Quotes on War (7)

“All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones. In my opinion, there never was a good war or a bad peace. When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration?” Benjamin Franklin
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“If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war.” Pentagon official explaining why the U.S. military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War
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“Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace.” Charles Sumner
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“Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education. Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both.” Abraham Flexner
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“There never has been a war yet which, if the facts had been put calmly before the ordinary folk, could not have been prevented ... The common man, I think, is the great protection against war.” Ernest Bevin, speech in the House of Commons, November 23, 1945
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“It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear.” General Douglas MacArthur, Speech, May 15, 1951
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“It is part of the moral tragedy with which we are dealing that words like ‘democracy,' ‘freedom,' ‘rights,' ‘justice,' which have so often inspired heroism and have led men to give their lives for things which make life worthwhile, can also become a trap, the means of destroying the very things men desire to uphold.” Sir Norman Angell (1874-1967), 1956
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“It seems that ‘we have never gone to war for conquest, for exploitation, nor for territory'; we have the word of a president [McKinley] for that. Observe, now, how Providence overrules the intentions of the truly good for their advantage. We went to war with Mexico for peace, humanity and honor, yet emerged from the contest with an extension of territory beyond the dreams of political avarice. We went to war with Spain for relief of an oppressed people [the Cubans], and at the close found ourselves in possession of vast and rich insular dependencies [primarily the Philippines] and with a pretty tight grasp upon the country for relief of whose oppressed people we took up arms. We could hardly have profited more had ‘territorial aggrandizement' been the spirit of our purpose and heart of our hope. The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations.” Ambrose Bierce, Warlike America
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“It'll be a great day when education gets all the money it wants and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy bombers.” Author unknown, quoted in You Said a Mouthful edited by Ronald D. Fuchs
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“Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education. Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both.” Abraham Flexner
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“Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our [1787] Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.” Abraham Lincoln, in an 1848 letter to William Herndon

“Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object.” Abraham Lincoln
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“The decision to attack the entire nation [of Yugoslavia ] has been counterproductive, and our destruction of civilian life has now become senseless and excessively brutal. The United States' insistence on the use of cluster bombs, designed to kill or maim humans, is condemned almost universally and brings discredit on our nation (as does our refusal to support a ban on land mines). Even for the world's only superpower, the ends don't always justify the means.” Jimmy Carter
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“ Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood.” Gandhi, Non-violence in Peace and War, 1948
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“Man has no right to kill his brother. It is no excuse that he does so in uniform: he only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder.” Percy Bysshe Shelley, “A Declaration of Rights”
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“Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.” Otto Von Bismark
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“We kill because we are afraid of our own shadow, afraid that if we used a little common sense we'd have to admit that our glorious principles were wrong.” Henry Miller, The Wisdom of the Heart, 1941
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“Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out... and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel… And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for ‘the universal brotherhood of man' - with his mouth.” Mark Twain
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“Have not I myself known five hundred living soldiers sabred into crows' meat for a piece of glazed cotton, which they call their flag; which had you sold it at any market-cross, would not have brought above three groschen?” Thomas Carlyle, “Sartor Resartus”

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“Men are at war with each other because each man is at war with himself.” Francis Meehan
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“More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars - yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

More War Quotes:
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21) (22) (23) (24) (25)

World of Wars

A War Prayer by Mark Twain. Preachers, profiteers and politicians make war appear to be glorious. This is the text of Mark Twain's powerful illustration and a link to a youtube video version.

War: Who is responsible? by Lawrence M. Vance. Points out that the American government has created a mindset that when a person puts on a military uniform, they are no longer responsible for their actions on the killing fields. This is wrong.

War is a Racket by Major General Smedley Darlington Butler

The pioneers of a warless world are the youth that refuse military service. - Albert Einstein.

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations. David Friedman

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." -MATTHEW 5:9

Neither shall they learn war any more. Jewish and Christian Bibles, Isaiah 2:4; Micah 4:3

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Perhaps the world's largest war antiwar quotes

See also Power, Justice and Mercy Quotes

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