Quotes on Anti War

The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.

War is not the continuation of politics with different means, it is the greatest mass-crime perpetrated on the community of man.

Having seen the people of all other nations bowed down to the earth under the wars and prodigalities of their rulers, I have cherished their opposites, peace, economy, and riddance of public debt, believing that these were the high road to public as well as private prosperity and happiness.

The working masses of men and women, they and they alone, are responsible for everything that takes place, the good things and the bad things. True enough, they suffer most from a war, but it is their apathy, craving for authority, etc., that is most responsible for making wars possible. It follows of necessity from this responsibility that the working masses of men and women, they and they alone, are capable of establishing lasting peace.

No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one. You can wipe out your opponents. But if you do it unjustly you become eligible for being wiped out yourself.

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, debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few... No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

The statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.

War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.

No mother would ever willingly sacrifice her sons for territorial gain, for economic advantage, for ideology.

They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.

My theory is, strong people don't need strong leaders.

War: a massacre of people who don't know each other for the profit of people who know each other but don't massacre each other.

War is the unfolding of miscalculations.

Societies can be sunk by the weight of buried ugliness.

We are all familiar with the argument: Make war dreadful enough, and there will be no war. And we none of us believe it.

It is harder to preserve than to obtain liberty.

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.

Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.

There are many terrorist states in the world, but the United States is unusual in that it is officially committed to international terrorism.

Common experience shows how much rarer is moral courage than physical bravery. A thousand men will march to the mouth of the cannon where one man will dare espouse an unpopular cause . . . True courage and manhood come from the consciousness of the right attitude toward the world, the faith in one's purpose, and the sufficiency of one's own approval as a justification for one's own acts.

I am a steadfast follower of the doctrine of non-violence which was first preached by Lord Buddha, whose divine wisdom is absolute.