Quotes on War (5)

“God and a soldier all people adore in time of war, but not before; And when war is over and all things are righted, God is neglected and an old soldier slighted.” Anonymous
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“The only place you and I disagree is with regard to the bombing. You're so goddamned concerned about the civilians, and I (in contrast) don't give a damn. I don't care.”. . . “I'd rather use the nuclear bomb. . . Does that bother you? I just want you to think big.” Richard Nixon to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on the Watergate tapes
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“This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped
and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.” Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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“How many does it take to metamorphose wickedness into righteousness? One man must not kill. If he does, it is murder… But a state or nation may kill as many as they please, and it is not murder. It is just, necessary, commendable, and right. Only get people enough to agree to it, and the butchery of myriads of human beings is perfectly innocent. But how many does it take?” Adin Ballou, The Non-Resistant, 5 February 1845
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“How you can win the population for war: At first, the statesman will invent cheap lying, that impute the guilt of the attacked nation, and each person will be happy over this deceit, that calm the conscience. It will study it detailed and refuse to test arguments of the other opinion. So he will convince step for step even there from that the war is just and thank God, that he, after this process of grotesque even deceit, can sleep better.” Mark Twain
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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 morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” James Madison, April 20, 1795

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“I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes.” Winston Churchill, 1919, at the time secretary of defense
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“I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. Some of these young men think that war is all glory but let me say war is all hell.” William Tecumseh Sherman

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“I don't believe that the big men, the politicians and the capitalists alone are guilty of the war. Oh, no, the little man is just as keen, otherwise the people of the world would have risen in revolt long ago! There is an urge and rage in people to destroy, to kill, to murder,
and until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change, wars will be waged.” Anne Frank (1929-1945), a Jewish girl, author of a diary of her family's two years in hiding during World War Two
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“I have learned from first hand experience that war is the destroyer of everything that is good in the world, it turns our young into soulless killers and we tell them that they are heroes when they master the ‘art' of killing.” Kevin Benderman
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“I cannot tell anyone else how to live his or her life but I have determined how I want to live mine–by not participating in war any longer…” Monica Benderman
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“I have seen men march to the wars, and then I have watched their homeward tread, and they brought back bodies of living men, But their eyes were cold and dead.” Edmund Vance Cooke
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“It's odd how those who dismiss the peace movement as utopian, don't hesitate to proffer the most absurdly dreamy reasons for going to war: to stamp out terrorism, install democracy, eliminate fascism, and most entertainingly, to ‘rid the world of evil-doers'” Arundhati Roy
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“I refuse to be silent any longer. I refuse to be party to an illegal and immoral war against people who did nothing to deserve our aggression. My oath of office is to protect and defend America 's laws and its people. By refusing unlawful orders for an illegal war, I fulfill that oath today.” U.S. Army First Lt. Ehren Watada
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“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless.” U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864 - (letter to Col. William F. Elkins) Ref: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, Archer H. Shaw - (Macmillan, 1950, NY)
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“I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.” George McGovern
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“If a country develops an economic system that is based on how to pay for the war, and if the amounts of fixed capital investment that are apparent are tied up in armaments, and if that country is a major exporter of arms, and its industrial fabric is dependent on them, then it would be in that country's interests to ensure that it always had a market. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is clearly in the interests of the world's leading arms exporters to make sure that there is always a war going on somewhere.” Marilyn Waring, source: Documentary ‘Who's Counting', based on her book ‘Counting for Nothing'.

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“If a war be undertaken for the most righteous end, before the resources of peace have been tried and proved vain to secure it, that war has no defense, it is a national crime.” Charles Eliot Norton
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“If it were proved to me that in making war, my ideal had a chance of being realized, I would still say ‘No' to war. For one does not create human society on mounds of corpses.” Louis Lecoin, French pacifist leader

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“If sunbeams were weapons of war, we would have had solar energy centuries ago.” Sir George Porter, quoted in The Observer, 26 August 1973

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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