Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Peace institutions only work if people truly believe in peace within their minds.
In plain terms
Peace treaties work only if people want peace first.
What can you take from it?
Peace requires inner belief before institutions work.

Where it applies

  • policy making
  • conflict resolution
  • community building

Putting it to work

  • build peace culture
  • advocate peace education
  • support institutions

Questions to consider

  • Where does true peace begin?
  • Can laws force peace?

Another view

Institutions can enforce peace without belief.

More from Albert Schweitzer

  1. The only originality I claim is that for me this truth goes hand in hand with the intellectual certainty that the human spirit is capable of creating in our ti…

    Permalink to quote #54
  2. May the men who hold the destiny of peoples in their hands, studiously avoid anything that might cause the present situation to deteriorate and become even mor…

    Permalink to quote #56
  3. What really matters is that we should all of us realize that we are guilty of inhumanity. The horror of this realization should shake us out of our lethargy so…

    Permalink to quote #53

Related quotes

  1. Nothing is so catching as the plague; now, fanaticism, no matter of what nature, is only the plague of the human mind.

    Giacomo CasanovaGiacomo Casanova quote #16
  2. Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time.

    Richard DawkinsRichard Dawkins quote #74
  3. Even the propagandists on the radio find it very difficult to really say let alone believe that the world will be a happy place, of love and peace and plenty, …

    Gertrude SteinGertrude Stein quote #104