Quotes About Peace

There was a real sweetness to that man: a special sort of gentleness that you see sometimes in people who've been hurt bad but don't want revenge. [Bessie about James]

When the fever of life is over and our work is done… may He give us a safe lodging and a holy rest and peace at the last.

in the storm of emotions, we can create a small, peaceful sanctuary within.

maybe death isn't darkness, after all, but so much light wrapping itself around us--

But I also say this: that light is an invitation to happiness, and that happiness, when it's done right, is a kind of holiness, palpable and redemptive.

And to tell the truth I don't want to let go of the wrists of idleness, I don't want to sell my life for money, I don't even want to come in out of the rain.

I do not live happily or comfortably With the cleverness of our times. The talk is all about computers, The news is all about bombs and blood. This morning, in the fresh field, I came upon a hidden nest. It held four warm, speckled eggs. I touched them. Then went away softly, Having felt something more wonderful Than all the electricity of New York City.

Today I'm flying low and I'm not saying a word. I'm letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep. The world goes on as it must, the bees in the garden rumbling a little, the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten. And so forth. But I'm taking the day off. Quiet as a feather. I hardly move though really I'm traveling a terrific distance. Stillness. One of the doors into the temple.

If I had another life I would want to spend it all on some unstinting happiness. I would be a fox, or a tree full of waving branches. I wouldn't mind being a rose in a field full of roses. Fear has not yet occurred to them, nor ambition. Reason they have not yet thought of. Neither do they ask how long they must be roses, and then what. Or any other foolish question.

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing. And gave it up. And took my old body and went out into the morning, and sang.

I Have Decided I have decided to find myself a home in the mountains, somewhere high up where one learns to live peacefully in the cold and the silence. It's said that in such a place certain revelations may be discovered. That what the spirit reaches for may be eventually felt, if not exactly understood. Slowly, no doubt. I'm not talking about a vacation. Of course at the same time I mean to stay exactly where I am. Are you following me?

When loneliness comes stalking, go into the fields, consider the orderliness of the world.

A Dream of Trees There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees, A quiet house, some green and modest acres A little way from every troubling town, A little way from factories, school, laments. I would have time, I thought, and time to spare, With only streams and birds for company, To build out of my life a few wild stanzas. And then it came to me, that so was death, A little way away from everywhere.

I woke And crept Like a cat On silent feet About my own house- To look At you While you were sleeping, Your hair Sprayed on the pillow, Your eyes Closed, Your body Safe and solitary, And my doors Shut for your safety And your comfort. I did this Thinking I was intruding Yet wanting to see The most beautiful thing That has ever been in my house.

What good does it do to lie all day in the sun loving what's easy? It never grew easy, but at least I grew peaceful:

On the windless days, when the maples have put forth their deep canopies, and the sky is wearing its new blue immensities, and the wind has dusted itself not an hour ago in some spicy field and hardly touches us as it passes by, what is it we do? We lie down and rest upon the generous earth. Very likely we fall asleep.

Oh, I would like to live in an empty house, with vines for walls, and a carpet of grass. No planks, no plastic, no fiberglass.

The snails on the pink sleds of their bodies are moving among the morning glories The spider is asleep among the red thumbs of the raspberries.

God, rest in my heart and fortify me, take away my hunger for answers

This morning two mockingbirds in the green field were spinning and tossing the white ribbons of their songs into the air. I had nothing better to do than listen. I mean this seriously.

When I have to die, I would like to die on a day of rain— long rain, slow rain, the kind you think will never end.

Inside every mind, there's a hermit's cave full of light.

And maybe there will be, after all, some slack and perfectly balanced blind and rough peace, finally, in the deep and green and utterly motionless pools after all that falling?

turned away from the sooty sill and the dark city- turned away forever from the factories, the personal strivings, to a life of the imagination.