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.
~Charles Sumner
War does not determine who is right — only who is left. ~Bertrand Russell
It'll be a great day when education gets all the money it wants and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy bombers. ~Author unknown, quoted in You Said a Mouthful edited by Ronald D. Fuchs
I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, "Mother, what was war?" ~Eve Merriam
The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker. ~Albert Einstein
The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations. ~David Friedman
"There are no atheists in foxholes" isn't an argument against atheism, it's an argument against foxholes. ~James Morrow
Sometimes I think it should be a rule of war that you have to see somebody up close and get to know him before you can shoot him. ~M*A*S*H, Colonel Potter
All the arms we need are for hugging. ~Author Unknown
A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon. ~Napoleon
If we do not end war — war will end us. Everybody says that, millions of people believe it, and nobody does anything. ~H.G. Wells, Things to Come (the "film story"), Part III, adapted from his 1933 novel The Shape of Things to Come, spoken by the character John Cabal (Thanks Bill!)
A great war leaves the country with three armies — an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves. ~German Proverb
The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living. ~Omar Bradley
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are 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 clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 16 April 1953
The most persistent sound which reverberates through men's history is the beating of war drums. ~Arthur Koestler, Janus: A Summing Up
What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world. ~Robert E. Lee, letter to his wife, 1864
Everyone's a pacifist between wars. It's like being a vegetarian between meals. ~Colman McCarthy
Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education. Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both. ~Abraham Flexner
Draft beer, not people. ~Attributed to Bob Dylan
The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower
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
In Flanders fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
~John McCrae
What this planet needs is more mistletoe and less missile-talk. ~Author Unknown
Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people — and kill them. ~Pacifist Badge, 1978
Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. ~Ernest Hemingway
War makes thieves and peace hangs them. ~George Herbert
You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. ~Jeanette Rankin
You are not going to get peace with millions of armed men. The chariot of peace cannot advance over a road littered with cannon. ~David Lloyd George
Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come. ~Carl Sandburg
In war, there are no unwounded soldiers. ~José Narosky
We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage. ~James Russell Lowell
If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war. ~Pentagon official explaining why the U.S. military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War
I have no doubt that we will be successful in harnessing the sun's energy.... If sunbeams were weapons of war, we would have had solar energy centuries ago. ~Sir George Porter, quoted in The Observer, 26 August 1973
War would end if the dead could return. ~Stanley Baldwin
War! that mad game the world so loves to play. ~Jonathan Swift
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. ~Voltaire, War
We need a new law that owners of SUVs are automatically in the military reserve. Then they can go get their own goddamn oil. ~Jello Biafra, quoted in The Guardian, 3 November 2007
If it's natural to kill, why do men have to go into training to learn how? ~Joan Baez, "What Would You Do If....?"
I couldn't help but say to [Mr. Gorbachev], just think how easy his task and mine might be in these meetings that we held if suddenly there was a threat to this world from another planet. [We'd] find out once and for all that we really are all human beings here on this earth together. ~Ronald Reagan, 1985
[John] Dalton's records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the World War II bombing of Manchester. It is not only the living who are killed in war. ~Isaac Asimov
The tragedy of war is that it uses man's best to do man's worst. ~Henry Fosdick
All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones. In my opinion, there never was a good war or a bad peace. When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration? ~Benjamin Franklin
In war, truth is the first casualty. ~Aeschylus (Thanks, Dan)
Men are at war with each other because each man is at war with himself. ~Francis Meehan
Only the dead have seen the end of war. ~Plato
No country is so wild and difficult but men will make it a theater of war. ~Ambrose Bierce
Man, in his sensitivity, does not give names to animals he intends to eat but goes on giving names to children he intends to send to war. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man. ~Napoleon Hill
We have war when at least one of the parties to a conflict wants something more than it wants peace. ~Jeane J. Kirkpatrick
If people want to make war they should make a color war, and paint each others' cities up in the night in pinks and greens. ~Yoko Ono
Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out... and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel.... And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of man" — with his mouth. ~Mark Twain
Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country. ~Bertrand Russell, attributed
It doesn't require any particular bravery to stand on the floor of the Senate and urge our boys in Vietnam to fight harder, and if this war mushrooms into a major conflict and a hundred thousand young Americans are killed, it won't be U.S. Senators who die. It will be American soldiers who are too young to qualify for the Senate. ~George McGovern
I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in. ~George McGovern
When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die. ~Jean-Paul Sartre
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one. ~Albert Einstein, "Atomic War or Peace," Atlantic Monthly, November 1945
You cannot prevent and prepare for war at the same time. ~Albert Einstein
We kill because we are afraid of our own shadow, afraid that if we used a little common sense we'd have to admit that our glorious principles were wrong. ~Henry Miller, The Wisdom of the Heart, 1941
The refuge of the morally, intellectually, artistically and economically bankrupt is war. ~Martin H. Fischer
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. ~Ernest Hemingway
The ability and inclination to use physical strength is no indication of bravery or tenacity to life. The greatest cowards are often the greatest bullies. Nothing is cheaper and more common than physical bravery. ~Clarence Darrow, Resist Not Evil
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
I think war might be God's way of teaching us geography. ~Paul Rodriguez
The era of true peace on earth will not come as long as a tremendous percentage of your taxes goes to educate men in the trades of slaughter. ~Reginald Wright Kauffman
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
War does not determine who is right — only who is left. ~Bertrand Russell
It'll be a great day when education gets all the money it wants and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy bombers. ~Author unknown, quoted in You Said a Mouthful edited by Ronald D. Fuchs
I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, "Mother, what was war?" ~Eve Merriam
The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker. ~Albert Einstein
The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations. ~David Friedman
"There are no atheists in foxholes" isn't an argument against atheism, it's an argument against foxholes. ~James Morrow
Sometimes I think it should be a rule of war that you have to see somebody up close and get to know him before you can shoot him. ~M*A*S*H, Colonel Potter
All the arms we need are for hugging. ~Author Unknown
A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon. ~Napoleon
If we do not end war — war will end us. Everybody says that, millions of people believe it, and nobody does anything. ~H.G. Wells, Things to Come (the "film story"), Part III, adapted from his 1933 novel The Shape of Things to Come, spoken by the character John Cabal (Thanks Bill!)
A great war leaves the country with three armies — an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves. ~German Proverb
The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living. ~Omar Bradley
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are 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 clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 16 April 1953
The most persistent sound which reverberates through men's history is the beating of war drums. ~Arthur Koestler, Janus: A Summing Up
What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world. ~Robert E. Lee, letter to his wife, 1864
Everyone's a pacifist between wars. It's like being a vegetarian between meals. ~Colman McCarthy
Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education. Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both. ~Abraham Flexner
Draft beer, not people. ~Attributed to Bob Dylan
The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower
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
In Flanders fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
~John McCrae
What this planet needs is more mistletoe and less missile-talk. ~Author Unknown
Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people — and kill them. ~Pacifist Badge, 1978
Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. ~Ernest Hemingway
War makes thieves and peace hangs them. ~George Herbert
You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. ~Jeanette Rankin
You are not going to get peace with millions of armed men. The chariot of peace cannot advance over a road littered with cannon. ~David Lloyd George
Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come. ~Carl Sandburg
In war, there are no unwounded soldiers. ~José Narosky
We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage. ~James Russell Lowell
If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war. ~Pentagon official explaining why the U.S. military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War
I have no doubt that we will be successful in harnessing the sun's energy.... If sunbeams were weapons of war, we would have had solar energy centuries ago. ~Sir George Porter, quoted in The Observer, 26 August 1973
War would end if the dead could return. ~Stanley Baldwin
War! that mad game the world so loves to play. ~Jonathan Swift
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. ~Voltaire, War
We need a new law that owners of SUVs are automatically in the military reserve. Then they can go get their own goddamn oil. ~Jello Biafra, quoted in The Guardian, 3 November 2007
If it's natural to kill, why do men have to go into training to learn how? ~Joan Baez, "What Would You Do If....?"
I couldn't help but say to [Mr. Gorbachev], just think how easy his task and mine might be in these meetings that we held if suddenly there was a threat to this world from another planet. [We'd] find out once and for all that we really are all human beings here on this earth together. ~Ronald Reagan, 1985
[John] Dalton's records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the World War II bombing of Manchester. It is not only the living who are killed in war. ~Isaac Asimov
The tragedy of war is that it uses man's best to do man's worst. ~Henry Fosdick
All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones. In my opinion, there never was a good war or a bad peace. When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration? ~Benjamin Franklin
In war, truth is the first casualty. ~Aeschylus (Thanks, Dan)
Men are at war with each other because each man is at war with himself. ~Francis Meehan
Only the dead have seen the end of war. ~Plato
No country is so wild and difficult but men will make it a theater of war. ~Ambrose Bierce
Man, in his sensitivity, does not give names to animals he intends to eat but goes on giving names to children he intends to send to war. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man. ~Napoleon Hill
We have war when at least one of the parties to a conflict wants something more than it wants peace. ~Jeane J. Kirkpatrick
If people want to make war they should make a color war, and paint each others' cities up in the night in pinks and greens. ~Yoko Ono
Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out... and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel.... And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of man" — with his mouth. ~Mark Twain
Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country. ~Bertrand Russell, attributed
It doesn't require any particular bravery to stand on the floor of the Senate and urge our boys in Vietnam to fight harder, and if this war mushrooms into a major conflict and a hundred thousand young Americans are killed, it won't be U.S. Senators who die. It will be American soldiers who are too young to qualify for the Senate. ~George McGovern
I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in. ~George McGovern
When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die. ~Jean-Paul Sartre
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one. ~Albert Einstein, "Atomic War or Peace," Atlantic Monthly, November 1945
You cannot prevent and prepare for war at the same time. ~Albert Einstein
We kill because we are afraid of our own shadow, afraid that if we used a little common sense we'd have to admit that our glorious principles were wrong. ~Henry Miller, The Wisdom of the Heart, 1941
The refuge of the morally, intellectually, artistically and economically bankrupt is war. ~Martin H. Fischer
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. ~Ernest Hemingway
The ability and inclination to use physical strength is no indication of bravery or tenacity to life. The greatest cowards are often the greatest bullies. Nothing is cheaper and more common than physical bravery. ~Clarence Darrow, Resist Not Evil
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
I think war might be God's way of teaching us geography. ~Paul Rodriguez
The era of true peace on earth will not come as long as a tremendous percentage of your taxes goes to educate men in the trades of slaughter. ~Reginald Wright Kauffman
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
