Conflict Resolving Quotes & Sayings

The most constructive way of resolving conflicts is to avoid them — Felix Frankfurter

It is hard to change our point of view in a conflict. Most often, it is because we are not nearly as interested in resolving the conflict and possibly creating a new "pearl" as we are in being right. — Thomas Crum

Leaders need to have a ruthless commitment to resolving relational conflict regardless of how bad it feels. — Bill Hybels

Empathy is like a universal solvent. Any problem immersed in empathy becomes soluble. It is effective as a way of anticipating and resolving interpersonal problems, whether this is a marital conflict, an international conflict, a problem at work, difficulties in a friendship, political deadlocks, a family dispute, or a problem with a neighbor. — Simon Baron-Cohen

It is not my purpose here to document the destruction caused by war [...] The point is to ask ourselves why these accounts have not had greater effect. [...] Why is it that many of us are deeply moved by visual art, fiction, and firsthand accounts of destruction and yet accept war as a means of resolving conflict or defending ourselves? — Nel Noddings

The key to resolving international conflict with a positive outcome includes looking for a win-win situation, finding common ground, formulating proactive strategies, using effective negotiation and communication, and appreciating cultural differences. — Amit Ray

An unconscious, gentle process whereby people who want to be loving attempt to be so by telling little white lies, by withholding some of the truth about themselves and their feelings in order to avoid conflict. Pseudocommunity is conflict-avoiding; true community is conflict-resolving. — M. Scott Peck

Changing our behavior purely for the sake of appearances may seem to conflict with the need to be authentic and consistent, but in many ways it is actually a result of those needs. After all, resolving the tension between standing out from the crowd and becoming isolated requires finding our niche in the world. But what would happen if we weren't accepted in the place where we felt we belonged? For others to see us as a "poseur" or as "delusional" would be painful. Even worse, what if they were right? The social consequences and self-doubt that follow when our self-perceptions conflict with how others see us can be just as destabilizing to our identity as conflicts between our own self-perceptions and actions. — Sheena Iyengar

Integrity is the factor that determines which one will prevail. We struggle daily with situations that demand decisions between what we want to do and what we ought to do. Integrity establishes the ground rules for resolving these tensions. it determines who we are and how we will respond before the conflict even appears. Integrity welds what we say, think, and do, into a whole person so that permission is never granted for one of these to be out of sync. — John C. Maxwell

Stable husbanding of the land requires community-wide language and norms for resolving interpersonal conflict, facilitating barter and trade, determining shares of work and output and maintaining organizational hierarchies. Although such social functions are the requisites of community life everywhere, the ways of performing them evolve differently from place to place. Each society develops its practices and sets of myths, symbols and rational justifications, which usually are held to be superior to those of other societies.
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And just as material reasons for self-sufficiency can turn communities towards economic imperialism, so the ideational justifications for autonomy can turn them into presumptuous civilizers of other peoples. — Seyom Brown

We do not fight to tear down but to build up. — Lisa Bevere

It is easier to allow a few women to occupy positions of authority and dominance than to question whether social life should be organized around principles of hierarchy, control, and dominance at all, to allow a few women to reach the heights of the corporate hierarchy rather than question whether people's needs should depend on an economic system based on dominance, control, and competition. It is easier to allow women to practice law than to question adversarial conflict as a model for resolving disputes and achieving justice. It has even been easier to admit women to military combat roles than to question the acceptability of warfare and its attendant images of patriarchal masculine power and heroism as instruments of national policy. And it has been easier to elevate and applaud a few women than to confront the cultural misogyny that is never far off, waiting in the wings and available for anyone who wants to use it to bring women down and put them in their place. — Allan G. Johnson

Adolescence is not only an important period in life, but that it is the only period where one may speak of life in the full sense of the word. The attractile drives are unleashed around the age of thirteen, after which they gradually diminish, or rather they are resolved in models of behaviour which are, after all, only constrained forces. The violence of the initial explosion means that the outcome of the conflict may remain uncertain for years; this is what is called a transitory regime in electrodynamics. But little by little the oscillations become slower, to the point of resolving themselves in mild and melancholic long waves; from this moment on all is decided, and life is nothing more than a preparation for death. This can be expressed in a more brutal and less exact way by saying that man is a diminished adolescent. — Michel Houellebecq

A linguistically informed literary criticism is the key to resolving conflict and frustration, from psychotherapy and law to philosophy and politics. Call this the messianic theory. It is based on the idea that TO THINK IS TO GRASP A METAPHOR-the metaphor metaphor. — Steven Pinker

That these girls avoid use of physical violence in resolving conflict, does not mean that these conflicts are resolved in meaningful and enduring ways. Girls might smile, give in, give up - and then continue the conflict behind their opponents' backs. Girls might also smile, give in, make fatal compromises, because their need to belong (or not to be excluded) is more important to them than sticking to their principles. — Phyllis Chesler

If an agency is the ultimate judge in every case of conflict, then it is also judge in all conflicts involving itself. Consequently, instead of merely preventing and resolving conflict, a monopolist of ultimate decision making will also cause and provoke conflict in order to settle it to his own advantage. That is, if one can only appeal to the state for justice, justice will be perverted in the favor of the state, constitutions and supreme courts notwithstanding. — Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Sometimes the simplest solution out of conflict is becoming someone's friend, instead of saying goodbye forever. — Shannon L. Alder

Bill Clinton was one of the greatest presidents that we've seen. He was involved in the peace process in the very beginning, and he not only showed himself to be knowledgeable about Irish history and Irish-British relationships, but also he was very sympathetic to the idea of resolving conflict. — Martin McGuinness

The number one goal in resolving a conflict is to make sure both sides maintain their self-esteem. Resolving conflict is rarely about who is right. It is about acknowledgment and appreciation of differences. — Thomas Crum

Emotional intelligence in the work that we do, in the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program, is about equipping young people with the kinds of skills they need to both identify and manage their emotions, to communicate those emotions effectively, and to resolve conflict nonviolently. So it's a whole set of skills and competencies that, for us, fall under the umbrella of emotional intelligence. — Linda Lantieri

Empathy is the key to negotiating and resolving conflict. — Arthur P. Ciaramicoli

We've learned that sometimes a lack of conflict in a marriage means you are not fighting for it. There are times you must battle to become one. — Lisa Bevere

We found out that the young people who had a substantial number of lessons in the Resolving Conflict Creatively Curriculum ... not only did better in terms of people skills, that they managed their emotions, they were less violent and more caring, but they actually did better on their academic achievement tests. — Linda Lantieri

We need to learn and to show others that there are tried and tested, powerful ways of containing and resolving conflict which do not require the use of force. — Scilla Elworthy

We have to have some form of politics. Politics is a form of resolving conflicts. Politics which comes from sincere motivation is constructive. — Dalai Lama

There is a magic formula for resolving conflicts. It is this: Have as your objective the resolving of the conflict, not the gaining of advantage. There is a magic formula for avoiding conflicts. It is this: Be concerned that you do not offend, not that you are not offended. — Peace Pilgrim

The time you spend honing your development skills, such as seeing patterns in code, refactoring code to be easier to maintain or extend, and writing tests does little to prepare skills in resolving conflict, establishing a team culture, or communicating technology in ways that non-technical people can understand. — Patrick Kua

The purpose of formulating [a] conflict as a game is not that of resolving the conflict by 'solving the game.' It is that of displaying the structure of the conflict and thereby exposing features of it that may be concealed by rhetoric. In particular, appreciation of the peculiar structure of some of the so-called mixed-motive conflicts represented nonzero-sum games may change the conflicting parties' perception of their situation. — Anatol Rapoport

If you really wanted to settle down the Middle East, if what you wanted was change in the Middle East, it is perfectly obvious that the first step is resolving the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. — Molly Ivins

As parents one of the biggest jobs we have, is teaching our children how to resolve problems effectively. We live in an era where everyone is quick to act the fool over simple issues. As we used to say when I was on the streets, 'everybody wants to cut a movie'. — Drexel Deal

The significant question is whether the activity pursued permits the release of tension without resolving the underlying conflict. If so, the conflict still remains, and hence the activity must be engaged in repeatedly. We then may have the beginning of compulsion neurosis. — Rollo May

The need to express oneself in writing springs from a mal-adjustment to life, or from an inner conflict which the adolescent (or the grown man) cannot resolve in action. Those to whom action comes as easily as breathing rarely feel the need to break loose from the real, to rise above, and describe it ... I do not mean that it is enough to be maladjusted to become a great writer, but writing is, for some, a method of resolving a conflict, provided they have the necessary talent. — Andre Maurois