While the armed forces have intervened in the political affairs of every other Central American country over the past fifty years, with disastrous results, in Costa Rica we have peacefully transferred power from one administration to the next every four years.

The problem with basing weapons sales on strategic interest is that these interests tend to shift over time, while weapons are durable goods that do not evaporate as quickly as some alliances do. Once supplied, they can't be taken back. That leads to situations such as the ones we have seen in Iraq, Somalia.

It is essential that justice be done, and it is equally vital that justice not be confused with revenge, for the two are wholly different.

Justice and peace can only thrive together, never apart.

I am not a pacifist, however I do believe that the U.S. tends to resort to force too quickly. I am not referring only to the current administration the same thing happened in the Balkans, and on other occasions.

Nuclear arms kill many people all at once, but other weapons kill many people, little by little, every day, everywhere in the world.

The effect of one good-hearted person is incalculable.

The existence of nuclear weapons presents a clear and present danger to life on Earth.

The more freedom we enjoy, the greater the responsibility we bear, toward others as well as ourselves.

For ages the world has been living by the stupidity of an old Roman adage that says if you want peace, prepare for war. As if anything said in ancient times must be wise, people have used this phrase to justify some of the most unjustifiable arms build-ups, which, far from creating peace, has only become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Peace consists, very largely, in the fact of desiring it with all one's soul. The inhabitants of my small country, Costa Rica, have realized those words by Erasmus. Mine is an unarmed people, whose children have never seen a fighter or a tank or a warship.

The most deadly disease truly is the failure of the heart.

How ironic for peacemaking efforts to discover that hatred is stronger for many than love that the longing to achieve power through military victories makes so many men lose their reason, forget all shame, and betray history.