Quotes about War

I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.

Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.

Has commerce hitherto done anything more than change the objects of war? Is not the love of wealth as domineering and enterprising a passion as that of power or glory? Have there not been as many wars founded upon commercial motives since that has become the prevailing system of nations, as were before occasioned by the cupidity of territory or dominion? Has

Of all the cares or concerns of government, the direction of war most peculiarly demands those qualities which distinguish the exercise of power by a single hand.

To confess my weakness, Ned, my ambition is so prevalent that I…would willingly risk my life, tho' not my character, to exalt my station. I'm confident that my youth excludes me from any hopes of immediate preferment, nor do I desire it, but I mean to prepare the way for futurity… My folly makes me ashamed, yet Neddy we have seen such schemes successful when the projector is constant. I shall conclude saying I wish there was a war.

I always tell people, anger is like liquid. It's fluid, it's like water. You put it in a container and it takes the shape of that container. So many people you see in prison, unleashing war on their people, they are angry, and they take their anger and put it into a violent container.

The sailor's life is at the best a life of danger. He pursues honor on the mountain wave and finds it in the battle and in the storm, and never did more distinguished chivalry display itself than in the conduct of our seamen during the late war.

War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin, keep out of the way till you can.

Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.

Wars will remain while human nature remains. I believe in my soul in cooperation, in arbitration; but the soldier's occupation we cannot say is gone until human nature is gone.

My way of putting it is that Christians are called to live nonviolently not because we believe nonviolence is a strategy to rid the world of war, but in a world of war as faithful followers of Christ, we cannot imagine being anything other than nonviolent.

I grew up knowing only war, so for me, it was the way things were. It wasn't pleasant by any means.