"Since opposed principles, or ideologies, are irreconcilable, wars fought over principle will be wars of mutual annihilation. But wars fought for simple greed will be far less destructive, because the aggressor will be careful not to destroy what he is fighting to capture. Reasonable - that is, human - men will always be capable of compromise, but men who have dehumanized themselves by becoming the blind worshipers of an idea or an ideal are fanatics whose devotion to abstractions makes them the enemies of life."
War quotes
War
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War quotes (page 41 of 853)
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"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this."
"It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."
"The nation is in a death-struggle. It must either become one vast slaveocracy of petty tyrants, or wholly the land of the free."
"The real war will never get in the books."
"Brutus, I do observe you now of late: I have not from your eyes that gentleness And show of love as I was wont to have: You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand Over your friend that loves you. Poor Brutus, with himself at war, Forgets the shows of love to other men."
"It's clearly a crisis of two things: of consciousness and conditioning. We have the technological power, the engineering skills to save our planet, to cure disease, to feed the hungry, to end war; But we lack the intellectual vision, the ability to change our minds. We must decondition ourselves from 10,000 years of bad behavior. And, it's not easy."
"Putting up a statue to someone who tried to stop a war is not very, um, statuesque. Of course, if you had butchered five hundred of your own men out of arrogant carelessness, we'd be melting the bronze already."
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president... is morally treasonable to the American public."
"I am against war, against violence, against violent revolution, for peaceful settlement of differences, for nonviolent but nevertheless radical changes. Change is needed, and violence will not really change anything: at most it will only transfer power from one set of bull-headed authorities to another."
"In war there is no prize for runner-up."
"When they are preparing for war, those who rule by force speak most copiously about peace until they have completed the mobilization process."
"An old Russian woman goes into Kremlin, gets an audience with Mikhail Gorbachev and says, In America anyone can go to the White House, walk up to Reagan's desk and say, 'I don't like the way you are running the country.' Gorbachev replied, You can do the same thing in the Soviet Union. You can go into the Kremlin, walk up to my desk and say 'I don't like the way Reagan is running his country.'"
"Confront them with annihilation, and they will then survive; plunge them into a deadly situation, and they will then live. When people fall into danger, they are then able to strive for victory."
"Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to battle will arrive exhausted."
"Attack where he is unprepared; sally forth when he does not expect you."
"Those who excel in war first cultivate their own humanity and and maintain their laws and institutions. By these means they make their governments invincible."
"In war, as in politics, no evil - even if it is permissible under the rules - is excusable unless it is absolutely necessary. Everything beyond that is a crime."
"Use justice to rule a country. Use surprise to wage war. Use non-action to govern the world."
"As for the imperialist countries, we should unite with their peoples and strive to coexist peacefully with those countries, do business with them and prevent any possible war, but under no circumstances should we harbour any unrealistic notions about them."