Antiwar Quotes - Page 14

• How many does it take to metamorphose wickedness into righteousness? One man must not kill. If he does, it is murder.... But a state or nation may kill as many as they please, and it is not murder. It is just, necessary, commendable, and right. Only get people enough to agree to it, and the butchery of myriads of human beings is perfectly innocent. But how many does it take?

  Adin Ballou

  Religious, War, Men

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• The aim of military training is not just to prepare men for battle, but to make them long for it.

  Louis Simpson

  Military, War, Men

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• They tell us that we live in a great free republic; that our institutions are democratic; that we are a free and self-governing people. That is too much, even for a joke. ... Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder... And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.

  Eugene V. Debs

  Freedom, War, Self

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• Political history is largely an account of mass violence and of the expenditure of vast resources to cope with mythical fears and hopes

  Murray Edelman

  Hope, Fear, War

  Murray Edelman (2013). “Politics as Symbolic Action: Mass Arousal and Quiescence”, p.1, Elsevier

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• The death of a single human being is too heavy a price for the vindication of any principle, however sacred.

  Daniel Berrigan

  Honesty, Integrity, War

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• The industrial way of life leads to the industrial way of death. From Shiloh to Dachau, from Antietam to Stalingrad, from Hiroshima to Vietnam and Afghanistan, the great specialty of industry and technology has been the mass production of human corpses.

  Edward Abbey

  War, Technology, Dachau

  "A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto): Notes from a Secret Journal". Book by Edward Abbey (Chapter 11 "Money Et Cetera", p. 100), 1989.

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• This fight has nothing to do with soldierly gallantry or principles of the Geneva Convention. If the fight against the partisans is not waged with the most brutal means, we will shortly reach the point where the available forces are insufficient to control the area. It is therefore not only justified, but it is the duty of the troops to use all means without restriction, even against women and children, so long as it ensures success.

  Wilhelm Keitel

  Children, War, Mean

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• The so-called Christian virtues of humility, love, charity, personal freedom, the strong prohibitions against violence, murder, stealing, lying, cruelty-all these are washed away by war. The greatest hero is the one who kills the most people. Glamorous exploits in successful lying and mass stealing and heroic vengeance are rewarded with decorations and public acclaim.

  John T. Flynn

  Christian, Strong, War

  John T. Flynn (1944). “As We Go Marching”

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• The US-led invasion of Iraq was an illegal act that contravened the UN charter.

  Kofi Annan

  War, Iraq, Invasion

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• It is the merit of a general to impart good news, and to conceal the truth.

  Sophocles

  Peace, War, News

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• One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

  Plato

  Plato, War, Government

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• The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  War, Hero, People

  Louis Dembitz Brandeis, Louis D. Brandeis School of Law (2006). “Brandeis at 150: the Louisville perspective : a sesquicentennial commemoration”

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• War is the gambling table of governments, and citizens the dupes of the game.

  Thomas Paine

  War, Gambling, Government

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• Men love their ideas more than their lives. And the more preposterous the idea, the more eager they are to die for it. And to kill for it.

  Edward Abbey

  Fear, Military, War

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.19, RosettaBooks

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• After victory, you have more enemies.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  War, Enemy, Victory

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• The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Peace, War, Believe

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• The power of making war often prevents it.

  Thomas Jefferson

  War

  Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution : Annotated Correspondence”, p.77, Algora Publishing

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• I happen to be one of those in the antiwar part of things who actually supported Bill Clinton when he sent the cruise missiles in to take out bin Laden. I had thought we had the right to use Special Forces to go in for bin Laden. He had attacked American embassies. He attacked ships. And so, I didn't see any need to coddle the Taliban.

  Robert Scheer

  Special, Needs, Use

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• The lowest standards of ethics of which a right-thinking man can possibly conceive is taught to the common soldier whose trade is to shoot his fellow men. In youth he may have learned the command, 'Thou shalt not kill,' but the ruler takes the boy just as he enters manhood and teaches him that his highest duty is to shoot a bullet through his neighbor's heart - and this, unmoved by passion or feeling or hatred, and without the least regard to right or wrong, but simply because his ruler gives the word.

  Clarence Darrow

  War, Heart, Passion

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• Stability and peace in our land will not come from the barrel of a gun, because peace without justice is an impossibility.

  Desmond Tutu

  Peace, War, Gun

  Desmond Tutu, Naomi Tutu (1989). “The words of Desmond Tutu”, Newmarket Pr

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• It is part of the moral tragedy with which we are dealing that words like 'democracy,' 'freedom,' 'rights,' 'justice,' which have so often inspired heroism and have led men to give their lives for things which make life worthwhile, can also become a trap, the means of destroying the very things men desire to uphold.

  Norman Angell

  War, Mean, Men

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• In the struggle of good against evil, it's always the people who get killed.

  Eduardo Galeano

  War, Struggle, People

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• Every great historic change has been based on nonconformity, has been bought either with the blood or with the reputation of nonconformists.

  Ben Shahn

  War, Blood, Reputation

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• George, your reckless and wanton foreign policies killed my son, Spc. Casey Austin Sheehan, in the illegal and unjust war on Iraq. Helping to bring about your political downfall will be the most noble accomplishment of my life, and it will bring justice for my son and the hundreds of other brave Americans and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis your lies have killed.

  Cindy Sheehan

  War, Lying, Son

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• It's really not a number I'm terribly interested in.

  Colin Powell

  War, Iraq, Numbers

  "After The War; Powell Says U.S. Will Stay In Iraq 'For Some Months'" by Patrick E. Tyler, www.nytimes.com. March 23, 1991.

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