Quotes on Great War

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force...Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

Though the object of being a Great Power is to be able to fight a Great War, the only way of remaining a Great Power is not to fight one.

Governments constantly choose between telling lies and fighting wars, with the end result always being the same. One will always lead to the other.

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.

No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.

A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.

More than 80 per cent of the British casualties of the Great War were English. More than 80 per cent of the taxation is paid by the English taxpayers. We are entitled to mention these facts, and to draw authority and courage from them.

The Great War differed from all ancient wars in the immense power of the combatants and their fearful agencies of destruction, and from all modern wars in the utter ruthlessness with which it was fought.

So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!

Whoever wants peace among nations must seek to limit the state and its influence most strictly.

Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.

Peace and not war is the father of all things.

The home front is always underrated by Generals in the field. And yet that is where the Great War was won and lost. The Russian, Bulgarian, Austrian and German home fronts fell to pieces before their armies collapsed.

So great are the psychological resistances to war in modern nations, that every war must appear to be a war of defence against a menacing, murderous aggressor. There must be no ambiguity about whom the public is to hate. Guilt and guilelessness must be assessed geographically and all the guilt must be on the other side of the frontier.

This is the end and the beginning of an age. This is something far greater than the French Revolution or the Reformation and we live in it.

Yet when we achieved, and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to remake it in the likeness of the former world they knew. Youth could win, but had not learned to keep: and was pitiably weak against age. We stammered that we had worked for a new heaven and a new earth, and they thanked us kindly and made their peace.

Against the vast majority of my countrymen, even at this moment, in the name of humanity and civilization, I protest against our share in the destruction of Germany. A month ago Europe was a peaceful comity of nations; if an Englishman killed a German, he was hanged. Now, if an Englishman kills a German, or if a German kills an Englishman, he is a patriot, who has deserved well of his country.