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War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.
JIMMY CARTER, Nobel Lecture, Dec. 10, 2002
War is the trade of kings.
All war represents a failure of diplomacy.
TONY BENN, speech, Feb. 28, 1991
There never was a good war, or a bad peace.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Poor Richard's Almanac
As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.
OSCAR WILDE, The Critic as Artist
If you think of humanity as one large body, then war is like suicide, or at best, self mutilation.
JEROME P. CRABB, War Quotes and Quibbles
Accursed be he that first invented war.
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, Tamburlaine the Great
I think a curse should rest on me — because I love this war. I know it's smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment — and yet — I can't help it — I enjoy every second of it.
WINSTON CHURCHILL, letter to a friend, 1916
War makes rattling good history; but Peace is poor reading.
THOMAS HARDY, The Dynasts
Vietnam was the first war ever fought without any censorship. Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.
WILLIAM WESTMORELAND, Time magazine, Apr. 5, 1982
When the rich wage war, it is the poor who die.
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE, The Devil and the Good Lord
War is like love, it always finds a way.
BERTOLT BRECHT, Mother Courage and Her Children
In order for us human beings to commit ourselves personally to the inhumanity of war, we find it necessary first to dehumanize our opponents, which is in itself a violation of the beliefs of all religions. Once we characterize our adversaries as beyond the scope of God's mercy and grace, their lives lose all value. We deny personal responsibility when we plant landmines and, days or years later, a stranger to us — often a child – is crippled or killed. From a great distance, we launch bombs or missiles with almost total impunity, and never want to know the number or identity of the victims.
JIMMY CARTER, Nobel Lecture, Dec. 10, 2002
All delays are dangerous in war.
JOHN DRYDEN, Tyrannic Love
War ... it paid well and liberated children from the pernicious influence of their parents.
I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
The second best thing about space travel is that the distances involved make war very difficult, usually impractical, and almost always unnecessary. This is probably a loss for most people, since war is our race's most popular diversion, one which gives purpose and color to dull and stupid lives. But it is a great boon to the intelligent man who fights only when he must—never for sport.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Time Enough For Love
You can't say civilization don't advance ... in every war they kill you in a new way.
WILL ROGERS, New York Times, Dec. 23, 1929
In time of war, when truth is so precious, it must be attended by a bodyguard of lies.
In war, truth is the first casualty.
It's funny how those who are most pro-war are almost always the guys who never had to fight in one.
JEROME P. CRABB, War Quotes and Quibbles
Wars do not end wars any more than an extraordinarily large conflagration does away with the fire hazard.
HENRY FORD, My Life and Work
After a long, hopeless war, people will settle for peace, at almost any price.
SALMAN RUSHDIE, preface, The Jaguar Smile
My opposition to war is not based upon pacifist or non-resistant principles. It may be that the present state of civilization is such that certain international questions cannot be discussed; it may be that they have to be fought out. But the fighting never settles the question. It only gets the participants around to a frame of mind where they will agree to discuss what they were fighting about.
HENRY FORD, My Life and Work
A mind at peace does not engender wars.
- Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost,
- That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world;
- For my enemy is dead, a man as divine as myself is dead,
- I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin -- I draw near,
- Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.
WALT WHITMAN, Reconciliation
Weakness and ambivalence lead to war.
GEORGE H.W. BUSH, RNC acceptance speech, August 18, 1988
The act of war is the last option of a democracy.
JOSEPH C. WILSON, New York Times, Jul. 6, 2003
History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.
RONALD REAGAN, speech, Jan. 16, 1984
With the indiscriminate nature of modern military technology (no such thing as a "smart bomb," it turns out) all wars are wars against civilians, and are therefore inherently immoral. This is true even when a war is considered "just," because it is fought against a tyrant, against an aggressor, to correct a stolen boundary.
HOWARD ZINN, Howard Zinn on War
War's one of those things, don't you think, where everyone always thinks they're in the right have you noticed that? Nobody ever says we're the bad guys, we're going to beat shit out of the good guys.
CARYL CHURCHILL, A Number
For what can war but endless war still breed?
JOHN MILTON, On the Lord General Fairfax
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