25 World Peace Day Photos to Inspire You

September 21st is World Peace Day. Visit moments of peace from the past to the present with these World Peace Day photos.

1. Soldiers celebrating a truce between Israel and Gaza.

2.’We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children’ ― David Brower

3. ‘It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength’ ― Maya Angelou

4. Silhouettes on the beaches of Normandy commemorate those who fell on D-Day.

5. Hiroshima, Japan, bombed in 1945, is now a city dedicated to peace.

6. ‘How many have to die before we will give up these dangerous toys?’ ― Stephen King

7. A child of Syria sits in the fallout of his country’s civil war (read more here).

8. ‘Civilisation will not last, freedom will not survive, peace will not be kept, unless a very large majority of mankind unite together to defend them and show themselves possessed of a constabulary power before which barbaric and atavistic forces will’ – Winston Churchill

9. The UN’s Millennium Development Goals will soon become the Sustainable Development Goals. Why? Because sustainability is vital to peace.

10. Peaceful demonstrations in Ukraine turned violent as police clashed with protestors.

11. ‘Only the development of compassion and understanding for others can bring us the tranquility and happiness we all seek’ ― Dalai Lama XIV

12. Humanitarian workers go to where lives hang in the balance and try to tip the scales – always in favour of peace.

13. British artist Damien Hirst’s spin-painted an AK-47 machine gun, made for Peace One Day 2012.

14. People from Orange County united for peace in 2008, calling for an to end the genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

15. The Berlin Wall’s collapse in 1989 unites a divided world.

16. ‘We may have different religions, different languages, different coloured skin, but we all belong to one human race’ – Kofi Annan 

17. ‘He who plants a tree plants a hope’ – Lucy Larcom

18. ‘Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind’ – John F. Kennedy

19. Non-violent protest, then and now:

21. ‘For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind’ – Ralph Waldo Emerson

22. The International Space Station has hosted astronauts from 14 different countries so far.

23. ‘There is no “way to peace,” there is only “peace”‘ – Mahatma Gandhi

24. The joy peace can bring.

25. The record-breaking 15,185 lanterns released in the Philippines for world peace.