Quotes About War

What this brings out is that modern politics cannot be a matter of genuine moral consensus. And it is not. Modern politics is civil war carried on by other means

War was about yawning chasms of inactivity, punctuated by brief, screaming interludes of action. And in those brief, screaming interludes, events happened both quickly and with dreamlike slowness, every instant burned into memory.

Older men start wars, but younger men fight them.

It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

The man with the greatest soul will always face the greatest war with the low minded person.

As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable.

I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people of the Earth might be killed, but enough men capable of thinking, and enough books, would be left to start again, and civilization could be restored.

We must be prepared to make the same heroic sacrifices for the cause of peace that we make ungrudgingly for the cause of war.

Is it not better for a man to die for a cause in which he believes, such as peace, than to suffer for a cause in which he does not believe, such as war?

In two weeks the sheeplike masses of any country can be worked up by the newspapers into such a state of excited fury that men are prepared to put on uniforms and kill and be killed, for the sake of the sordid ends of a few interested parties.

Es wird nicht möglich sein, die kriegerischen Instinkte in einer einzigen Generation auszurotten. Es wäre nicht einmal wünschenswert, sie gänzlich auszurotten. Die Menschen müssen weiterhin kämpfen, aber nur, wofür zu kämpfen lohnt: und das sind nicht imaginäre Grenzen, Rassenvorurteile oder Bereicherungsgelüste, die sich die Fahne des Patriotismus umhängen. Unsere Waffen seien Waffen des Geistes, nicht Panzer und Geschosse.

We have emerged from a war in which we had to accept the degradingly low ethical standards of the enemy. But instead of feeling liberated from his standards, and set free to restore the sanctity of human life and the safety of noncombatants, we are in effect making the low standards of the enemy in the last war our own for the present. Thus we are starting toward another war degraded by our own choice.

The adaptation to warlike aims and activities has corrupted the mentality of man; as a result, intelligent, objective and humane thinking has hardly any effect and is even suspected and persecuted as unpatriotic.

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them! How vile and despicable seems war to me!

Dal mio punto di vista, uccidere in guerra non è affatto meglio che commettere un banale assassinio

Non sono un semplice pacifista, sono un pacifista militante. Sono disposto a combattere per la pace... Non è meglio per un uomo morire per una causa in cui crede, come la pace, che soffrire per una causa in cui non crede, come la guerra?

Non so con quali armi si combatterà la Terza guerra mondiale, ma la Quarta sì: con bastoni e pietre

La guerre est la chose la plus méprisable. Je préférerais me laisser assassiner que de participer à cette ignominie.

The state should be our servant and not we its slaves. The state transgresses this commandment when it compels us by force to engage in military and war service, the more so since the object and the effect of this slavish service is to kill people belonging to other countries or interfere with their freedom of development.

Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism—how I hate them! War seems to me a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business.

To arm is to give one's voice and make one's preparations, not for peace but for war.

May the conscience and the common sense of the peoples be awakened, so that we may reach a new stage in the life of nations, where people will look back on war as an incomprehensible aberration of their forefathers!

Askerlik hizmeti yapmasi gerekenlerin yalnizca yuzde ikisi bile kendilerini savas direniscisi ilan etse ve savasmayacagiz. Uluslararasi ihtilaflari cozmek icin baska yontemlere ihtiyacimiz var, dese hukumetlerin eli kolu baglanir; bu kadar buyuk kitleleri hapse atamazlar.

There lies before us, if we choose, continued progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal, as human beings, to human beings: Remember your humanity and forget the rest." ~ Albert Einstein ~ In a letter co-written with philosopher Bertrand Russell in 1955, Einstein urged world leaders to abandon war and seek peace.