outward training.
Mahatma Gandhi

22. Nonviolence doesn't always work- but violence never does.
Madge Micheels-Cyrus

23. Nonviolence is a good policy when the conditions permit.
Nelson Mandela

24. Nonviolence is a plant of slow growth, it grows imperceptibly but surely.
Mahatma Gandhi

25. Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

26. Nonviolence is a universal principle and its operation is not limited by a hostile environment.
Mahatma Gandhi

27. Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong.
Mahatma Gandhi

28. Non-violence is an attribute of the soul and, therefore, to be practised by everybody in all the affairs of life.
M. K. Gandhi

29. Nonviolence is an unchangeable creed. It has to be pursued even in face of violence raging around you.
Mahatma Gandhi

30. Nonviolence is fine as long as it works.
Malcolm X

31. Nonviolence is not inaction. It is not discussion. It is not for the timid or weak. Nonviolence is hard work. It is the willingness to sacrifice. It is the patience to win.
Cesar E. Chavez

32. Non-violence is not inaction. It is not discussion. It is not for the timid or weak…Non-violence is hard work. It is the willingness to sacrifice. It is the patience to win.
Cesar Chavez

33. Nonviolence is not one option, it is the only reasonable option.
Anonymous

34. Nonviolence is not to be used ever as the shield of the coward. It is the weapon of brave.
Mahatma Gandhi

35. Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time the need for man to overcome oppression and violence.
Anonymous

36. Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

37. Non-violence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed.
Anonymous

38. Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.
Mahatma Gandhi

39. Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.
Thomas Edison

40. Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

41. Non-violence requires a double faith, faith in God and also faith in man.
Anonymous

42. Nowadays, as I write and speak on a wide variety of topics, this one subject – Jesus’ way of nonviolence – always generates the most controversy, and blisteringly so. Why is this? It is because we believe that violence can somehow save us; we believe that killing will prevent future killing; we simply trust the way of the gun more than we trust the words and way of Jesus.
Ronnie McBrayer

43. Peace equals ability to handle conflict, With empathy, nonviolence and creativity.
Johan Galtung

44. Respect for all living beings is non-violence.
Mahavir Swami

45. Science of nonviolence can alone lead one to pure democracy.
M. K. Gandhi

46. Silence and Self-control is non-violence.
Lord Mahavir

47. So, at the age of nine, I became a monk, and from then on I was there practicing that kind of nonviolence.
Satish Kumar

48. That's all nonviolence is -organized love.
Joan Baez

49. The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

50. The greatness of non-violent resistance is that even as man is faced with tyranny, and the resulting suffering, he responds to hate with love, to prejudice with tolerance, to arrogance with humility, to humiliation with dignity, and to violence with reason.
Liu Xia

51. The power of nonviolent resistance can only come from honest working of the constructive programme.
M. K. Gandhi

52. The real test of nonviolence lies in its being brought in contact with those who have contempt for it.
Mahatma Gandhi

53. The universe is not for man alone, but is a theater of evolution for all living beings. Live and let live is its guiding principle. ‘Ahimsa Paramo Dharmah’ – Non-injury is the highest religion.
Virchand Gandhi

54. There is no hope for the aching world except through the narrow and straight path of nonviolence.
Mahatma Gandhi

55. There is no such thing as defeat in non-violence.
Cesar Chavez

56. To me, truth is God and there is no way to find truth except the way of non-violence.
M. K. Gandhi

57. True non-violence is mightier than the mightiest violence.
M. K. Gandhi

58. Truth and Non-violence are as old as the hills.
M. K. Gandhi

59. We can make this a more peaceful century if we cherish non-violence and concern for others' well-being. It is possible.
Dalai Lama

60. We’re going to have this kind of vigorous protest. My hope is that it will be non-violent. I would hope that we can avoid riots because riots are self-defeating and socially destructive.
Martin Luther King jr

61. When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system’s game. The establishment will irritate you – pull your beard, flick your face – to make you fight. Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humor.
John Lennon

62. Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong.
Mahatma Gandhi

63. You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
Mahatma Gandhi