This afternoon I watched an interview with Jack Kerouac, the famed author of On the Road and one of the founders of the Beat Generation. In this interview, Kerouac paraphrased Leo Tolstoy, saying that the sands of time were like those in an hourglass and one day (though they pass slowly), war will end. Kerouac believed this would be soon; as this interview was from 1968 he was soon to be proved horribly wrong.
I did a little research and found that, in fact, Tolstoy had never really said that; Kerouac was close in his reference, but more or less missed his mark. Regardless, activists, poets, writers, and scholars such as Gandhi and Henry David Thoreau certainly have applied Tolstoy's ideals to their own work, which, while making no direct reference to an hourglass, were of a similar nature. Gandhi, in particular, worked with this idea of patience (as the sands take a great deal of time to fall) and used it in his campaign to free India of British rule. Without raising a single fist to fight, Gandhi removed the British from India and freed his nation, all without the use of warfare.
In the end, what many violent confrontations boil down to is a lack of pre-meditated, clear thought that, if applied, could provide simpler and far less harmful solutions than acting on impulse. In other words, patience. Not to say that all warfare is unjustified; no, many times in the past that path had to be taken. But those who created the situations - who forced their fellow men and women into warfare - simply weren't examining the peaceable options.
If people with ideals such as Gandhi and of course the countless other activists for peace around the world can exist and sway others to put stock in their views, there is some semblance of hope for humanity. A few can affect a great many, and that's really all it takes for such a drastic change to occur.