Quotes on Antiwar

My first wish is, to see this plague of mankind banished from the earth, and the sons and daughters of this world employed in more pleasing and innocent amusements, than in preparing implements, and exercising them, for the destruction of mankind.

I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.

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.

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.

War is like love, it always finds a way.

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.

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

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

You lose nothing through peace. You can lose everything through war.