Life is an adventure in forgiveness. (Norman Cousins)

The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world. (Marianne Williamson)

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it? (Eleanor Roosevelt)

No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we all are his accomplices. (Edward R. Murrow)

I truly believe that if the tables were turned and we were being exploited by invading force that our actions would mirror those of the "terrorists" "islamists" "insurgents", whatever we choose to call them. (Forum Member - EricChicago)

Hatred can spread like wildfire among people who live lives of poverty and desperation. As we seek justice by finding and putting terrorist leaders on trial, let us also demonstrate our compassion and share our freedom and abundant resources with those who have been oppressed by these same terrorists. Let us unite with all the people of the world, and leave terrorists devoid of followers who are eager to hate. This kind of war will indeed take a long time. And our children's children will thank us. Not for fighting for peace, but for demonstrating our strength and wisdom and compassion in the face of hate. (Laurie Simons - Seattle WA)

Every time someone around me cries for revenge and war [for 9-11], I try to explain that we are being manipulated into this behavior and are playing into the dark forces' hands. Who would we kill - civilians in another country? What would that make us? We would be reduced to terrorists ourselves. We must resist the urge to strike out. (Sheldan Nidle) - www.paoweb.com/updates.htm

It is when judgment ceases that healing occurs. (Gerald Jampolsky & Diane Cirincione)

Healing is the effect of minds that join, as sickness comes from the minds that separate. (Gerald Jampolsky & Diane Cirincione)

As forgiveness has become the focus between ascending humans, dolphins and whales, the usury of the dark has ceased, as the dark can only use a species if one species takes a stand against another. As all species stand united, there is no room for the dark to manipulate. (The Tao and Earth Mother through Karen Danrich "Mila") - www.ascendpress.org

The value of compassion cannot be over-emphasized. Anyone can criticize. It takes a true believer to be compassionate. (Arthur H. Stainback)

I can have peace of mind only when I forgive rather than judge. (Gerald G. Jampolsky, American Psychiatrist Lecturer Author)

We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature. (Voltaire)

Remember, they pray to the same God. (Abraham Lincoln)

I learned the lesson on nonviolence from my wife, when I tried to bend her to my will. Her determined resistance to my will on the one hand, and her quiet submission to the suffering my stupidity involved on the other, ultimately made me ashamed of myself and cured me of my stupidity in thinking that I was born to rule over her. (Mahatma Gandhi)

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illumines it. (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

If the world seems cold to you, kindle fires to warm it. (Lucy Larcom)

If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies. (Moshe Dayan)

Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. Returning violence for violence multiples violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: Only love can do that. (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people. (Jawaharlal Nehru)

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart. (Anne Frank)

I have heard angry rhetoric by some Americans, including many of our nation’s leaders, who advise a heavy dose of revenge and punishment. To those leaders, I would like to make clear that my family and I take no comfort in your words of rage. If you choose to respond to this incomprehensible brutality by perpetuating violence against other innocent human beings, you may not do so in the name of justice for my husband. Your words and imminent acts of revenge only amplify our family’s suffering, deny us the dignity of remembering our loved one in a way that would have made him proud, and mock his vision of America as a peacemaker in the world community. (Amber Amundsen, mother of two young children, whose 28-year-old husband was killed in the jet attack on the Pentagon)

…our government is heading in the direction of violent revenge, with the prospect of sons, daughters, parents, friends in distant lands dying, suffering, and nursing further grievances against us. It is not the way to go. It will not avenge our son’s death. Not in our son’s name. (Phyllis and Orlando Rodriguez, parents of a man killed in the World Trade Center)

If someone acts wrongly, it is because he thinks thoughts that are false. If he can change the untruth of his thinking, he can change his behaviour, and it is in the interest of society to help him do this. But if punishment is brought, his false ideas will be reinforced and guilt will be added to them. You have heard the expression, "two wrongs don't make a right." All wrongs must be corrected in the right manner, otherwise correct is attack. To oppose, seek to overpower, or argue with a false idea is to strengthen it... bring love, not attack, to the ones in pain. (The Christ Mind through Paul Ferrini) - www.paulferrini.com

Revenge proves itself to be its own executioner. (John Ford)

On Earth you have to protect yourselves from harm and put violent people in places that are secure. However, we would say that no one really learns from imprisonment alone, it is re-education provided with loving intent that can enable someone to take up their responsibility again as a worthy citizen. It is love that can dissolve the hardest heart, and it is only love that is going to change the path of your wayward leaders. (Ag-agria through Mike Quinsey)

Punishment, however it may seem to be entirely and justifiably warranted, has invariably caused – if you look back at history – further strife in the future. Just look at the end of WW1. Countries in your world punished Germany and made them pay war reparations and so on, with the idea that they were the bad guys and they deserved to be punished. But I can assure you that if those people at the time, when they were giving those punishments out to Germany, could have looked into a crystal ball and see what it would bring about – the next world war – they wouldn’t have done it. They would have said, “Well, what can we do to help the people of Germany so that they feel more a part of the world, rather than apart from the world? What can we do to help them see other people in benevolent ways? How can we present ourselves in benevolent ways? In short, what can we do to help them, to nurture them, to love them, to bring about the change that we desire from them?

I grant, that sounds idealistic and it doesn’t always work. I’m not saying you just allow a murderer, for instance, to run around freely and after she kills someone you say, “Oh, how can we help you?” and so on. But there are ways to change systems. Prisons do not have to be horrible places of torture; they can be more benevolent. They can separate your criminals from society, but they do not have to be places where the prisoners are tortured and maimed and other things so that when they come out – they haven’t been deterred from their past behaviours – they are so destroyed personally that they might be self-destructive in some way. This is not always the case for prisoners. Many come out and say, “That’s it. I’m going straight.” But sometimes, if they’ve been miserable or they’ve had to make alliances that they wouldn’t have made otherwise, they come out and are self-destructive…

You just can’t force this one to pay reparations and force that one to go to prison; you can’t have revenge only, because you must, must, must look back at history. You must understand that if you indulge in revenge exclusively, it will come back to you, because those who are revenged upon – even if the whole world believes they deserve it – will in some way express exactly what was expressed towards them. Why perpetuate suffering, no matter how justified it may seem to be, if it only perpetuates suffering in the future for future generations? (Zoosh through Robert Shapiro) (Source: Sedona Journal of Emergence - January 2004) - www.sedonajournal.com

All violence is injustice. Responding to violence with violence is injustice, not only to the other person but also to oneself. Responding to violence with violence resolves nothing; it only escalates violence, anger and hatred. It is only with compassion that we can embrace and disintegrate violence. This is true in relationships between individuals as well as in relationships between nations.

Many people in America consider Jesus Christ as their Lord, their spiritual ancestor and their teacher. We should heed His teachings especially during critical times like this. Jesus never encourages us to respond to acts of violence with violence. His teaching is, instead, to use compassion to deal with violence. The teachings of Judaism go very much in the same direction…

The violence and hatred we presently face has been created by misunderstanding, injustice, discrimination and despair. We are all co-responsible for the making of violence and despair in the world by our way of living, of consuming and of handling the problems of the world. Understanding why this violence has been created, we will then know what to do and what not to do in order to decrease the level of violence in ourselves and in the world, to create and foster understanding, reconciliation and forgiveness. (Thich Nhat Hanh, 18 September, 2001)