Quotes on Antiwar

Statism needs war; a free country does not. Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by producing.

Either man will abolish war, or war will abolish man.

War means blind obedience, unthinking stupidity, brutish callousness, wanton destruction, and irresponsible murder.

How vile and despicable war seems to me! I would rather be hacked to pieces than take part in such an abominable business.

Even if we are spared destruction by war, our lives will have to change if we want to save life from self-destruction.

Violence, even well intentioned, always rebounds upon oneself.

Economically considered, war and revolution are always bad business.

The statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.

Almost all war making states borrow extensively, raise taxes, and seize the means of combat - including men - from reluctant citizens.

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.

Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.

[T]he essence of so-called war prosperity: it enriches some by what it takes from others. It is not rising wealth but a shifting of wealth and income.

Cruelty must be whitewashed by a moral excuse, and pretense of reluctance.

A man may build himself a throne of bayonets, but he cannot sit on it.

There are no warlike people, just warlike leaders.

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.

You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.

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.

Preventing war is much better than protesting against the war. Protesting the war is too late.

Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing.

Conflict is inevitable but combat is optional.