“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
“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
“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
“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, letter to William Herndon, 1848
“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
“Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood.” ——Gandhi, Non-violence in Peace and War, 1948
“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
“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 Bismarck
“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
“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
“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
“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
“Nothing short of self-respect and that justice which is essential to a national character ought to involve us in war.” ——George Washington (1732-1799), First President of the United States
“Many are they who are touched at the heart by these things. Those they sent forth they knew; now in place of the young men urns and ashes are carried home to the houses of the fighters… The citizens speak: their voice is dull with hatred. The curse of the people must be paid for.” ——Agamemnon, lines 432-436, 456-7 (Grene and Lattimore translation)
“Often war is waged only in order to show valor; thus an inner dignity is ascribed to war itself, and even some philosophers have praised it as an ennoblement of humanity, forgetting the pronouncement of the Greek who said, ‘War is an evil in as much as it produces more wicked men than it takes away.'” ——Immanuel Kant
“War is the health of the State. It automatically sets in motion throughout society these irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate cooperation with the government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense.” ——Randolph Bourne
“Beware of the leader, who strikes the war drum in order to transfer the citizens into patriotic glow, patriotism is indeed a double-sided sword. It makes the blood so boldly, like it constricts the intellect. And if the striking of the war drum reached a feverish height and the blood is cooking and hating, and the intellect is dismissed, the leader doesn’t need to reject the citizens’ rights. The citizens, caught by anxiety and blinded through patriotism, will subordinate all their rights to the leader and this even with happy courage. Why do I know that? I know it, because this is, what I did. And I am Gaius Julius Caesar.” ——Gaius Julius Caesar
“Once and for all the idea of glorious victories won by the glorious army must be wiped out. Neither side is glorious. On either side they’re just frightened men messing their pants and they all want the same thing – not to lie under the earth, but to walk upon it – without crutches.” ——Peter Weiss
“I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, ‘Mother, what was war?'” ——Eve Merriam
“Only the winners decide what were war crimes.” ——Gary Wills, author
“Our position is that whatever grievances a nation may have, however objectionable it finds the status quo, aggressive warfare is an illegal means for settling those grievances or for altering those conditions.” ——Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, American prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, opening statement to the tribunal
“Crime Against Peace: A basic provision of the Charter is that to plan, prepare, initiate or wage a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements, and assurances, or to conspire or participate in a common plan to do so is a crime.” ——Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson
“People have not been horrified by war to a sufficient extent… War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige as the warrior does today.” ——John Fitzgerald Kennedy
“I was a bombardier in WW2. When you are up 30,000 feet you do not hear the screams or smell the blood or see those without limbs or eyes. It was not til I read Hersey’s Hiroshima that I realized what bomber pilots do.” ——Howard Zinn
“The pioneers of a warless world are the youth that refuse military service.” ——Albert Einstein
“Peoples of Egypt, you will be told that I have come to destroy your religion. Do not believe it! Reply that I have come to restore your rights!” ——Napoleon Bonaparte, 1798
“Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators. Your wealth has been stripped of you by unjust men… The people of Baghdad shall flourish under institutions which are in consonance with their sacred laws.” ——General F. S. Maude, commander of British forces in Iraq, 1917
“Iraqis are sick of foreign people coming in their country and trying to destabilize their country.” ——Washington, D.C., May 5, 2004
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” ——George Orwell
“Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought! Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder! Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human beings! Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction! Be heroes in an army of construction!” ——Helen Keller, address at Carnegie Hall one year before the United States entered World War I
“Sure, there were lots of bodies we never identified. You know what a direct hit by a shell does to a guy. Or a mine, or a solid hit with a grenade, even. Sometimes all we have is a leg or a hunk of arm. The ones that stink the worst are the guys who got internal wounds and are dead about three weeks with the blood staying inside and rotting, and when you move the body the blood comes out of the nose and mouth. Then some of them bloat up in the sun, they bloat up so big that they bust the buttons and then they get blue and the skin peels. They don’t all get blue, some of them get black. But they all stunk. There’s only one stink and that’s it. You never get used to it, either. As long as you live, you never get used to it. And after a while, the stink gets in your clothes and you can taste it in your mouth. You know what I think? I think maybe if every civilian in the world could smell this stink, then maybe we wouldn’t have any more wars.” ——Technical Sergeant Donald Haguall, 48th Quartermaster Graves Registration, quoted in Purnell’s History of the Second World War
“Under the influence of politicians, masses of people tend to ascribe the responsibility for wars to those who wield power at any given time. In World War I it was the munitions industrialists; in World War II it was the psychopathic generals who were said to be guilty. This is passing the buck. The responsibility for wars falls solely upon the shoulders of these same masses of people, for they have all the necessary means to avert war in their own hands. In part by their apathy, in part by their passivity, and in part actively, these same masses of people make possible the catastrophes under which they themselves suffer more than anyone else. To stress this guilt on the part of the masses of people, to hold them solely responsible, means to take them seriously. On the other hand, to commiserate masses of people as victims, means to treat them as small, helpless children. The former is the attitude held by genuine freedom fighters; the latter that attitude held by power-thirsty politicians.” ——Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism
“That the aggressor, who puts himself into the state of war with another, and unjustly invades another man’s right, can, by such an unjust war, never come to have a right over the conquered, will be easily agreed by all men, who will not think that robbers and pirates have a right of empire over whomsoever they have force enough to master, or that men are bound by promises which unlawful force extorts from them. Should a robber break into my house, and, with a dagger at my throat, make me seal deeds to convey my estate to him, would this give him any title? Just such a title by his sword has an unjust conqueror who forces me into submission. The injury and the crime is equal, whether committed by the wearer of a crown or some petty villain. The title of the offender and the number of his followers make no difference in the offence, unless it be to aggravate it. The only difference is, great robbers punish little ones to keep them in their obedience; but the great ones are rewarded with laurels and triumphs, because they are too big for the weak hands of justice in this world, and have the power in their own possession which should punish offenders.” ——John Locke (1632-1704)
“The biggest lesson I learned from Vietnam is not to trust [our own] government statements. I had no idea until then that you could not rely on [them].” ——James W. Fulbright (1905-1995), US senator who initiated the international exchange program for scholars
“If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.” ——Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)
“The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should therefore be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be propagated. If the doctrine be admitted, rulers have only to declare war and they are screened at once from scrutiny.” ——William Ellery Channing
“War seems to me to be a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business. And yet so high, in spite of everything, is my opinion of the human race that I believe this bogey would have disappeared long ago, had the sound sense of the nations not been systematically corrupted by commercial and political interests acting through the schools and the Press.” ——Albert Einstein