Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Peace
This hand, to tyrants ever sworn the foe,
For freedom only deals the deadly blow;
Then sheathes in calm repose the vengeful blade,
For gentle peace in freedom’s hallowed shade.
John Quincy Adams—Written in an Album.
The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;
And after dreams of horror, comes again
The welcome morning with its rays of peace.
Bryant—Mutation. L. 4.
The trenchant blade Toledo trusty,
For want of fighting was grown rusty,
And ate into itself for lack
Of somebody to hew and hack.
Butler—Hudibras. Pt. I. Canto I. L. 359.
Mark! where his carnage and his conquests cease,
He makes a solitude and calls it—peace!
Byron—Bride of Abydos. Canto II. St. 20.
Oh that the desert were my dwelling-place!
Byron—Childe Harold. Canto IV. L. 177.
Cedant arma togæ.
War leads to peace.
Cicero—De Officiis. I. 22.
Mihi enim omnis pax cum civibus bello civili utilior videbatur.
For to me every sort of peace with the citizens seemed to be of more service than civil war.
Cicero—Philippics. 2. 15. 37.
Iniquissimam pacem justissimo bello antefero.
I prefer the most unfair peace to the most righteous war.
Adapted from Cicero. Same idea used by Butler in the Rump Parliament. See also Cicero—Epistola ad Atticum. 7. 14. Also said by Franklin—Letter to Quincey. Sept. 11, 1773. Bishop Colet, St. Paul’s, London, 1512. See Green’s History of the English People. The New Learning.
Mars gravior sub pace latet.
A severe war lurks under the show of peace.
Claudianus—De Sexto Consulatu Honorii Augusti Panegyris. 307.
Nec sidera pacem
Semper habent.
Nor is heaven always at peace.
Claudianus—De Bello Getico. LXII.
The gentleman [Josiah Quincy] cannot have forgotten his own sentiment, uttered even on the floor of this House, “Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.”
Henry Clay—Speech. On the New Army Bill. (1813).
Peace rules the day, where reason rules the mind.
Collins—Eclogue II. Hassan. L. 68.
O for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade;
Where rumor of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more.
Cowper—The Task. Bk. II. L. 1.
Though peace be made, yet it’s interest that keeps peace.
Quoted by Oliver Cromwell, in Parliament, Sept. 4, 1654, as “a maxim not to be despised.”
Such subtle covenants shall be made,
Till peace itself is war in masquerade.
Dryden—Absalom and Achitopel. Pt. I. L. 752; Pt. II. L. 268.
At home the hateful names of parties cease,
And factious souls are wearied into peace.
Dryden—Astræa Redux. L. 312.
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.
Emerson—Essays. Of Self-Reliance.
Breathe soft, ye winds! ye waves, in silence sleep!
Gay—To a Lady. Ep. I. L. 17.
Pax vobiscum.
Peace be with you.
Vulgate. Genesis. XLIII. 23.
Let us have peace.
U. S. Grant. Accepting the Presidential nomination. May 20, 1868.
I accept your nomination in the confident trust that the masses of our countrymen, North and South, are eager to clasp hands across the bloody chasm which has so long divided them.
Horace Greeley. Accepting the Liberal Republican nomination for President. May 20, 1872.
But—a stirring thrills the air
Like to sounds of joyance there,
That the rages
Of the ages
Shall be cancelled, and deliverance offered from the darts that were,
Consciousness the Will informing, till it fashion all things fair.
Thomas Hardy—Dynasts. Semichorus I of the Years.
So peaceful shalt thou end thy blissful days,
And steal thyself from life by slow decays.
Homer—Odyssey. Bk. XI. L. 164. Pope’s trans.
In pace ut sapiens aptarit idonea bello.
Like as a wise man in time of peace prepares for war.
Horace—Satires. II. 2. 111.
They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation neither shall they learn war any more.
Isaiah. II. 4. Joel. III. 10. Micah. IV. 3.
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid.
Isaiah. XI. 6.
We love peace as we abhor pusillanimity; but not peace at any price. There is a peace more destructive of the manhood of living man than war is destructive of his material body. Chains are worse than bayonets.
Douglas Jerrold—Jerrold’s Wit. Peace.
It is thus that mutual cowardice keeps us in peace. Were one-half of mankind brave and one-half cowards, the brave would be always beating the cowards. Were all brave, they would lead a very uneasy life; all would be continually fighting; but being all cowards, we go on very well.
Samuel Johnson—Boswell’s Life. (1778).
Sævis inter se convenit ursis.
Savage bears keep at peace with one another.
Juvenal—Satires. XV. 164.
The days of peace and slumberous calm are fled.
Keats—Hyperion. Bk. II.
Paix à tout prix.
Peace at any price.
Lamartine, as quoted by A. H. Clough in Letters and Remains. (Ed. 1865). P. 105. Le Ministère de la Paix à tout prix. Armand Carrel in the National, March 13, 1831. (Of the Perier ministry.)
Peace will come soon and come to stay, and so come as to be worth keeping in all future time. It will then have been proved that among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their cases and pay the cost.
Lincoln. Quoted by E. J. Young—The Lesson of the Hour. In Magazine of History. No. 43. (Extra number.)
Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals
The blast of War’s great organ shakes the skies!
But beautiful as songs of the immortals,
The holy melodies of love arise.
Longfellow—Arsenal at Springfield.
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.
Longfellow—Hiawatha. Pt. XIII. L. 7.
Ef you want peace, the thing you’ve gut to du
Is jes’ to show you’re up to fightin’, tu.
Lowell—Biglow Papers. 2nd Series. 2.
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
Luke. II. 14.
Pax huic domui.
Peace be to this house.
Luke. X. 5; Matthew. X. 12. (Vulgate.)
In the inglorious arts of peace.
Andrew Marvell—Upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland.
Peace hath her victories,
No less renowned than war.
Milton—Sonnet. To the Lord General Cromwell.
I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curled
Above the green elms, that a cottage was near,
And I said, “If there’s peace to be found in the world,
A heart that was humble might hope for it here.”
Moore—Ballad Stanzas.
How calm, how beautiful comes on
The stilly hour, when storms are gone.
Moore—Lalla Rookh. The Fire Worshippers. Pt. III. St. 7.
L’empire, c’est la paix.
The Empire means peace.
Louis Napoleon—Speech to the Chamber of Commerce in Toulouse, Oct. 9, 1852. See B. Jerrold’s Life of Louis Napoleon. “L’empire, c’est l’epée.” Parody of same in Kladderdatsch, Nov. 8, 1862.
Would you end war?
Create great Peace.
James Oppenheim—War and Laughter, 1914, And After. IV.
For peace do not hope; to be just you must break it.
Still work for the minute and not for the year.
John Boyle O’Reilly—Rules of the Road.
Candida pax homines, trux decet ira feras.
Fair peace becomes men; ferocious anger belongs to beasts.
Ovid—Ars Amatoria. III. 502.
His helmet now shall make a hive for bees,
And lover’s sonnets turn’d to holy psalms;
A man at arms must now serve on his knees,
And feed on prayers, which are his age’s alms.
Geo. Peele—Sonnet ad fin. Polyhymnia.
An equal doom clipp’d Time’s blest wings of peace.
Petrarch—To Laura in Death. Sonnet XLVIII. L. 18.
Allay the ferment prevailing in America by removing the obnoxious hostile cause—obnoxious and unserviceable—for their merit can only be in action. “Non dimicare et vincare.”
William Pitt the Elder—Speech. Jan. 20, 1775. Referring to the American Colonies.
Concession comes with better grace and more salutary effect from superior power.
William Pitt the Elder—Speech to Recall Troops from Boston.
The peace of God, which passeth all understanding.
Philippians. IV. 7.
Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.
Proverbs. III. 17.
Mercy and truth are met together: righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Psalms. LXXXV. 10.
Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces.
Psalms. CXXII. 7.
People are always expecting to get peace in heaven: but you know whatever peace they get there will be ready-made. Whatever making of peace they can be blest for, must be on the earth here.
Ruskin—The Eagle’s Nest. Lecture IX.
If peace cannot be maintained with honor, it is no longer peace.
Lord John Russell—Speech at Greenoch. Sept., 1853.
Es kann der Frömmste nicht im Frieden bleiben,
Wenn es dem bösen Nachbar nicht gefällt.
The most pious may not live in peace, if it does not please his wicked neighbor.
Schiller—Wilhelm Tell. IV. 3. 124.
All these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may avoid that too, with an If. I knew when seven justices could not take up a quarrel, but when the parties were met themselves, one of them thought but of an If, as, “If you said so then I said so”; and they shook hands and swore brothers. Your If is the only peace-maker; much virtue in If.
As You Like It. Act V. Sc. 4. L. 100.
That it should hold companionship in peace
With honour, as in war; since that to both
It stands in like request.
Coriolanus. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 49.
A peace is of the nature of a conquest;
For then both parties nobly are subdued,
And neither party loser.
Henry IV. Pt. II. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 89.
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility.
Henry V. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 3.
Peace,
Dear nurse of arts, plenties and joyful births.
Henry V. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 34.
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,
To silence envious tongues.
Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 445.
To reap the harvest of perpetual peace,
By this one bloody trial of sharp war.
Richard III. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 15.
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As ’twixt a miser and his wealth is found.
Sonnet LXXV.
When it is peace, then we may view again
With new-won eyes each other’s truer form
And wonder. Grown more loving-kind and warm
We’ll grasp firm hands and laugh at the old pain
When it is peace. But until peace, the storm
The darkness and the thunder and the rain.
Charles Sorley—To Germany.
Let the bugles sound the Truce of God to the whole world forever.
Charles Sumner—Oration on the True Grandeur of Nations.
In this surrender—if such it may be called—the National Government does not even stoop to conquer. It simply lifts itself to the height of its original principle. The early efforts of its best negotiators, the patriotic trial of its soldiers … may at last prevail.
Charles Sumner. Sustaining President Lincoln in the U. S. Senate, in the Trent Affair. Jan. 7, 1862.
Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium, atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
To rob, to ravage, to murder, in their imposing language, are the arts of civil policy. When they have made the world a solitude, they call it peace.
Tacitus—Agricola. XXX. Ascribing the speech to Galgacus, Britain’s leader against the Romans.
Miseram pacem vel bello bene mutari.
A peace may be so wretched as not to be ill exchanged for war.
Tacitus—Annales. III. 44.
Bellum magis desierat, quam pax cœperat.
It was rather a cessation of war than a beginning of peace.
Tacitus—Annales. IV. 1.
Peace the offspring is of Power.
Bayard Taylor—A Thousand Years.
No more shall***Peace
Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid note,
And watch her harvest ripen.
Tennyson—Maud. St. 28.
Peace with honor.
Theobald, Count of Champagne—Letter to King Louis the Great. (1108–1137). See Walter Map—De Nugis Curialium. (Ed. Camden Society. P. 220.) Sir Kenelm Digby—Letter to Lord Bristol, May 27, 1625. See his Life, pub. by Longmans. Same in Coriolanus. III. II.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
In time of peace prepare for war.
Original not found, but probably suggested by “qui desiderat pacem, præparet bellum.” He who desires peace will prepare for war. Vegetius—Epitoma Rei Militaris. Lib. III. End of Prolog. A similar thought also in Dion Chrysostom. Livy. VI. 18. 7. Cornelius Nepos—Epaminondas. V. Statius—Thebais. VII. 554. Syrus—Maxims. 465.
He had rather spend £100,000 on Embassies to keep or procure peace with dishonour, than £100,000 on an army that would have forced peace with honour.
Sir Anthony Weldon—The Court and Character of King James. P. 185. (1650). Used by Disraeli on his return from the Berlin Congress on the Eastern Question, July, 1878.
But dream not helm and harness
The sign of valor true;
Peace hath higher tests of manhood
Than battle ever knew.
Whittier—Poems. The Hero. St. 19.
As on the Sea of Galilee,
The Christ is whispering “Peace.”
Whittier—Tent on the Beach. Kallundborg Church.
When earth as if on evil dreams
Looks back upon her wars,
And the white light of Christ outstreams
From the red disc of Mars,
His fame, who led the stormy van
Of battle, well may cease;
But never that which crowns the man
Whose victory was peace.
Whittier—William Francis Bartlett.
The example of America must be the example not merely of peace because it will not fight, but of peace because peace is the healing and elevating influence of the world, and strife is not. There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.
Woodrow Wilson—Address in Convention Hall. Philadelphia, May 10, 1915.
Ne’er to meet, or ne’er to part, is peace.
Young—Night Thoughts. Night V. L. 1,058.