Guns go home with the soldiers, but landmines are designed to kill - mindlessly, out of control, for years.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the difference between weapons used in war and those that remain dangerous long after conflicts are over.
Jody Williams' quote draws attention to the tragic reality of landmines and their long-lasting impact on communities. While soldiers may return home after a war, landmines remain hidden dangers that can indiscriminately kill or maim for years, serving as a reminder of the unintended consequences of warfare and the need for greater accountability in arms proliferation.
In practice
In a public speech about disarmament, one could use this quote to emphasize the dangers of lingering weapons.
Landmines distinguish themselves because once they have been sown, once the soldier walks away from the weapon, the landmine cannot tell the difference between a soldier or a civilian - a woman, a child, a grandmother going out to collect firewood to make the family meal.
I think thereβs a mythology that if you want to change the world, you have to be sainted, like Mother Teresa or Nelson Mandela or Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Ordinary people with lives that go up and down and around in circles can still contribute to change.
I believe that worrying about the problems plaguing our planet without taking steps to confront them is absolutely irrelevant. The only thing that changes this world is taking action.
What I consider to be peace [is] a sustainable peace in which the majority of people on this planet have access to enough resources to live dignified lives.
The way to God is the opposite to that of the world. And to few, very few, are given to have God and mammon at the same time.
If what we need to dream, to move our spirits most deeply and directly toward and through promise, is discounted as a luxury, then we give up the core -- the fountain -- of our power, our womanness; we give up the future of our worlds. (From "Poetry is Not a Luxury")
We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones.
One of the peculiar sins of the twentieth century which we've developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in anything.
We should be rigorous in judging ourselves and gracious in judging others.
The further I wake into this life, the more I realize that God is everywhere and the extraordinary is waiting quietly beneath the skin of all that is ordinary. Light is in both the broken bottle and the diamond, and music is in both the flowing violin and the water dripping from the drainage pipe. Yes, God is under the porch as well as on top of the mountain, and joy is in both the front row and the bleachers, if we are willing to be where we are.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.