Ubuntu Quotations

This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.

There are weapons that are simply thoughts. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy.

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.

We first fought... in the name of religion, then Communism, and now in the name of drugs and terrorism. Our excuses for global domination always change.

The spirit of Ubuntu, that once led Haiti to emerge as the first independent black nation in 1804, helped Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador attain liberty, and inspired our forefathers to shed their blood for the United States' independence, cannot die. Today, this spirit of solidarity must and will empower all of us to rebuild Haiti.

I currently use Ubuntu Linux, on a standalone laptop - it has no Internet connection. I occasionally carry flash memory drives between this machine and the Macs that I use for network surfing and graphics; but I trust my family jewels only to Linux.

Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict - alternatives to passive or aggressive responses, alternatives to violence.

Peace has its victories no less than war, but it doesn't have as many monuments to unveil.

Peace is more important than all justice; and peace was not made for the sake of justice, but justice for the sake of peace.

Ubuntu is about a community coming together to help one another.

To all those who walk the path of human cooperation war must appear loathsome and inhuman.

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.

I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to.

What the mind doesn't understand, it worships or fears.

The happiest people I have known have been those who gave themselves no concern about their own souls, but did their uttermost to mitigate the miseries of others.

If you are trying to transform a brutalized society into one where people can live in dignity and hope, you begin with the empowering of the most powerless. You build from the ground up.

Peace has to be created, in order to be maintained. It is the product of Faith, Strength, Energy, Will, Sympathy, Justice, Imagination, and the triumph of principle. It will never be achieved by passivity and quietism.

There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening.

Conflict is inevitable but combat is optional.

The common bond of humanity and decency that we share is stronger than any conflict, any adversity. Fighting for your convictions is important. But finding peace is paramount. Knowing when to fight and when to seek peace is wisdom. Ubuntu was right.

It just seems clear to me that as long as we are all here, it's pretty clear that the struggle is to share the planet, rather than divide it.

Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language... It is to say, 'My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in what is yours.'

Bringing people together is what i call 'ubuntu,' which means 'I am because we are.' Far too often people think of themselves as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.

One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu - the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality - Ubuntu - you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.

A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.

Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language. It speaks of the very essence of being human.... you are generous, you are hospitable, you are friendly and caring and compassionate. You share what you have. It is to say, 'My humanity is inextricably bound up in yours.' We belong in a bundle of life.

You know when ubuntu is there, and it is obvious when it is absent. It has to do with what it means to be truly human, to know that you are bound up with others in the bundle of life.

Ubuntu tells us that we can create a more peaceful world by striving for goodness in each moment, wherever we are.

In Africa there is a concept known as 'ubuntu' - the profound sense that we are human only through the humanity of others; that if we are to accomplish anything in this world it will in equal measure be due to the work and achievement of others.

Compromise does not mean cowardice.

To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.