Anti War Quotes

As he grew older, which was mostly in my absence, my firstborn son, Alexander, became ever more humorous and courageous. There came a time, as the confrontation with the enemies of our civilization became more acute, when he sent off various applications to enlist in the armed forces. I didn't want to be involved in this decision either way, especially since I was being regularly taunted for not having 'sent' any of my children to fight in the wars of resistance that I supported. (As if I could 'send' anybody, let alone a grown-up and tough and smart young man: what moral imbeciles the 'anti-war' people have become.) ~ Christopher Hitchens

[D]iscipline consists in this, that the men who undergo the instruction and have followed it for a certain time are completely deprived of everything which is precious to a man-of the chief human property, rational freedom-and become submissive, machine-like implements of murder in the hands of their organized hierarchic authorities. ~ Leo Tolstoy

The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States ... ~ George Orwell

Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Setting a good example is a far better way to spread ideals than through force of arms. ~ Ron Paul

Suddenly that it was as dangerous to be in America as it was to be overseas. So that the false distinction that's made by the anti-war movement between being over there and over here was exposed for all to see as an illusion. Although a number of people, a large amount of people still share in it. In other words, when I've been in Iraq or Afghanistan, I've probably been safer because I can carry a weapon if I have to, than my wife and daughter are living in Washington. ~ Christopher Hitchens

The massive anti-war movement, which I was a part of and which was a major part of my life, never stopped the war in Vietnam. ~ Bill Ayers

One can ... never create [freedom] by an invading force. ~ Maximilien Robespierre

I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land. ~ Mark Twain

All war represents a failure of diplomacy. ~ Tony Benn

Before the war is ended, the war party assumes the divine right to denounce and silence all opposition to war as unpatriotic and cowardly. ~ Robert M. La Follette

Most quarrels are inevitable at the time; incredible afterwards. ~ E. M. Forster

I'm a child of the '60s, I came of age then. I went to a couple of demonstrations, and then in the late '60s when the Vietnam anti-war movement grew as the Vietnam War was heating up, I became very involved in that. ~ Simi Linton

I have condemned any organizer of war, regardless of his rank or nationality. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

Nothing fairer than peace is given to man to know; Better one peace than countless triumphs ~ Silius Italicus

Nonintervention does not mean that nothing happens. It means that something else happens. ~ Christopher Hitchens

When women have a voice in national and international affairs, wars will cease forever. ~ Augusta Stowe-Gullen

It is useless to attack a man who could not be controlled even if conquered, while failure would leave us in an even worse position. ~ Thucydides

You've got to forget about this civilian. Whenever you drop bombs, you're going to hit civilians. ~ Barry Goldwater

In modern war there is no such thing as victor and vanquished ... There is only a loser, and the loser is mankind. ~ U Thant

As I looked at the stains on the coral, I recalled some of the eloquent phrases of politicians and newsmen about how "gallant" it is for a man to "shed his blood for his country," and "to give his life's blood as a sacrifice," and so on. The words seemed ridiculous. Only the flies benefited. ~ Eugene B. Sledge

You cannot be on one hand dedicated to peace and on the other dedicated to violence. Those two things are irreconcilable. ~ Condoleezza Rice

The anti-war movement should turn itself into a pro-democracy movement ~ Naomi Klein

The very nature of interstate war puts innocent civilians into great jeopardy, especially with modern technology. ~ Murray Rothbard

If we're all aggressive, obedient solders [sic], who's going to write the poems and play the blues and go on anti-war protest marches? ~ Ken Follett

In 1962, the smallest things were upsetting to authority. It wasn't the Civil Rights Movement. It wasn't the Anti-war Movement. It was something else, but it was a harbinger of what was to come. ~ Peter Riegert

We've always known that Democrats are anti-war, and we've always known that we can't really count on them when it comes to national defense. But we have finally seen with whom they will go to war: the American people who disagree with them. ~ Rush Limbaugh

The State practices "violence," the individual must not do so. The state's behavior is violence, and it calls its violence "law"; that of the individual, "crime". ~ Max Stirner

This much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul. ~ Robert Kennedy

I am not anti-American,' he said. 'I just despise the current American administration. I despair that Bush has made ordinary, decent people all over the world think twice about what was once, and still could be again, a great country, when what happened on September 11th should have made ordinary, decent people all over the world embrace America as never before. I don't like it that neo-conservative politicians bully their so-called allies while playing to the worst, racist instincts of their own bewildered electorate. I don't like it that we live in an era where to be anti-war is to be anti-American, to be pro-Palestine is to be anti-Semitic, to be critical of Blair is somehow to be supportive of Putin and Chirac. All anybody is asking for in this so-called age of terror is some leadership. Yet everywhere you look in public life there is no truth, no courage, no dignity to speak of. ~ Charles Cumming

How many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned? ~ Bob Dylan

Today the real test of power is not capacity to make war but capacity to prevent it. ~ Anne O'Hare McCormick

The bombs in Vietnam explode at home; they destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

There were no international terrorists in Iraq until we went in. It was we who gave the perfect conditions in which Al Qaeda could thrive. ~ Robin Cook

It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not pay with their own. ~ H.G.Wells

You know what I say to people when I hear they're writing anti-war books? I say 'Why don't you write an anti-glacier book instead? ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose
and you allow him to make war at pleasure ... If, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us'; but he will say to you, 'Be silent; I see it, if you don't. ~ Abraham Lincoln

The world is starving for American leadership. But America has an anti-war president, ~ John Boehner

There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. ~ Smedley Butler

All nations want peace, but they want a peace that suits them. ~ John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government. ~ Thomas Jefferson

I am not blaming those who are resolved to rule, only those who show an even greater readiness to submit. ~ Thucydides

Since the end of the nineteenth century, if not earlier, presidents have misled the public about their motives and their intentions in going to war. ~ Robert Higgs

At least we're getting the kind of experience we need for the next war. ~ Allen Dulles

Care: not carnage
Love: not loathing
Peace: not pieces ~ Maddy Kobar

War ... is as much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer. ~ Thomas Jefferson

The day of reckoning is not just coming for Saddam Hussein. It's coming for the anti-war movement. ~ Andrew Sullivan

War paralyzes your courage and deadens the spirit of true manhood. ~ Alexander Berkman

The defense policy of the United States is based on a simple premise: The United States does not start fights. We will never be an aggressor. ~ Ronald Reagan

The war ... was an unnecessary condition of affairs, and might have been avoided if forebearance and wisdom had been practiced on both sides. ~ Robert E.Lee

I went into the Army believing that if you want peace you must prepare for war. I now believe that if you prepare thoroughly for war you will get it. ~ John Frederick Maurice

When American presidents prepare for foreign wars, they lie. ~ Robert Higgs

Working for peace in the future is to work for peace in the present moment. ~ Nhat Hanh

The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution. ~ John F. Kennedy

In war, as it is waged now, with the enormous losses on both sides, both sides will lose. It is a form of mutual suicide. ~ Douglas MacArthur

It is in war that the State really comes into its own: swelling in power, in number, in pride, in absolute dominion over the economy and the society. ~ Murray N. Rothbard

[War] can no longer be of concern to great powers alone. ~ John F. Kennedy

I love how Mother Theresa said she wouldn't attend an anti-war rally but if there was a peace rally to call her. So I realized it's not about waging a war against everybody's disease and diagnosis but rather about helping them live. ~ Bernie Siegel

Don't regard yourself as a guardian of freedom unless you respect and preserve the rights of people you disagree with ... ~ Gerard K. O'Neill

War is a racket. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. ~ Smedley Butler

Put the guns into our hands and we will use them. Give us the slogans and we will turn them into reality. Sing the battle hymns and we will take them up where you left off. Not one not ten not ten thousand not a million not ten millions not a hundred millions but a billion two billions of us all the people of the world we will have the slogans and we will have the hymns and we will have the guns and we will use them and we will live. Make no mistake of it we will live. We will be alive and we will walk and talk and eat and sing and laugh and feel and love and bear our children in tranquility and security in decency in peace. You plan the wars you masters of men plans the wars and point the way and we will point the gun. ~ Dalton Trumbo

World peace is not something that can be realized simply by politicians signing treaties, or by business leaders creating economic cooperation. True and lasting peace will be realized only by forging bonds of trust between people at the deepest level, in the depths of their very lives. ~ Daisaku Ikeda

I want to scare the hell out of the rest of the world. ~ Colin Powell

I respect those who say that the United States should simply withdraw from the Middle East, but I don't respect them for anything but their honesty. ~ Christopher Hitchens

A rational army would run away. ~ Baron De Montesquieu

Industry of war is the industry of shame. ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

This I hope will be the age of experiments in government, and that their basis will be founded in principles of honesty, not of mere force. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Justice itself tends to be corrupted by political passion. ~ T. S. Eliot

The world should take notice when someone ... with a fanatic mind and with powerful means, receives his marching orders from Heaven. ~ Rodrigue Tremblay

If you hold an anti-war rally, I shall not attend. But if you hold a Pro-Peace rally invite me. ~ Mother Teresa

Wars of aggression are the most barbarous of all human endeavors and are, more often than not, the instruments of insane tyrants who hear voices. ~ Rodrigue Tremblay

By 1973, John Kerry had already accused American soldiers of committing war crimes in Vietnam, thrown someone else's medals to the ground in an anti-war demonstration, and married his first heiress. ~ Ann Coulter

Patriotism in its simplest, clearest, and most indubitable meaning is nothing but an instrument for the attainment of the government's ambitious and mercenary aims, and a renunciation of human dignity, common sense, and conscience by the governed, and a slavish submission to those who hold power. That is what is really preached wherever patriotism is championed. Patriotism is slavery. ~ Leo Tolstoy

This president failed so miserably in diplomacy that we are now forced to war. ~ Tom Daschle

War is the greatest plague that can afflict humanity, it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys families. Any scourge is preferable to it. ~ Martin Luther

There was never a good war, or a bad peace. ~ Benjamin Franklin

The world should be worried about those who go around the planet with a can of gasoline in one hand and a box of matches in the other, pretending to sell fire insurance. ~ Rodrigue Tremblay

Each day of war takes us farther from all we could hope to be or do. We gain nothing but heartbreak, and lose everything we cherish. Our lives erode and diminish, our children see no future except a calendar of anguish and death. Our only hope for tomorrow is for peace now. ~ Lloyd Alexander

My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that; namely, I can do something about it. So even if the U.S. was responsible for 2 percent of the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2 percent I would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical judgment. That is, the ethical value of one's actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences. It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century. ~ Noam Chomsky

Is it security you want? There is no security at the top of the world. ~ Garet Garrett

The ideal weapons system is built in 435 congressional districts and it doesn't matter whether it works or not. ~ Alain Enthoven

The pertinent question: if Americans did not want these wars should they have been compelled to fight them? ~ Frank Chodorov

War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. ~ Smedley Butler

I appeal for cessation of hostilities, not because you are too exhausted to fight, but because war is bad in essence. You want to kill Nazism. You will never kill it by its indifferent adoption. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

When the Taliban took over in 1996, the news of their crimes hit the Toronto papers. As a feminist and as an anti-war activist, I heard about what was happening to women, and I wanted to do something to support those folks. ~ Deborah Ellis

Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted. ~ Thomas Jefferson

A visitor from Mars could easily pick out civilized nations. They have the best implements of war. ~ Herbert V. Prochnow

Anyone who thinks must think of the next war as they would of suicide. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Colorful demonstrations and weekend marches are vital but alone are not powerful enough to stop wars. Wars will be stopped only when soldiers refuse to fight, when workers refuse to load weapons onto ships and aircraft, when people boycott the economic outposts of Empire that are strung across the globe. ~ Arundhati Roy

I say openly that I am an anti-war person, with the point being, show me some reason not to be against this war. You have to be sort of asleep at the switch not to be critical of it. And the parallel between one quagmire we went through in Vietnam and the one we're in now is clear for everybody to see. ~ Seymour Hersh

If you sacrifice liberty for security, you will lose both. ~ Ron Paul

Whoever wants peace among nations must seek to limit the state and its influence most strictly. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants. ~ Albert Camus

We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace. ~ George W. Bush

The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions. ~ Robert Wilson Lynd

War is the admission of defeat in the face of conflicting interests. ~ Germaine Greer

For real men serve their country with random acts of kindness, not vicious acts of violence. And real soldiers have one duty, and one duty only; they have a duty to mutiny! ~ Joss Sheldon