Quotes for No New Wars

War ends when the remaining survivors prefer peace.    Anon.

We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the positive affirmation of peace.
Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.
The principle of self-defence, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi.
Non-violence is a powerful and just weapon which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.
We have guided missiles and misguided men.
Martin Luther King Jr

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
That old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind.
Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

Sun Tzu

Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.
Sun Tzu

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.
Ernest Hemingway

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.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

War does not determine who is right – only who is left.
Bertrand Russell

If things don’t change they’ll stay the same.
H

Peace cannot be kept by force.  It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein

Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.
George Bernard Shaw

There is no way to peace.  Peace is the way.
A J Muste

Well, fancy giving money to the Government!
Might as well have put it down the drain.
Fancy giving money to the Government!
Nobody will see the stuff again.
Well, they’ve no idea what money’s for —
Ten to one they’ll start another war.
I’ve heard a lot of silly things, but, Lor’!
Fancy giving money to the Government!
A.P. Herbert

A time will come when a politician who has wilfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide.  It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men’s lives should not stake their own.
H. G. Wells

If we don’t end war, war will end us.
H. G. Wells

War doesn’t fix war.  It’s not wrong if someone gives up — he’s not actually losing, he’s saving people’s lives.
Mohammed Morshed

I think there has to be a political solution.  All wars have to end in some kind of political compromise.  Why not start with a political compromise now rather than fuelling the war by putting more weapons, more arms and more money into the conflict.
Jeremy Corbyn

To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.
Winston Churchill

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.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Of course, the people don’t want war.  It is the leaders who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a communist dictatorship.  The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.  That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
Hermann Göring at the Nuremberg Trials after WWII

41 thoughts on “Quotes for No New Wars

  1. A journalist interviews a Jewish man who has been going to the western wall in Israel to pray every day for 70 years. The reporter says “Hello. I’m a BBC reporter and we know you’re famous around this wall so we’d like to ask you a few questions”. The man agrees and she asks “What have you actually been praying for all of these years?”

    The man replies “I have been praying for peace between the Jews and Arabs and for all world hatred and terrorism to stop, and for my children and grandchildren to grown up in a peaceful world.”

    The news reporter says “That’s beautiful. How do you feel after doing this for 70 years?”

    The man replies “I feel like I’ve been talking to a brick wall.”

  2. My wife asked me what I wanted for Christmas. “World peace” I said.

    “Something more realistic!” she laughed

    “Ok how about a blowjob once a week?”

    She reached for the phone.

    “Who are you calling?” I asked.

    “The United Nations” she replied.

  3. You know you’re American when:
    50,000 handgun murders a year is OK but drinking at age 20 is not.
    Your idea of global peace is maintaining armed forces in 135 countries.
    As the ‘greatest nation on earth’ only 18% of citizens have passports, and most who have ever been overseas were serving in the army.
    You have more guns than people in your country.
    Total defence spending is in excess of $1 trillion (!)
    Your nuclear arsenal could wipe out the earth many times over.
    Your presidents have lied, cheated, had affairs, started illegal wars, been bribed by big business and when one tries to give free medical care to the poor he is called a ‘Communist’.
    You cannot see the irony in arming the Taliban/Mujaheddin and giving them poppy (opium) seeds to help them fight the Russians, then proceeding to invade and get shot at by the same AK-47s that you gave to the ‘terrorists’ in the 80s.
    The right to bear arms is more important than the right to free speech, as free speech ‘helps terrorists’.
    With 5,000 nuclear warheads operational, 140,000,000 ready armed forces men and women is still deemed necessary.
    You are the global pioneers in obesity, gun crime, class divisions and inequality, and also warfare.
    Statistically your daughters would be more worried of becoming fat than nuclear war or cancer.
    Your CO2 emissions are more than every LEDC country in the world added together.

  4. Q. If Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad were on their way to Switzerland for peace talks and their plane crashed into the Alps who would survive?

    A. The civilians in Syria.

  5. Jesus Christ- Religious figure and pacifist – Crucified.

    Mohandas K. Gandhi- Indian nationalist and pacifist – Shot.

    Martin Luther King – Civil Rights campaigner and pacifist.- Shot.

    When will pacifists learn their lesson and leave us in peace before we kill them?

  6. Commenting on Iraq shortly before his death in 2005, George Kennan, the American diplomat and strategist who advocated containment of Soviet expansion during the cold war, said: “War has a momentum of its own…You know where you begin. You never know where you are going to end”.

  7. Göring: Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
    Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
    Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

    Full discourse of interview with Hermann Göring at the Nuremberg Trials after WWII

  8. “Politics is not money and power games. Politics is about the improvement of people’s lives. It is about lessening human suffering and it is about — and what a time to say this — advancing the cause of justice and peace in the world. That is what politics is all about. “(January 1990)
    Paul Wellstone (1944 – 2002)

  9. “Youth is the first victim of war; the first fruit of peace. It takes 20 years or more of peace to make a man; it takes only 20 seconds of war to destroy him.”
    King Baudouin I of Belgium

  10. “Kun ihmisiä ei syödä, on niitä turha teurastaa”
    Executed Finnish conscientious objector Arndt Pekurinen, quoting Jonathan Swift’s “As people are not eaten, butchering them is of no use”.

  11. “In the peace movement, we already know the arguments. Those outside do not even know there is another way to think.” Dietmar Czerny.

    Chairman of CPTI speaking at the CPTI London Conference, 23/6/2017

  12. Michael Palin: What do you feel about the way the wounded and that side of War is seen?

    Dr Andrew Bamji:
    It’s neglected. Perhaps one of the things that really bothers me about the way that we look at war, and perhaps even the First World War in particular, is we only focus on the glorious dead and in a sense we’re not allowed to see the people who have been disfigured in the way that Private Thomas was disfigured. And if we don’t look at that sort of thing how can we possibly understand what war is really all about?

    http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/world-history/death-on-the-eve-armistice?in_menu=16591

  13. “Though wars can bring adventures which stir the heart, the true nature of war is composed of innumerable personal tragedies, of grief, waste and sacrifice, wholly evil and not redeemed by glory.”
    ― Knut Lier-Hansen

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knut_Lier-Hansen

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_heavy_water_sabotage#Sinking_the_SF_Hydro

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SF_Hydro#Sinking

    His opinion on war is made much more valid in that he is one of those obliged to kill his own countrymen to achieve a bigger military objective. It’s easy to claim war is clean when piloting a drone from Nevada or Lincolnshire before going home for egg, chips and Coronation Street.

  14. “Conflict cannot survive without your participation” – Wayne Dyer, American self-help book writer, 1940-2015.

  15. If war is the violent resolution of conflict, then peace is not the absence of conflict, but rather, the ability to resolve conflict without violence.

    C.T. Lawrence Butler

  16. 3. “Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.” Ronald Reagan

    5. “Do not think of knocking out another person’s brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.” Horace Mann

    30. “Conflict is inevitable but combat is optional.” Max Lucado

    31. “Conflict cannot survive without your participation.” Wayne Dyer

    32. “Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.” Jonathan Kozol

    40. “I’ve always believed that a lot of the troubles in the world would disappear if we were talking to each other instead of about each other.” Ronald Reagan

    https://www.inc.com/john-brandon/48-all-time-best-quotes-on-facing-workplace-conflicts.html

  17. Robert A. Irwin comments in his ‘Building a Peace System’ (published in July, 1989) that:

    Alexander Haig is said to have remarked “Let them march all they want, as long as they continue to pay their taxes.”

  18. “No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other dumb bastard die for his country.”
    General George S. Patton

  19. “The muster-roll of the dead may be a monument of governmental incapacity as well as a certificate of patriotism and courage. It is always glorious for the other man to die for his country,—at least the survivor says so”
    ‘The United Service: A Monthly Review of Military and Naval Affairs’, 1883

  20. “A peace process is a conflict by other means.”
    Mac Ginty, R. & Darby, J. (2001) Guns and Government: the Management of the Northern Ireland Peace Process. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave.

  21. https://worldbeyondwar.org/quotes/
    “Richard Wendell Fogg, Center for the Study of Conflict, years ago said rather than saying we need to abolish war, we should talk of REPLACING war. In the field of conflict analysis and transformation, there are creative strategies we can apply to solutions that can solve problems and make war unnecessary. With increasing lethality of weapons, evolving technology and communications, war is obsolete. It is a solution worse than any problem it presumes to solve. We can address conflicts constructively. Beyond diplomacy, we can use mediation, negotiation and problem-solving strategies to transcend war.” —Diane Perlman

    “We have seen enough of war to know that it doesn’t work to resolve conflicts. It only exacerbates them. It is time we find other solutions and dedicate ourselves to life–not death.” —Peter Kuznick

  22. “People never lie so much as before an election, during a war, or after a hunt.”
    ― Otto von Bismarck

    “Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death.”
    ― Otto von Bismarck

    “Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war”
    ― Otto von Bismarck

  23. “We tried war, we tried aggression, we tried intervention. None of it works. Why don’t we try peace, as a science of human relations, not as some vague notion – as everyday work.”
    — Dennis Kucinich

    “The belief in the inevitability of war is a self-fulfilling prophecy”
    — Dennis Kucinich

  24. ‘From infancy, by every possible means – class books, church services, sermons, speeches, books, papers, songs, poetry, monuments – the people is stupefied in one direction’ – militant patriotism. (Tolstoy, ‘Writings On Civil Disobedience and Non-Violence,’ New Society, 1987, p.95)

    From infancy, by every possible means – class books, church services, sermons, speeches, books, papers, songs, poetry, monuments – the people are stupefied in one direction’ – unquestioning patriotism.
    Tolstoy, Writings On Civil Disobedience and Non-Violence, New Society, 1987, p. 95.

  25. ‘I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they’d never expect it.’
    Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts

  26. “I had come to see that everything is radically connected with politics, and that whatever was done about it, no nation would be other than what the nature of its government made it.”
    Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  27. “It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” —Voltaire (1694-1778), nom de plume of François-Marie Arouet, French writer, historian, and philosopher

  28. There was a captain sent to an exploit by his general with forces that were not likely to achieve the enterprise; the captain said to him, “Sir, appoint but half so many.” “Why?” saith the general. The captain answered, “Because it is better fewer die than more.”

    and

    Crasus said to Cambyses, “that peace was better than war; because in peace the sons did bury their fathers, but in the wars the fathers did bury their sons.”

    The Works of Francis Bacon, Volume 1, Apophthegms New and Old, 1625 by Francis Bacon

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