A friend of mine put this together:

The Wisdom of the Ages Concerning War (in Quotations)

Question: How does our Nation rush into War?

[The answer that Mark Twain gave was astonishingly prophetic and completely accurate; it's a testament to his great understanding of human beings and their motives.  From "The Mysterious Stranger", 1916, the character of "Satan" is speaking:]

"There never was a just one, never an honorable one -- on the part of the instigator of the war.  I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances.

The loud little handful -- as usual -- will shout for the war.  The pulpit will -- warily and cautiously -- object -- at first, the great dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war and will say earnestly and indignantly, "'It is unjust and dishonorable and there is no necessity for it.'

Then the handful will shout louder.  A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity.

Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers -- as earlier -- but do not dare to say so.  And now the whole nation -- pulpit and all -- will take up the war-cry and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open.

Next 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."
(-- Mark Twain: "The Mysterious Stranger", 1916, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 972)

His voice is echoed by others; unfortunately they are the voices that are "out-shouted" by those who deceive themselves about war:

"No soldier starts a war -- they only give their lives to it.  Wars are started by you and me, by bankers and politicians, excitable women, newspaper editors, clergymen who are ex-pacifists, and Congressmen with vertebrae of putty.  The youngsters yelling in the streets, poor kids, are the ones who pay the price."
(-- Francis P. Duffy: Sermon, Joffre memorial service, New York City, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 957)

"Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die.  And it is youth who must inherit the tribulation, the sorrow, and the triumphs that are the aftermath of war."
(-- Herbert Clark Hoover, found in "Webster's Book of Quotations", 1994, p.232)

"Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a 'necessary evil', it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil."
(-- Sydney J. Harris, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.52)

"We must say what everybody knows but does not venture to say.  We must say that by whatever name men may call murder -- murder always remains murder and a criminal and shameful thing.  And it is only necessary to say that clearly, definitely, and loudly, as we can say it here, and men will cease to see what they thought they saw and will see what is really before their eyes.  They will cease to see the service of their country, the heroism of war, military glory, and patriotism, and will see what exists: the naked, criminal business of murder!"
(-- Leo N. Tolstoy: Address, Swedish Government Congress Peace Conference, 1909, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 971)


Question: What do the Founding Fathers and other American Heroes of the Republic have to say about War and issues of Power?

"My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth."
(-- George Washington, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 972)

"War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses."
(-- Thomas Jefferson, found in "Webster's Book of Quotations", 1994, p.232)

"There never was a good war or a bad peace."
(-- Benjamin Franklin, "Letter to Quincy", found in "The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations", edited by Frank S. Mead, p.693)

"Liberty is a boisterous sea.  Timid men prefer the calm of despotism."
(-- Thomas Jefferson, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.96)

"Were we directed from Washington  when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread."
(-- Thomas Jefferson, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.163)

"I wish to see the discovery of a plan, that would induce and oblige nations to settle their disputes without cutting one another's throats.  When will men be convinced, that even successful wars at length become misfortunes to those who unjustly commenc'd them, and who triumph'd blindly in their success, not seeing all the consequences."
(-- Benjamin Franklin, 1780, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 959)

"Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation?  Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love?  Let us not deceive ourselves, sir.  These are the implements of war and subjugation -- the last arguments to which kings resort."
(-- Patrick Henry: Speech on the Stamp Act, Virginia Convention, 1775, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 961)

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
(-- Abraham Lincoln, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.120)

"Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions are again upon you."
(-- Abraham Lincoln, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.162)

"Our chiefs are killed ... The little children are freezing to death.  My people ... have no blankets, no food ... My heart is sick and sad ... I will fight no more forever."
(-- Chief Joseph, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.515)

"Preparation for war is a constant stimulus to suspicion and ill will."
(-- James Monroe, 1818, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 966)

On the subject of the endless Preparations for War which we make:

"Wars occur because people prepare for conflict, rather than for peace."
(-- Trygve Lie: Labor, 1947, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 963)

"We have no adequate idea of the predisposing power which an immense series of measures of preparation for war has in actually begetting war."
(-- William Gladstone, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 959)

"Wars frequently begin ten years before the first shot is fired."
(-- K.K.V. Casey: Testimony of DuPont director, at the Nye-Vanderberg Munitions Investigation -- to be compared with the stifled Haliburton / Rebuilding Iraq Scandal of 2004! -- from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 955 )

"Wars frequently have been declared in the past with the backing of the nations involved because public opinion had been influenced through the press and through other mediums, either by the governments themselves or by certain powerful interests which desire war."
(-- Eleanor Roosevelt: "This Troubled World", from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 968)

"Wars are precipitated by motives which the statesmen responsible for them dare not publicly avow.  A public discussion would drag these motives in their nudity into the open, where they would die of exposure to the withering contempt of humanity."
(-- David Lloyd George, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 963)

Question: Why is war so popular with Industrialists and Profiteers?

"War, like any other racket, pays high dividends to the very few.  But what does it profit the masses?  ... The cost of operations is always transferred to the people who do not profit."
(-- Smedley Butler, 1934, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 955)

"When wars do come, they fall upon the many, the producing class, who are the sufferers."
(-- Ulysses Simpson Grant, found in "Webster's Book of Quotations", 1994, p.232)

"Instead of the government taking over industry when the war broke out, industry took over the government."
(-- Claire Gillis, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.516)

"... now we have discovered war to be derived from causes which are also the cause of almost all the evils in States, private as well as public."
(-- Plato: "The Republic", from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 968)

"The master class has always brought a war and the subject class has always fought the battle.  The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, and the subject class has had all to lose and nothing to gain."
(-- Eugene V. Debs: Address, Socialist Party convention, Canton, Ohio, June 16, 1918.  Debs was arrested for this speech , tried, and imprisoned; from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 957)

"Almost any man worthy of his salt would fight to defend his home, but no one ever heard of a man going to war for his boarding house."
(-- Mark Twain: "Mark Twain in Eruption", from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 972)

"When we, the Workers, all demand:
'What are WE fighting for?'
Then, then we'll end that stupid crime,
That Devil's madness -- WAR."
(-- Robert W. Service, 1959, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 969)

"Take the profits out of war."
(-- Bernard M. Baruch, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 954)

"... Warfare is the means whereby the members of a parasitic ruling class of alien origin endeavor, while exploiting their own subjects, to dominate those surrounding peoples who produce wealth in a tangible and desired form."
(Havelock Ellis: Impressions and Comments, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 958)

"The true cause of industrial warfare is as simple as the true cause of international warfare.  It is that if men recognize no law superior to their desires, then they must fight when their desires collide."
(-- Richard H. Tawney: "The Acquisitive Society", 1920, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 970)

"Wars are caused by undefended wealth."
(-- Douglas MacArthur, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 964)

Question: In times of war what happens to the Social Reforms our nation needs to address?

"A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very easy to govern.  It demands no social reforms.  It does not haggle over expenditures on armaments and military equipment.  It pays without discussion, it ruins itself, and that is an excellent thing for the syndicates of financiers and manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain."
(-- Anatole France, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 958)

"War can be abolished forever by providing clothing, food, and housing, instead of bombers, destroyers and rockets."
(-- Trygve Lie: Labor, 1947, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 963)

"The world will never have lasting peace so long as men reserve for war the finest human qualities."
(-- John Foster Dulles, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.515)

"If war no longer occupied men's thoughts and energies, we would, within a generation, put an end to all serious poverty throughout the world."
(-- Bertrand Russell: "The Future of Mankind", from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 968)

"War means an ugly mob-madness, crucifying the truth-tellers, choking the artists, sidetracking reforms, revolutions, and the working of social forces."
(-- John Reed: "Whose War?", 1917, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 968)

"The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant duplicity.  Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike, and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune."
(-- Boris Pasternak, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.307)

"The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see."
(-- Winston Churchill, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.73)


Question: Is a "Preventative War" a reasonable course of action?

"When people speak to you about a preventative war, you tell them to go and fight it.  After my experience, I have come to hate war.  War settles nothing."
(-- Dwight David Eisenhower, found in "Webster's Book of Quotations", 1994, p.231)

"The imponderables and the unforeseen cannot be ignored in formulating foreign policy.  That is why a preventative war should always be regarded as an act of criminal folly."
(-- Sumner Welles, found in "Webster's Book of Quotations", 1994, p.232)

"Never go out to meet trouble.  If you will just sit still, nine times out of ten someone will intercept it before it reaches you."
(-- Calvin Coolidge, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.156)

"War should never be entered upon until every agency of peace has failed."
(-- William McKinley, 1897, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 965)

"But if a war be undertaken for the most righteous end, before the resources of peace have been tried and  proved vain to secure it, that war has no defense, it is a national crime."
(-- Charles Eliot Norton, denouncing the Spanish-American War, 1898, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 967)

Question: Just how "Criminal" is War?

"The glories of war are all blood-stained, delirious, and infected with crime; the combative instinct is a savage prompting by which one man's good is found in another's evil."
(-- George Santayana, "Reason in Society", from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 969)

"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.  Ask the infantry and ask the dead."
(-- Ernest Hemingway, found in "Webster's Book of Quotations", 1994, p.232)

"They made a speech, and played a trumpet and dressed me in a uniform and then they killed me."
(-- Irwin Shaw, found in "Webster's Book of Quotations", 1994, p.232)

"The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war.  Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin.  But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists."
(-- Ernest Hemingway: Notes on the Next War, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 960)

"Warfare as practiced by man has no parallel in nature.  That is to say that within the more highly developed animal populations of this earth there is not now nor has there ever been similar destruction within a species itself."
(-- Fairfield Osborn: "Our Plundered Planet", from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 967)

Question: What are the realities that make war a Crime?

"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will.  War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it."
(-- William Tecumseh Sherman: Letter to James M. Calhoun, 1864, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 969)

"To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder."
(-- Albert Einstein, 1952, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 958)

"War is the science of destruction."
(-- John Stevens Cabot Abbott, found in "Webster's Book of Quotations", 1994, p.231)

"War crushes, with bloody heel, all justice, all happiness, all that is God-like in man."
(-- Charles Sumner, 1845, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 970)

"What difference does it make to the dead ... whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?"
(-- Mohandas Gandhi, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.515)

"We know now without any possibility of doubt that the outcome of war in the modern world is unpayable debts, repudiations, ruined investments, the utter disorganization of finance, the collapse of the money system, the disappearance of the greater part of foreign trade, and, usually, on top of it, revolution from below."
(-- Sir Norman Angell: 'Peace', 1933, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 953)

"The bomb has been made more effective ... Unless another war is prevented it is likely to bring destruction on a scale never before held possible and even now hardly conceived, and ... little civilization would survive it."
(-- Albert Einstein, found in "Webster's Book of Quotations", 1994, p.231)

"The next World War will be fought with stones."
(-- Albert Einstein, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 958)

"The human race is a family.  Men are brothers.  All wars are civil wars.  All killing is fratricidal -- as the poet Owen put it, 'I am the enemy you killed, my friend.'"
(-- Adlai Ewing Stevenson, found in "Webster's Book of Quotations", 1994, p.232)

"Civil war is only another name for class war."
(-- Rosa Luxemburg, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 964)

"In every case the guilt of war is confined to a few persons, and the many are friends."
(-- Plato: "The Republic", from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 967)

Question: What can our Scientists and Geniuses tell us about War?

"War is the desperate, vital problem of our time."
(-- Thomas Alva Edison, found in "Webster's Book of Quotations", 1994, p.231)

"There is no more terrible sight than ignorance in action."
(-- Goethe, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.79)

"The man who enjoys marching in line and file to the strains of music falls below my contempt; he received his great brain by mistake -- the spinal cord would have been amply sufficient."
(-- Albert Einstein, found in "Webster's Book of Quotations", 1994, p.231)

"There are only two ways to live your life.  One is as though nothing is a miracle.  The other is as though everything is a miracle."
( -- Albert Einstein, found in "Culture as Given, Culture as Choice, by Dirk Van Der Elst, at the beginning of Chapter 10)

"The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life."
(-- Albert Einstein, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.309)

"This is the problem: Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?  It is common knowledge that with the advance of modern science, this issue has come to mean a matter of life and death for civilization as we know it; nevertheless, for all the zeal displayed, every attempt at its solution has ended in a lamentable breakdown."
(-- Albert Einstein: 'Letter to Dr. Freud, 1932, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 957)

"Why do we, you and I and many another, protest so vehemently against war, instead of just accepting it as another of life's importunities?  For it seems a natural thing enough, biologically sound and practically unavoidable ...
The answer to my query may run as follows: Because every man has a right over his own life and war destroys lives that were full of promise; it forces the individual into situations that shame his manhood, obliging him to murder fellow men, against his will; it ravages material amenities, the fruits of human toil, and much besides.
Moreover, wars, as now conducted, afford no scope for acts of heroism according to the old ideals and, given the high perfection of modern arms, war today would mean the sheer extermination of one of the combatants, if not of both.  This is so true, so obvious, that we can but wonder why the conduct of war is not banned by general consent."
(-- Sigmund Freud: Letter to Albert Einstein, 1932, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 959)

"The human race has today the means for annihilating itself -- either in a fit of complete lunacy, i.e., in a big war, by

"The human race has today the means for annihilating itself -- either in a fit of complete lunacy, i.e., in a big war, by a brief fit of destruction, or by careless handling of atomic technology, through a slow process of poisoning and of deterioration in its genetic structure."
(-- Max Born: 'Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists', June 1957, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 954)

"With men, the state of nature is not a state of peace, but war; if not of open war, then at least ever ready to break out."
(-- Immanuel Kant: Perpetual Peace, II, 1795, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 962)

"O war!  thou son of hell!"
(-- William Shakespeare: Henry V, Part II, Act V, Sc. 2, found in "The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations", edited by Frank S. Mead, p.695)

"It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants.  What are you industrious about?"
(-- Henry David Thoreau, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.122)

"What is human warfare but just this -- an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party."
(-- Henry David Thoreau, found in "The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations", edited by Frank S. Mead, p.695)

"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that, too."
(-- Somerset Maugham, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.61)

"It is only necessary to make war with five things: with the maladies of the body, the ignorances of  the mind, with the passions of the body, with the seditions of the city, and the discords of families."
(--Pythagoras, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 968)

Question: What can our Military Heroes tell us about War?

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."
(-- Dwight David Eisenhower, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 958)

"There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but boys, it is all hell.  You can bear this warning voice to generations yet to come.  I look upon war with horror."
(-- William Tecumseh Sherman, 1880, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 969)

"There is no security on this earth.  There is only opportunity."
(-- General Douglas MacArthur, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.113)

"Military alliances, balances of power, leagues of nations, all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war.  The utter destructiveness of war now blocks out this alternative.  We have had our last chance.   If we will not devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door."
(-- Douglas MacArthur: On the deck of the "Missouri", Tokyo Bay, September 2, 1945, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 964)

"I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting.  I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a method of settling international disputes."
(-- Douglas MacArthur: Address to Congress, 1951, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 964)

"War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."
(-- John F. Kennedy, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.516)

"The way to win an atomic war is to make certain it never starts."
(-- General Omar Bradley, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.517)

"I think that the people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it."
( -- Dwight David Eisenhower, 1959; found in "1968 : The Year That Rocked the World" by Mark Kurlansky, 2004. p. xv)

"Men who have nice notions of religion have no business to be soldiers."
(-- Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, found in "The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations", edited by Frank S. Mead, p.695)

"Take my word for it, if you had seen but one day of war, you would pray to Almighty God, that you might never see such a thing again."
(same as above)

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in a final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.  This world in arms is not spending money alone, it is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.  This is not a way of life at all in any true sense.  Under the cloud of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."
( -- Dwight David Eisenhower, found in "Culture as Given, Culture as Choice, by Dirk Van Der Elst, p.270)

"It is the business of the church to make my business impossible."
(-- Sir Douglas Haig, British General in World War I, found in "The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations", edited by Frank S. Mead, p.693)

Question: What is the Essential Nature of War?

"Every war is a national misfortune."
(-- Helmuth von Moltke, 1880, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 966)

"The next dreadful thing to a battle lost is a battle won."
(-- Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, 1769-1852, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.515)

"Peace is an armistice in a war that is continuously going on."
(-- Thucydidies, 471?-400? B.C., from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.517)

"There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare."
(-- Sun Tzu Wu: "Art of War", from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 970)

"No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country."
(-- Alexis de Tocqueville, 1805-1859, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.516)

"War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight,
The lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade."
(-- Percy Bysshe Shelley: "Queen Mab", from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 969)

"A man who experiences no genuine satisfaction in life does not want peace ... Men court war to escape meaninglessness and boredom, to be relieved of fear and frustration."
(-- Nels F. S. Ferre, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.517)

"War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it."
(-- Desiderius Erasmus, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 958)

"As never before, the essence of war is fire, famine and pestilence.  They contribute to its outbreak; they are among its weapons; they become its consequences."
(-- Dwight David Eisenhower, found in "Webster's Book of Quotations", 1994, p.231)

"Rapidity is the essence of war." [note: Remember our rush to war, and the rapid-fire "Shock and Awe"?]
(-- Sun Tzu Wu: "Art of War", from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 970)

"For what can war but endless war still breed?"
(-- John Milton: Of General Fairfax, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 966)

"War is the business of barbarians."
(-- Napoleon Bonaparte, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 967)

"War, which society draws upon itself, is but organized barbarism, and inheritance of the savage state, however disguised or ornamented."
(-- Napoleon III, Louis Napoleon, found in "Webster's Book of Quotations", 1994, p.232)

"There is only one virtue, pugnacity; only one vice, pacifism.  That is an essential condition of war."
(-- George Bernard Shaw, found in "Webster's Book of Quotations", 1994, p.232)

"The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place.  Where there is no common power, there is no law, no justice.  Force and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues."
(-- Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan, 1651, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 962)

"Nuclear war won't be a question of what's right, but rather what's left."
(-- Albert Savage, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.109)

"There are in the world two powers -- the sword and the spirit.  The spirit has always vanquished the sword."
(-- Napoleon, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.145)

"Accurst be he that first invented war."
(-- Christopher Marlowe, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 965)

"An empty stomach is the worst political adviser in the world; but the stomach is acting as secretary of state for half the population of the globe today."
(-- Sydney J. Harris, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.77)

"Henceforth the adequacy of any military establishment will be tested by its ability to preserve the peace."
(-- Henry Kissinger, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.516)

"Today the real test of power is not capacity to make war but capacity to prevent it."
(-- Anne O'Hare McCormick, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.517)

Question: How important are the discussions between citizens concerning the War?

"When war is declared, Truth is the first casualty."
(-- Arthur Ponsonby: Falsehood in Wartime, 1928, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 968)

"The first casualty when war comes is truth."
(-- Hiram Johnson: Speech, U.S. Senate, found in "The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations", edited by Frank S. Mead, p.694)

"Everyone, when there's a war in the air, learns to live with a new element: falsehood."
(-- Jean Giraudoux, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.517)

"War is much too serious a thing to be left to military men."
(-- Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 970)

"Of all armies those which long for war most ardently are the democratic ones, but of all peoples those most deeply attached to peace are the democratic nations."
(-- Alexis de Tocqueville, 1805-1859, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.517)

"The difficulty about arguing is that when you get before an audience everybody is in favor of peace ... But when it comes to an election the issue as to international peace does not play any part at all."
(-- William Howard Taft, found in "Webster's Book of Quotations", 1994, p.232)

"Every nation sincerely desires peace; and all nations pursue courses which if persisted in, must make peace impossible."
(-- Sir Norman Angell, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.517)

"It seems that everyone is smoking the pipe of peace, but nobody is inhaling."
(-- Cherryvale [Kansas] Republican, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.115)

"The two World Wars came in part, like much modern literature and art, because men, whose nature is to tire of everything in turn, as the Athenians tired even of the goodness of Aristides, had tired of common sense and civilization."
(-- F.L. Lucas: The Search for Good Sense, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 964)

"So confused are men by false teaching in regard to national honor and the duty of the citizen that it is easy to fall into the error of holding a declaration of war, however brought about, as a sacred decision of the national will ..."
(-- Charles Eliot Norton, denouncing the Spanish-American War, 1898, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 967)

"War, more ancient than any history, is the outcome of passions, follies, fallacies, misconceptions, and defective political institutions common to the great mass of men.  They are not incurable misconceptions, not incurable follies."
(-- Sir Norman Angell: 'The Great Illusion', 1933, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 953)

"The subordination of the political point of view to the military would be unreasonable, for policy has created war; policy is the intelligent faculty, war only the instrument, and not the reverse.  The subordination of the military point of view to the political is, therefore, the only thing which is possible."
(-- Karl von Clausewitz: 'On War, Arming the Nation', from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 956)

"The moral forces are amongst the most important subjects in war."
(-- Karl von Clausewitz: 'On War, Arming the Nation', from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 956)

"What we now need to discover in the social realm is the moral equivalent of war; something heroic that will speak to man as universally as war does, and yet will be as compatible with their spiritual selves as war has proved to be incompatible."
(-- William James: The Varieties of Religious Experience, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 962)

"People generally quarrel because they cannot argue."
(-- G. K. Chesterton, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.123)

"Since argument is not recognized as a means of arriving at truth, adherents of rival dogmas have no method except war by means of which to reach a decision.  And war, in our scientific age, means, sooner or later, universal death."
(-- Bertrand Russell: "Unpopular Essays. Philosophy and Politics", from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 968)

"We shall never stop war, whatever machinery we may devise, until we have learned to think always, with a sort of desperate urgency and an utter self-identification, of single human beings."
(-- Victor Gollancz, 'From Darkness to Light', from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 959)

Question: What will we find when we discuss War openly?

"Beware the man who knows the answer before he understands the question."
(-- Oren Harris, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.123)

"A man is not either stupid or intelligent, he is either free or not free."
( -- written on a wall of the Faculte de Medecine, Paris, May 1968; found in "1968 : The Year That Rocked the World" by Mark Kurlansky, 2004. p. 209)

A Fanatic: "One who can't change his opinion and won't change the subject."
(-- Philadelphia Inquirer, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.55)

"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live; it is asking others to live as one wishes to live."
(-- Oscar Wilde, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.138)

"Who shall guard the guardians themselves?"
(-- Juvenal, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.440)

"Where is the indignation about the fact that the United States and Soviet Union have accumulated thirty thousand pounds of destructive force for every human being in the world?"
(-- Norman Cousins, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.516)

"Democracy, with its promise of international peace, has been no better guarantee against war than the old dynastic rule of kings."
(-- Jan C. Smuts, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.518)

"If we could see ourselves as others see us, we'd never speak to them again."
(-- Anonymous, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.137)

"Nobody is more infuriating, frustrating, and embarrassing than an ally who happens to be on our side for the wrong reasons."
(-- Sydney J. Harris, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.48)

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt."
(-- Bertrand Russell, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.148)

"The difference between a conviction and a prejudice is that you can explain a conviction without getting angry."
(-- Anonymous, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.32)

"The error of youth is to believe that intelligence is a substitute for experience, while the error of age is to believe that experience is a substitute for intelligence."
(-- Lyman Bryson, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.86)

"Experience is a hard teacher.  She gives the test first and the lesson afterward."
(-- Spuditems, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.152)

"Ah the insight of hindsight!"
(-- Thurston N. Davis, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.73)

"The chief tragedy of the human race is that the war approaching always seems necessary and "inevitable"; it is only 20 years later that it is seen as avoidable and futile.  Is the mind perpetually condemned to live two steps behind the passions?"
(-- Sydney J. Harris, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.163)

"Love for the same thing never makes allies.  It's always hate for the same thing."
(-- Howard Spring, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.71)

"Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat."
(-- Harry Emerson Fosdick, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.71)

"The reason there are so few good talkers in public is that there are so few thinkers in private."
(-- Woman's Home Companion, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.113)

"Most men, when they think they are thinking, are merely rearranging their prejudices."
(-- Knute Rockne, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.121)

"Every reform was once a private opinion."
(-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.127)

"The way to convince another is to state your case moderately and accurately.  Then scratch your head, or shake it a little, and say that is the way it seems to you, but that of course you may be mistaken about it; which causes your listener to receive what you have to say, and as like as not, turn about and try to convince you of it, since you are in doubt.  But if you go at him in a tone of positiveness and arrogance you only make an opponent of him."
(-- Benjamin Franklin, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.33)

"The Plan is for the United States to rule the world.  The overt theme is unilateralism, but it is ultimately a story of domination.  It calls for the United States to maintain its overwhelming military superiority and prevent new rivals from rising up to challenge it on the international stage.  It calls for the dominion over friends and enemies alike.  It says not that the United States must be more powerful, or most powerful, but that it must be absolutely powerful."
(-- from David Armstrong, "Dick Cheney's Song of America", Harper's Magazine, September 2002, found in "Against War With Iraq : An Anti-War Primer", by Michael Ratner, Jennie Green, Barbara Olshansky of the Center for Constitutional Rights, 2003, p.25)

"Isn't it a shame that future generations can't be here to see all the wonderful things we're doing with their money?"
(-- Earl Wilson, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.119)

Politics: "The art of obtaining money from the rich and votes from the poor on the pretext of protecting each from the other."
(-- Oscar Ameringer, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.119)

"The people to fear are not those who disagree with you but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know."
(-- Napoleon, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.115)

"There's nothing I'm afraid of like scared people."
(-- Robert Frost, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.57)

"To him who is in fear everything rustles."
(-- Sophocles, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.57)

"It is not the function of our government to keep the citizens from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error."
(-- Justice Robert H. Jackson, from The Reader's Digest Dictionary of Quotations, 1966, p.68)


Question: How important is it to find alternatives to War?

"Nothing is more important than to war on war."
(-- Pope Leo XIII, Gioacchino Pecci, 1810-1903, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 963)

"A war to end war."
(-- Herbert George Wells: attributed by Bertrand Russell, Portraits from Memory, 1956, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 972)

"I launched the phrase 'The war to end war' -- and that was not the least of my crimes."
(-- H. G. Wells, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.518)

"Militarism and warfare are childish things, if they are not more horrible than anything childish can be.  They must become things of the past."
(-- H. G. Wells, found in "Webster's Book of Quotations", 1994, p.232)

"Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind."
(-- John Fitzgerald Kennedy, found in "Webster's Book of Quotations", 1994, p.232)

"The war against war is going to be no holiday excursion or camping party.  The military feelings are too deeply grounded to abdicate their place among our ideals until better substitutes are offered than the glory and shame that come to nations as well as individuals from the ups and downs of politics and the vicissitudes of trade."
(-- William James:  The Moral Equivalent of War, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 962)

"We  have met here to fight against war.  The truth is that one may not and should not in any circumstances or under any pretext kill his fellow man."
(-- Leo N. Tolstoy: Address, Swedish Government Congress Peace Conference, 1909, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 971)

"What is important is that we should recognize jointly that we are guilty of inhumanity.  The horror of this experience (the two world wars) should shake us out of our torpor, so that we turn our will and our hopes toward the coming of an era in which war will be no more.  That will and  that hope can have only one result: the attainment, by a new spirit, of that higher reason which would deter us from making deadly use of the power which is at our disposal."
(-- Albert Schweitzer, on receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, 1954, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 969)

"Are bombs the only way of setting fire to the spirit of a people?  Is the human will as inert as the past two world-wide wars would indicate?"
(-- Gregory Clark, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.516)

"There never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword."
(-- Ulysses S. Grant, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 960)

Question: Is America always "right" when it fights a War?

"Any government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's captain has to avoid a shipwreck."
(-- Guy de Maupassant, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 965)

"No one can guarantee success in war, but only deserve it."
(-- Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, found in "Webster's Book of Quotations", 1994, p.231)

"In war, when a commander becomes so bereft of reason and perspective that he fails to understand the dependence of arms on Divine guidance, he no longer deserves victory."
(-- General Douglas MacArthur, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.517)

"I do not think there ever was a more wicked war than that waged by the United States in Mexico.  I thought so at the time, when I was a youngster, only I had not moral courage enough to resign ... It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory."
(-- Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 960)

"I will not bathe my hands in the blood of the people of Mexico, nor will I participate in the guilt of those murders which have been and will hereafter be committed by our army there." [Compare to Iraq, 2004]
(-- Joshua R. Giddings, 1795-1864, from "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", edited by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, 1977, p.514)

Question:  What should we consider when attempting to "support our troops"?

"Heroic men can die upon the battlefield in vain, because of what occurs after a war, as well as because of what happens during a war."
(-- Harold Edward Stassen, found in "Webster's Book of Quotations", 1994, p.232)

"To call war the soil of courage and virtue is like calling debauchery the soil of love."
(-- George Santayana, "Reason in Society", from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 968)

"The hero of the next war, the man who from the air destroys a whole peaceful township in its sleep with poison gas, is not expressing any biological characteristics of his organism, or showing any moral virtues."
(-- Bronislaw Malinowski, 1936, from "The Great Quotations", compiled by George Seldes, 1960, p. 965)

Okay, this is enough. I won't make such a post again on this forum, but I thought these voices, collectively, were quite strong.  They serve as an example. So are ours.

love, blink