Just War Quotes

• An unjust peace is better than a just war.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Life, War, Philosophical

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• In order for a war to be just, three things are necessary. First, the authority of the sovereign... Secondly, a just cause... Thirdly... a rightful intention.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Peace, Powerful, War

  "Summa Theologica". Book by Thomas Aquinas (Part II-II, Question 40, Article 1, pp. 1359-1360), 1485.

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• War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.

  Jimmy Carter

  Inspirational, Veterans Day, Peace

  Mattie J.T. Stepanek, Jimmy Carter (2009). “Just Peace: A Message of Hope”, p.158, Andrews McMeel Publishing

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• A just war is in the long run far better for a man's soul than the most prosperous peace.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Running, War, Men

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• The term 'just war' is an internal contradiction. War is inherently unjust, and the great challenge of our time is how to deal with evil, tyranny and oppression without killing huge numbers of people.

  Howard Zinn

  War, Numbers, People

  Howard Zinn (2011). “Terrorism and War”, p.19, Seven Stories Press

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• The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.

  Desiderius Erasmus

  Peace, Military, War

  "Adagia". Book by Desiderius Erasmus, 1500.

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• 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

  Peace, Military, War

  Speech to American Society of Newspaper Editors, Washington, D.C., 16 Apr. 1953

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

  Voltaire

  Peace, Crazy, War

  "Rights". Book by Voltaire, 1771.

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• What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Peace, War

  Non-Violence in Peace and War (1942) vol. 1, ch. 142

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

  Ernest Hemingway

  Inspirational, Military, War

  Ernest Hemingway, Patrick Hemingway (2012). “Hemingway on War”, p.27, Simon and Schuster

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• When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die.

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  Peace, War, Politics

  Le Diable et le bon Dieu (The Devil and the Good Lord, 1951) act 1, first tableau

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• War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

  Bertrand Russell

  Peace, Military, War

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• I'm not a pacifist at all; I think there is a notion of "just war" that can be persuasively argued. I think in the face of Nazis, in the face of apartheid, that I would have joined those armies. But that's the last, last resort.

  Cornel West

  War, Army, Thinking

  Source: genius.com

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  War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.

  William Tecumseh Sherman

  Death, Military, War

  "The Civil War Generation". Book by Norman K. Risjord, p. 143, 2002.

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• There is nothing that war has ever achieved that we could not better achieve without it.

  Havelock Ellis

  Peace, War, Achieve

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• I cease not to advocate peace; even though unjust it is better than the most just war.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Peace, War, Unjust

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• I personally am not a total pacifist. I do believe there is such a thing as a just war. I believe, for instance, the effort to destroy the Nazi regime militarily was justified military action.

  Marianne Williamson

  Military, War, Believe

  Source: rayhemachandra.com

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• War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.

  John F. Kennedy

  Peace, War, Presidential

  "Warrior" by William Safire, www.nytimes.com. August 26, 2007.

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• War's tragedy is that it uses man's best to do man's worst.

  Harry Emerson Fosdick

  Inspirational, Fear, War

  "On Being Fit to Live with: Sermons on Post-war Christianity".

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• Bismarck fought 'necessary' wars and killed thousands, the idealists of the twentieth century fight 'just' wars and kill millions.

  A. J. P. Taylor

  War, Fighting, Bismarck

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• The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.

  David Friedman

  Funny, Peace, Children

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• A "just war" is hospitable to every self-deception on the part of those waging it, none more than the certainty of virtue, under whose shelter every abomination can be committed with a clear conscience.

  Alexander Cockburn

  War, Self, Deception

  New Statesman and Society (Magazine), February 8, 1991.

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• You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.

  Jeannette Rankin

  Peace, Military, War

  Quoted in Hannah Josephson, Jeannette Rankin: First Lady in Congress (1974)

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• Perhaps the greatest contribution that those of us who come from a Christian tradition can make is to throw out the old just-war theory, embrace the nonviolence of Jesus, refuse to kill one another, and truly follow his commandment to "love our enemies.

  Mairead Corrigan

  Christian, Jesus, Peace

  Mairead Corrigan Maguire (2010). “The Vision of Peace: Faith and Hope in Northern Ireland”, p.64, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been. What has happened, though, is that it has been taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d'etat imaginable.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Country, War, Taken

  "Custodians of chaos" by Kurt Vonnegut, www.theguardian.com. January 20, 2006.

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