Unarmed Quotes:

The power of unarmed nonviolence is any day far superior to that of armed force.

- Mahatma Gandhi

source: Mahatma Gandhi (1976). “Collected Works”

topic: Force, Ahimsa, Unarmed

Only an armed people can be truly free. Only an unarmed people can ever be enslaved.

- Aristotle

topic: People, Patriot, Unarmed

The unarmed man is not just defenseless - he is also contemptible.

- Niccolo Machiavelli

topic: Men, Second Amendment, Unarmed, Defenseless

All the armed prophets conquered; all the unarmed ones perished.

- Niccolo Machiavelli

topic: Clarity, Prophet, Unarmed

Hence it happened that all the armed prophets conquered, all the unarmed perished. [It., Di qui nacque che tutti li profeti armati vincero, e li disarmati rovinarono.]

- Niccolo Machiavelli

topic: War, Prophet, Unarmed

Hence it comes that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed.

- Niccolo Machiavelli

source: "The Prince".

topic: Literature, Prophet, Unarmed

Any unarmed people are slaves, or are subject to slavery at any given moment.

- Huey Newton

topic: People, Slavery, Moments, Democratic Rights, Gas Chambers

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.

- Thomas Jefferson

topic: Men, Law, May, Limited Government, Founding

I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man.

- Oscar Wilde

topic: Men, Battle, Wit, Battle Of Wits, Unarmed

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Love, Faith, Peace, Belive, Peace Love

Humour is the weapon of unarmed people: it helps people who are oppressed to smile at the situation that pains them.

- Simon Wiesenthal

topic: Happiness, Smile, Pain, Unarmed

I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed!

- William Shakespeare

topic: Sarcastic, Imagination, Challenges, Funny Sarcastic, Battle Of Wits

I think that if the beast who sleeps in man could be held down by threats of any kind, whether of jail or retribution, then the highest emblem of humanity would be the lion tamer, not the prophet who sacrificed himself.... What for centuries raised man above the beast is not the cudgel but the irresistible power of unarmed truth.

- Boris Pasternak

source: "Doctor Zhivago". Book by Boris Pasternak. Paraphrase of the 1958 translation, as quoted in The New York Times (1 January 1978), 1957.

topic: Sleep, Men, Thinking, Emblems, Unarmed

The laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity...will respect the less important and arbitrary ones... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants, they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.

- Cesare Beccaria

topic: Men, Law, Humanity, Disarming, Limiting Freedom

A system in which legal police shootings of unarmed civilians are a common occurrence is a system that has some serious flaws. In this case, the drawback is a straightforward consequence of America's approach to firearms. A well-armed citizenry required an even-better-armed constabulary. Widespread gun ownership creates a systematic climate of fear on the part of the police. The result is a quantity of police shootings that, regardless of the facts of any particular case, is just staggeringly high. Young black men, in particular, are paying the price for America's gun culture.

- Matthew Yglesias

topic: Gun, Men, America, Citizenry, Gun Culture

I refuse to accept the view . . . that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

source: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.116, Beacon Press

topic: Peace, Kings, Unconditional Love, Kings Speech, Daybreak

Right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Evil, Stronger, Defeated, Kings And Love, Kings Speech

Weapons compound man's power to achieve; they amplify the capabilities of both the good man and the bad, and to exactly the same degree, having no will of their own. Thus we must regard them as servants, not masters - and good servants to good men. Without them, man is diminished, and his opportunities to fulfill his destiny are lessened. An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.

- Jeff Cooper

topic: Opportunity, Destiny, Men, Pro Gun, Unarmed

False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.

- Cesare Beccaria

source: Cesare Beccaria (1963). “On Crimes and Punishments”, Pearson College Division

topic: Real, Sacrifice, Men, Disarming, Bearing Arms

An armed republic submits less easily to the rule of one of its citizens than a republic armed by foreign forces. Rome and Sparta were for many centuries well armed and free. The Swiss are well armed and enjoy great freedom. Among other evils caused by being disarmed, it renders you contemptible. It is not reasonable to suppose that one who is armed will obey willingly one who is unarmed; or that any unarmed man will remain safe among armed servants.

- Niccolo Machiavelli

topic: Men, Rome, Evil, Great Freedom, Swiss

We are born into this world unarmed - our mind is our only weapon.

- Ayn Rand

topic: Mind, World, Weapons, Unarmed

How absurd it was that in all seven kingdoms, the weakest and most vulnerable of people - girls, women - went unarmed and were taught nothing of fighting, while the strong were trained to the highest reaches of their skill.

- Kristin Cashore

topic: Girl, Strong, Fighting, Katsa, Graceling

I'd also like us to encourage people to gang rush shooters, rather than following their instincts to hide; if we drilled it into young people that the correct thing to do is for everyone to instantly run at the guy with the gun, these sorts of mass shootings would be less deadly, because even a guy with a very powerful weapon can be brought down by 8-12 unarmed bodies piling on him at once.

- Megan McArdle

source: "There's Little We Can Do to Prevent Another Massacre". www.thedailybeast.com. December 17, 2012.

topic: Running, Powerful, Gun, Mass Shootings, Shooter

I don't think I would use a gun, but who knows what a person would do in certain circumstances? My instincts are that I don't see the point of using violence to oppose violence, but many people would and the Brotherhood know that. For this reason they want an unarmed population. Adolph Hitler introduced gun laws shortly before he began to transport people to his concentration camps.

- David Icke

topic: Gun, Thinking, Law, Adolph Hitler, Gun Law

I am unarmed. But Butler here, my ...ah...butler, has a Sig Saucer in his shoulder holster, two shrike-throwing knives in his boots, aderringer two-shot up his sleeve, garrotte wire in his watch, and three stun greanades concealed in variouse pockets. Anything else, Butler?

- Eoin Colfer

topic: Knives, Two, Wire, Artemis Fowl, Unarmed

An armed man will kill an unarmed man with monotonous regularity.

- Clint Smith

topic: Gun, Men, Regularity, Unarmed

Unarmed love is the most powerful force in all the world.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

source: Martin Luther King (Jr.) (2012). “A Gift of Love: Sermons from Strength to Love and Other Preachings”, p.150, Beacon Press

topic: Powerful, Love Is, World, Unarmed

A man was the cause of it all. An unarmed man with a weapon.

- Frank O'Hara

source: "The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara".

topic: Men, Weapons, Causes, Unarmed

Rendering oneself unarmed when one had been the best-armed, out of a height of feeling-that is the means to real peace, which must always rest on a peace of mind.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

source: Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.52, Penguin

topic: Real, Mean, Feelings, Unarmed

Sooner or later we all must die. Warriors choose to do so on their feet, standing between their enemies and those they hold dear. With a weapon in their hands. Cowards choose to do so on their bellies. Unarmed.

- David Gell

topic: Warrior, Gun, Hands, Unarmed

Why does the guerrilla fighter fight? We must come to the inevitable conclusion that the guerrilla fighter is a social reformer, that he takes up arms responding to the angry protest of the people against their oppressors, and that he fights in order to change the social system that keeps all his unarmed brothers in ignominy and misery.

- Che Guevara

source: Che Guevara (2002). “Guerrilla Warfare”, p.52, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

topic: Brother, Fighting, Order, Ignominy, Guerrilla Warfare

A man who is intentionally unarmed relies upon the Unseen Force called God by poets, but called the Unknown by scientists.

- Mahatma Gandhi

source: Mahatma Gandhi (1967). “The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi”, p.120, Rajpal & Sons

topic: God, Men, Rely Upon, Unarmed, Unseen Forces

Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. man had no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons,and to make weapons - a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and we have comes from a single attribute of man -the function of his reasoning mind.

- Ayn Rand

topic: Religious, Men, Animal, Fountainhead, Unarmed

There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile to continue talking about peace and non-violence against a government whose only reply is savage attacks on an unarmed and defenceless people.

- Nelson Mandela

topic: Peace, Government, Talking, Non Violence, Against Violence

An ignorant person with a bad character is like an unarmed robber, but a learned person with a blog is a robber fully armed

- Mickey Kaus

topic: Character, Ignorant, Bad Character, Learned Person, Unarmed

God gave us the gift of life. It is the most precious gift ever. To be unarmed is to be helpless to protect that gift; that is outright irresponsible.

- Ted Nugent

topic: Protect, Gifts Of Life, Helpless, Unarmed

The biggest hypocrites on gun control are those who live in upscale developments with armed security guards - and who want to keep other people from having guns to defend themselves. But what about lower-income people living in high-crime, inner city neighborhoods? Should such people be kept unarmed and helpless, so that limousine liberals can 'make a statement' by adding to the thousands of gun laws already on the books?

- Thomas Sowell

topic: Book, Hypocrite, Ghetto, Pro Gun, Limousines

[During the 20th century] ... 170 million men, women, and children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed, or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed, or killed in any other of the myriad ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners.

- Rudolph Rummel

topic: Children, Men, Liberty, 20th Century, Unarmed

... the unarmed power of naked truth.

- Boris Pasternak

topic: Truth, Naked, Unarmed

The trouble is that nonviolence is so often defined as refusal to fight, and that is the American definition of cowardice. In fact, marching unarmed against the guns and dogs of the police requires more courage than does aggression. The perverted idea of manhood coming from the barrel of a gun is what keeps people from understanding nonviolence.

- Jesse Jackson

topic: Dog, Fighting, Gun, Unarmed

Nonviolent Peaceforce ...is building a large-scale professional force of well-trained unarmed peacekeepers ... This nonviolent peacekeeping provides an alternative to which we may say YES when we say NO to war.

- Mel Duncan

topic: War, Alternatives, May, Large Scale, Peacekeeping

In a guerrilla war, the line between legitimate and illegitimate killing is blurred. The policies of free-fire zones, in which a soldier is permitted to shoot at any human target, armed or unarmed, further confuse the fighting man's moral senses.

- Philip Caputo

source: Philip Caputo (2014). “A Rumor of War”, p.327, Macmillan

topic: War, Fighting, Men, Guerrillas, Unarmed

I believe in the doctrine of non-violence as a weapon of the weak. I believe in the doctrine of non-violence as a weapon of the strongest. I believe that a man is the strongest soldier for daring to die unarmed.

- Mahatma Gandhi

source: Mahatma Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand (2010). “Wof : Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi”, p.30, Penguin Books India

topic: Believe, Men, Soldier, Unarmed

Art goes into the world unarmed, vulnerable to every quirk of fate, and it must survive only by its power to move men not to destroy it.

- Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

topic: Art, Moving, Fate, Unarmed

What Roman power slowly built, an unarmed traitor instantly overthrew.

- Claudius Claudianus

source: "In Rufinum". II. 52. Reported in "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations", p. 677, 1922.

topic: Rome, Traitor, Unarmed