Quotes to inspire and reflect

A mind at peace does not engender wars.

War is not an adventure. It is a disease. It is like typhus.

Wars do not end wars any more than an extraordinarily large conflagration does away with the fire hazard.

After a long, hopeless war, people will settle for peace, at almost any price.

War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.

War will disappear only when men shall take no part whatever in violence and shall be ready to suffer every persecution that their abstention will bring them. It is the only way to abolish war.

All war is deception.

I find war detestable but those who praise it without participating in it even more so.

The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.

Cry 'Havoc', and let slip the dogs of war, that this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men, groaning for burial.

Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.

It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.

In times of war, the law falls silent.

No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.

The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.

A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.

There has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited.

A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.

How is it possible to have a civil war?

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

One cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.

An inglorious peace is better than a dishonorable war.

Listen up - there's no war that will end all wars.

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

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

In time of war, when truth is so precious, it must be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore, all murderers are punished unless they kill large numbers to the sound of trumpets.

There are causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for.

The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of 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.

War is what happens when language fails.

The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.

It is not enough to conquer; one must also know how to seduce.

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer.

I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.

In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.

Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.

Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.

Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidise it.

We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.

Men whose lives are doubtful want a strong government and a hot religion.

Must a government be too strong for the liberties of its people or too weak to maintain its own existence?

The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today - my own government.

The best minds in government? If any were, business would hire them away.