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The monk that invented gunpowder did as much to stop war as did all the sermons of his brethren.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY, Keystones of Thought
In every trade save war men of talent and vigor prosper. In war they die.
CORMAC MCCARTHY, The Crossing
A preventive war, to my mind, is an impossibility today. How could you have one if one of its features would be several cities lying in ruins, several cities where many, many thousands of people would be dead and injured and mangled, the transportation systems destroyed, sanitation implements and systems all gone? That isn't preventive war; that is war.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, news conference, Aug. 11, 1954
War is a game, in which princes seldom win, the people never. To be defended, is almost as great an evil as to be attacked; and the peasant has often found the shield of a protector, no less oppressive than the sword of an invader. Wars of opinion, as they have been the most destructive, are also the most disgraceful of conflicts; being appeals from right to might, and from argument to artillery; the fomenters of them have considered the raw materials, man, to have been formed for no worthier purposes than to fill up gazettes at home with their names, and ditches abroad with their bodies. Let us hope that true philosophy, the joint offspring of a religion that is pure, and of a reason that is enlightened, will gradually prepare a better order of things, when mankind will no longer be insulted, by seeing bad pens mended by good swords, and weak heads exalted by strong hands.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON, Lacon
War may be the game of kings, but, like the games at ancient Rome, it is generally exhibited to please and pacify the people.
ARTHUR HELPS, Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
Want is both parent and child of war.
Armies are not bad things in themselves; it's war that's evil.
JUAN GOMEZ-JURADO, God's Spy
Short of changing human nature ... the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war.
RICHARD NIXON, Real Peace
In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.
JAMES MADISON, speech at Constitutional Convention, Jun. 29, 1787
All wars of interference, arising from an officious intrusion into the concerns of other states; all wars of ambition, carried on for the purposes of aggrandizement; and all wars of aggression, undertaken for the purpose of forcing an assent to this or that set of religious opinions; all such wars are criminal in their very outset, and have hypocrisy for their common base.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON, Lacon
We could make no more tragic mistake than merely to concentrate on military strength. For if we did only this, the future would hold nothing for the world but an Age of Terror.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, State of the Union Address, Jan. 9, 1958
A righteous war is a legacy from heaven--oftentimes the handmaid of a nation's liberty.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, Quote Magazine, Apr. 4, 1965
NIXON: The only place where you and I disagree ... is with regard to the bombing. You're so goddamned concerned about civilians and I don't give a damn. I don't care.
KISSINGER: I'm concerned about the civilians because I don't want the world to be mobilized against you as a butcher.
RICHARD NIXON and HENRY KISSINGER, as quoted in Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
- In war--a country's hopes stagnate,
- In war--her strong are slain.
- In war--dark evils desecrate
- Her council hall and fane.
- In war--with wings of omen dark
- Her wrongs and debts increase,
- Prosperity and progress mark
- The golden realm of Peace.
MARTHA LAVINIA HOFFMAN, "The Song of Peace"
Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
JAMES MADISON, "Political Observations," Apr. 20, 1795
Even a successful war is a loss to most families.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, speech, Apr. 16, 1953
There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe that they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.
NEIL GAIMAN, American Gods
War is the most readily available form of chaos.
FRANK HERBERT, God Emperor of Dune
It makes no difference what men think of war.... War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.
CORMAC MCCARTHY, Blood Meridian
I cannot get accustomed to war; my brain refuses to understand and explain a thing that is senseless in its basis. Millions of people gather at one place and, giving their actions order and regularity, kill each other, and it hurts everybody equally, and all are unhappy -- what is it if not madness?
LEONID ANDREYEV, The Red Laugh
War among men defiles this world.
T. S. ELIOT, Murder in the Cathedral
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