Colman McCarthy
(1938-)

American Peace Educator

birthdate: ?
birthplace:
Old Brookville, New York

QUOTES

I'd rather teach peace.

The students I've been with these twenty years are looking for a world where it becomes a little easier to love and a lot harder to hate, where learning nonviolence means that we dedicate our hearts, minds, time, and money to a commitment that the force of love, the force of truth, the force of justice, and the force of organized resistance to corrupt power are seen as sane and the force of fists, guns, armies, and bombs insane.

Everyone's a pacifist between wars. It's like being a vegetarian between meals.

Warmaking doesn't stop warmaking. If it did, our problems would have stopped millennia ago.

Unless we teach children peace, someone else will teach them violence.

"The most revolutionary thing anybody can do is to raise good, honest and generous children who will question the answers of people who say the answer is violence. That's what the schools should be doing."

"Wars aren't stopped by fighting wars, any more than you can fight fire with fire. You fight fire with water. You fight violence with nonviolence."

"Peace is the result of love, and if love were easy we'd all be good at it."

"You can earn all A's in school and then go out and fail at life."

"What makes us happy is service to others. If schools don't expose students to the joys of community service, we graduate people who are idea rich but experience poor. In these addled times of leave no child untested, we think it's enough to pound ideas into the kids' heads. You can make all A's in school and go out and flunk life."

"It's too easy only to blame the militarists, racists, sexists and other pushers of violence for the mess we're in. What is harder is self-examination, moving beyond caring by looking inward to ask the personal question: What more should I be doing everyday to bring about a peace and justice based world, whether across the ocean or across the living room?"

"I'd prefer that my students don't ask questions. Instead, be braver and bolder: question the answers. What answers? Those from anyone who says the answer is violence. Of all the lies, that's the grossest."

"It's better to build a peaceful child than re-build a violent adult."

Kids | Youth | Adults | Calendar | Quotes | Heroes | Stories | The EMILY Fund | Scholarships
DO ONE THING and BetterWorld Kids Clubs are projects of The EMILY Fund (The Emily Silverstein Fund, Inc.)
Hero portraits are included for illustration purposes only - no celebrity endorsement implied

The Emily Fund
Education, Mentorship, Inspiration, Leadership, Youth
- for a Better
World

PO Box 430
Roosevelt, NJ 08555-0430
info@EmilyFund.org