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Health & Fitness

Memorial Day, Honoring the Fallen, Resolving to Change

Considerations we may draw from Memorial Day, quotes about peace.

Memorial Day is a day set aside to remember those who’s lives were lost in war. The numbers are staggering when one looks into the tolls occurring in wars fought even during the past century. And, as we are well aware, wars continue.

Respecting these people for what they were willing to sacrifice with the intention of serving their countries is paramount. We gather or give thought on our own, to the nobility of their intentions, to the heroism required to act upon one’s dearest beliefs and to the tragedy of the deaths of so many young, these soldiers who fill the graves row on row in our national cemetaries, as well as those, who are buried in distant lands.

Of serious importance as well I think, if we are to honor the dead, is to look to the lessons we may gain from their deaths. Certainly, each of these, sought peace and believed that, by serving their country, peace would again one day be attained. Towards that end, that Memorial Day not only be a time of rememberance, of sorrow for the loss of life, but be as well, a time when we may consider how, over time, we may enhance the likelihood for fewer and fewer wars, for fewer and fewer deaths, I  have compiled a list of quotes on peace from a broad variety of sources … as considerations for each of us to take from this day.

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  • "Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal." — Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • "If you yourself are at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world." — Thomas Merton
  • "It is no longer good enough to cry peace, we must act peace, live peace, and live in peace." — Shenandoah proverb
  • "What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family." — Mother Teresa
  • "I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction. Yet true happiness comes from a sense of peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved through the cultivation of altruism, of love and compassion, and elimination of ignorance, selfishness, and greed." — Dalai Lama
  • "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." — Albert Einstein
  • "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." — Dwight D. Eisenhower
  • "Peace is not God's gift to his creatures. It is our gift to each other." — Elie Wiesel
  • "Peace is not the product of a victory or a command. It has no finishing line, no final deadline, no fixed definition of achievement. Peace is a never-ending process, the work of many decisions." — Oscar Arias
  • "We've learned how to destroy, but not to create; how to waste, but not to build; how to kill men, but not how to save them; how to die, but seldom how to live." — Omar Nelson Bradley
  • "The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing, would suffice to solve most of the world's problems." — Mahatma Gandhi
  • "We must be prepared to make heroic sacrifices for the cause of peace that we make ungrudgingly for the cause of war. There is no task that is more important or closer to my heart." — Albert Einstein
  • "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." — Jesus Christ (recorded in Matthew)
  • Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into its place;  for those who live by the sword, die by the sword." Matt 26:52.
  • "But I say to you that hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.   If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?   For even sinners love those who love them.   And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you?  For even sinners do the same." — Jesus Christ  Luke 6:27-32

I would really like to hear your thoughts.

Feel free to share your thoughts about peace, prayers or quotes that are meaningful to you relative to moving towards a world in which we live as we are meant to live, in peace. 

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