100 Quotes About Peace To Inspire Serenity and Hopefulness Every Day

We're feeling calmer already.

With all the chaos in the world today, it’s easy to become agitated and distressed. Add to that the extra stress many of us feel post-holidays and you’re bound to feel out of sorts and yearning for some calm amid the commotion.

During those moments when we feel overwhelmed with anxiety and worry, there are several paths we can take to can calm down and restore our inner peace. Some of us find being surrounded by nature soothing, many of us practice yoga to relieve stress, and others turn to God and our faith to balance our weary souls.

Achieving world peace is something that leaders across the globe have been working toward for decades, but we can all do our part by being kind to one another. Thankfully, there are words of wisdom from philosophers, world leaders, and other notable figures like these on our list of quotes about peace that remind us there is still goodness in the world and inspire our hope for a more peaceful planet. Hopefully, this list of peace quotes will inspire you to remember the importance of brotherly love, to share some goodwill with your neighbor and put aside your differences with your enemy.

100 Quotes About Peace To Inspire Serenity and Hope

1. “Peace begins with a smile.” — Mother Teresa

2. “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

3. “Do not let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.” — Dalai Lama

4. “An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

5. “You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will live as one.” ― John Lennon, Imagine

6. “You cannot find peace by avoiding life.” ― Michael Cunningham, The Hours

7. “Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.” ― Albert Einstein

8. “When you do the right thing, you get the feeling of peace and serenity associated with it. Do it again and again.” ― Roy T. Bennett

9. “Peace comes from within.  Do not seek it without.” ― Siddhārtha Gautama

10. “You have peace when you make it with yourself.” ― Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

11. “If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.” — Lao Tzu

12. “Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.” — President John F. Kennedy

13. “Peace is always beautiful.” ― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

14. “It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.” ― Aristotle

15. "When you make peace with yourself, you make peace with the world.”— Maha Ghosananda

16. “The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.” ― Marianne Williamson

17. “There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” — Edith Wharton

18. “Learning to distance yourself from all the negativity is one of the greatest lessons to achieve inner peace.” ― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

19. “Love is the purest form of a soul at peace.” ― Matthew Donnelly

20. “The day I understood everything, was the day I stopped trying to figure everything out. The day I knew peace was the day I let everything go.” — C.  JoyBell C.

21. “You should feel beautiful and you should feel safe. What you surround yourself with should bring you peace of mind and peace of spirit.” — Stacy London

22. “If you cannot find peace within yourself, you will never find it anywhere else.” ― Marvin Gaye

23. “Peace is not something you wish for. It is something you make, something you are, something you do, and something you give away.” ― Robert Fulghum

24. “Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.” ― Albert Schweitzer

25. “Let go of the thoughts that don’t make you strong." — Karen Salmansohn

26. “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.” — Nelson Mandela

27. “Many people think excitement is happiness… But when you are excited, you are not peaceful. True happiness is based on peace.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power

28. “You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.”― Indira Gandhi

29. “Peace is the only battle worth waging.” ― Albert Camus

30. “Peace is a journey of a thousand miles, and it must be taken one step at a time.” — President Lyndon B. Johnson

Related: 101 Uplifting Quotes About Change

31. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” — Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

32. “If you don't know the guy on the other side of the world, love him anyway because he's just like you. He has the same dreams, the same hopes and fears. It's one world, pal. We're all neighbors.” — Frank Sinatra

33. “Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.” ― Amelia Earhart

34. “Why can't people just sit and read books and be nice to each other?” ― David Baldacci, The Camel Club

35. “Peace is liberty in tranquility.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero

36. “To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness” — Robert Muller

37. “It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

 38. “Peace is a day-to-day problem, the product of a multitude of events and judgments. Peace is not an ‘is,’ it is a ‘becoming.’” — Haile Selassie

39. “You will find peace not by trying to escape your problems, but by confronting them courageously. You will find peace not in denial, but in victory.” — J. Donald Walters

40. “Peace is not absence of conflict; it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.” — President Ronald Reagan

41. “Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” — Desmond Tutu

42. “I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace.” ― Helen Keller

43. “Do not be afraid to take a chance on peace, to teach peace, to live peace... Peace will be the last word of history.” ― Pope John Paul II

44. “Peace is such hard work. Harder than war. It takes way more effort to forgive than to kill.” ― Rae Carson, The Bitter Kingdom

45. “In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.” — Deepak Chopra

46. “Be selective in your battles. Sometimes peace is better than being right.” — Unknown

47, “Of all our dreams today, there is none more important—or so hard to realize—than that of peace in the world.” — Lester B. Pearson

48. “Worrying does not take away tomorrow’s troubles. It takes away today’s peace.” ― Randy Armstrong

49. “Peace is not the highest goal in life. It is the most fundamental requirement.” — Sadhguru

50. “World peace can be achieved when, in each person, the power of love replaces the love of power.” — Sri Chinmoy

51. “You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.” — Malcolm X

52. “There is no way to peace, peace is the way.” ― J. Muste

53. “Peace is not only better than war but infinitely more arduous.” ― George Bernard Shaw

54. “Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.” — Saint Francis de Sales

55. “Those who are free of resentful thoughts surely find peace.” — Buddha

Related: 101 Quotes from Buddha on Love, Life, Happiness and Death

56. “Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” ― Melody Beattie

57. “If there’s no inner peace, people can’t give it to you. The husband can’t give it to you. Your children can’t give it to you. You have to give it to you.” — Linda Evans

58. “Promise yourself to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.” — Christian D. Larson

59. “Choose. The single clenched fist lifted and ready, or the open hand, held out and waiting. Choose: For we meet by one or the other.” — Carl Sandburg

60. “There never was a good war or a bad peace.” — Benjamin Franklin

61. “You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.” ― Eckhart Tolle

62. “Peace is something we must all work for, every day, in every country.” — Ban Ki-moon

63. “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” — Leo Tolstoy

64. “Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.” — John Wooden

65, “If you have a common purpose and an environment in which people want to help others succeed, the problems will be fixed quickly.” — Alan Mulally

66. “If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another.” — Winston Churchill

67. “Run to the rescue with love, and peace will follow.” — River Phoenix

68. “If you want to end the war, then instead of sending guns, send books. Instead of sending tanks, send pens. Instead of sending soldiers, send teachers.”— Malala Yousafzai

69. “When you find peace within yourself, you become the kind of person who can live at peace with others.” — Peace Pilgrim

70. “I think it’s naive to pray for world peace if we’re not going to change the form in which we live.” — Godfrey Reggio

71. “The only alternative to war is peace and the only road to peace is negotiations.”— Golda Meir

72. “Peace by persuasion has a pleasant sound, but I think we should not be able to work it. We should have to tame the human race first, and history seems to show that that cannot be done.” — Mark Twain, The Complete Letters of Mark Twain

73. “Peace only comes from accepting the inevitable and taming our desires.” — The Ancient Sage

74. “Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be.” — Wayne W. Dyer, There’s a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem

75. “Peace, which costs nothing, is attended with infinitely more advantage than any victory with all its expense.” — Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man

76. “We don’t realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme self who is eternally at peace.” — Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

77. “Not one of us can rest, be happy, be at home, be at peace with ourselves, until we end hatred and division.” — Congressman John Lewis

78. “You’ll never find peace of mind until you listen to your heart.” — George Michael

79. “We will know peace the day we truly know ourselves.” — Maxime Lagacé

Related: 50 Mindfulness Quotes to Keep You Living in the Present

80. “First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others.” — Thomas á Kempis

81. “There is always a certain peace in being what one is, in being that completely.” — Ugo Betti

82. “Make peace with your broken pieces.” — Unknown

83. “Peace is costly, but it is worth the expense.” — African proverb

84. “Only art and music have the power to bring peace.” — Yoko Ono

85. “Peace is our gift to each other.” — Elie Wiesel

86. “The best fighter is never angry.” ― Lao Tzu

87. “I am content; that is a blessing greater than riches; and he to whom that is given need ask no more.” ― Henry Fielding

88. “Inner peace can be reached only when we practice forgiveness. Forgiveness is letting go of the past and is therefore the means for correcting our misperceptions.” ― Gerald G. Jampolsky, Love is Letting Go of Fear

89. “Do not look for happiness outside yourself. The awakened seek happiness inside.” ― Peter Deunov

 90. “We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.” — Thomas Merton

91. "Peace brings with it so many positive emotions that it is worth aiming for in all circumstances.” — Estella Eliot

92. “Peace is the first thing the angels sang.” — John Keble

93. “How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.” — William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

94. “For though my faith is not yours and your faith is not mine, if we are each free to light our own flame, together we can banish some of the darkness of the world.” — Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

95. “Peace comes from being able to contribute the best that we have, and all that we are, toward creating a world that supports everyone. But it is also securing the space for others to contribute the best that they have and all that they are.” — Hafsat Abiola

96. “Peace is more important than all justice; and peace was not made for the sake of justice, but justice for the sake of peace.” — Ezra Taft Benson

97. “We will not have peace by afterthought.” — Norman Cousins

98. “Good wishes alone will not ensure peace.” — Alfred Nobel

99. “Peace is the umpire for doing the will of God.” — Edwin Louis Cole

100. “You can find peace amidst the storms that threaten you.” — Joseph B. Wirthlin

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