WAR QUOTES VIII

quotations about war

War has been the most convenient pseudo-solution for the problems of twentieth-century capitalism. It provides the incentives to modernisation and technological revolution which the market and the pursuit of profit do only fitfully and by accident, it makes the unthinkable (such as votes for women and the abolition of unemployment) not merely thinkable but practicable.... What is equally important, it can re-create communities of men and give a temporary sense to their lives by uniting them against foreigners and outsiders. This is an achievement beyond the power of the private enterprise economy ... when left to itself.

ERIC J. HOBSBAWM

London Observer, May 26, 1968

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A holy war is a contradiction in terms. War dehumanizes, war diminishes, war debases all those who wage it.

ELIE WIESEL

Nobel Lecture, December 10, 1986

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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

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I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.

BARACK OBAMA

The New Yorker, May 31, 2004

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Let's face it--if mothers ruled the world, there wouldn't be any goddamn wars in the first place.

SALLY FIELD

acceptance speech at 2007 Emmy Awards

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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", April 20, 1795


History shows that wars are divided into two kinds, just and unjust. All wars that are progressive are just, and all wars that impede progress are unjust. We Communists oppose all unjust wars that impede progress, but we do not oppose progressive, just wars. Not only do we Communists not oppose just wars; we actively participate in them.

MAO ZEDONG

"On Protracted War", May 1938

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It is only through an abandonment of the idea that those entrusted with power have an exclusive right to decide upon war, and the substitution of a public opinion equipped with all the facts and taken into the confidence of the ruling classes, that peace can be assured to the world.

FREDERIC CLEMSON HOWE

Why War


No body can be healthful without exercise, neither natural body nor politic; and certainly to a kingdom or estate, a just and honorable war, is the true exercise. A civil war, indeed, is like the heat of a fever; but a foreign war is like the heat of exercise, and serveth to keep the body in health; for in a slothful peace, both courages will effeminate, and manners corrupt.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of the True Greatness Of Kingdoms And Estates", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral

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Every war involves a greater or less relapse into barbarism. War, indeed, in its details, is the essence of inhumanity. It dehumanizes. It may save the state, but it destroys the citizen.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought

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War is bestowed like electroshock on the depressive nation; thousands of volts jolting the system, an artificial galvanizing, one effect of which is loss of memory. War comes at the end of the twentieth century as absolute failure of imagination, scientific and political. That a war can be represented as helping a people to "feel good" about themselves, their country, is a measure of that failure.

ADRIENNE RICH

What is Found There

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We don't call war hell because it is fought without restraint. It is more nearly right to say that, when certain restraints are passed, the hellishness of war drives us to break with every remaining restraint in order to win. Here is the ultimate tyranny: those who resist aggression are forced to imitate, and perhaps even to exceed, the brutality of the aggressor.

MICHAEL WALZER

Just and Unjust Wars

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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

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No one should be surprised at the prominence given to war. We are dealing with early ages: nation-making is the occupation of man in these ages, and it is war that makes nations.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Physics and Politics

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War settles nothing.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

Quote Magazine, April 4, 1965


Fifteen millions of soldiers with popguns and horses
All bent upon killing, because their "of courses"
Are not quite the same.

AMY LOWELL

"A Ballad of Footmen"

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Before a war military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war it seems more like astrology.

REBECCA WEST

attributed, Europe in Arms

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Weakness and ambivalence lead to war.

GEORGE H. W. BUSH

RNC acceptance speech, August 18, 1988

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Is war necessary? Can some conflicts only be solved by violence? Human history is indeed often presented as primarily a history of wars and battles, conquests and defeats. While that is only one perspective amongst many possible ones, violence of one sort or another has certainly been, if not centre-stage, at least lurking in the wings throughout the human story. Man (especially Man, but also Woman) clearly has the propensity not only to behave aggressively to other humans but also to do so in an organized way and not infrequently with calculated cruelty.

ROBERT AUBREY HINDE

War: The Bases of Institutionalized Violence

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The term "just war" contains an internal contradiction. War is inherently unjust, and the great challenge of our time is how to deal with evil, tyranny, and oppression without killing huge numbers of people.

HOWARD ZINN

Terrorism and War

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