Genocide Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old genocide quotes, genocide sayings, and genocide proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

The genocide (in Rwanda) was a collective act. What made it possible, what made that final political crime possible, was the absence, the erasure, of seeing the other. Of knowing, of feeling, of being with the other. And when that's removed, then politics can become genocidal. James Orbinski
The biggest road block to action on genocide and other human rights crimes is ignorance. Most people just don't know that such things are happening, and often, if they have a vague idea they are happening, there is a feeling that there is nothing that can be done to stop these crimes. John Prendergrast
Genocide is not just a murderous madness; it is, more deeply, a politics that promises a utopia beyond politics - one people, one land, one truth, the end of difference. Since genocide is a form of political utopia, it remains an enduring temptation in any multiethnic and multicultural society in crisis. Michael Ignatief
As long as your ideology identifies the main source of the world's ills as a definable group, it opens the world up to genocide. Steven Pinker
I think that the memory of Armenia's genocide opened my eyes at an early age to the existence of political cynicism. Serj Tankian
Genocide is not a legitimate option. It's not ok to decide that an entire population has no right to live in the world. No matter whether these relationships are very proximate or very distant, there is no entitlement to expunge a population or to demean its basic humanity. Judith Butler
In the aftermath of any war or genocide, healing and reconciliation are ultimate aspirations. Janine de Giovanni
Genocide is an attempt to exterminate a people, not to alter their behavior. Jack Schwartz
If human is capable of conducting genocide, no need for an asteroid to wipe out dinosaurs. Toba Beta
Genocide begins, however improbably, in the conviction that classes of biological distinction indisputably sanction social and political discrimination. Andrea Dworkin
The way to virtually eliminate genocide and mass murder appears to be through restricting and checking power. This means to foster democratic freedom. Rudolph Rummel
The history of America is the history of a genocide that didn't end yet, the genocide of American civilizations. Luis Bolognesi
Historical atrocities have certainly shown that dehumanizing any group is the first step toward genocide. Robert Paul Weston
Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead. Arundhati Roy
I don't think nations can stand aside for ethnic cleansing and genocide. John Major
Recognition of the genocide is a triumph of human conscience and justice over intolerance and hatred. Serzh Sargsyan
The cruel policy initiated by Columbus and pursued by his successors resulted in complete genocide. Samuel Eliot Morison