Preventive War Quotes

• When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Peace, Hate, War

  "The Quotable Dwight D. Eisenhower". Book edited by Elsie Gollagher, p. 219, 1967.

  89 Copy quote

  Show source

• Another term for preventive war is aggressive war - starting wars because someday somebody might do something to us. That is not part of the American tradition.

  Ron Paul

  War, Might, Tradition

  11 Copy quote

• Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death.

  Otto von Bismarck

  Suicide, War, Fear Of Death

  110 Copy quote

• A preventive war, to my mind, is an impossibility today. How could you have one if one of its features would be several cities lying in ruins, several cities where many, many thousands of people would be dead and injured and mangled, the transportation systems destroyed, sanitation implements and systems all gone? That isn't preventive war; that is war.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  War, Lying, Cities

  Eisenhower, Dwight D. (1960). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954”, p.698, Best Books on

  117 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Peace, War, Invention

  26 Copy quote

• Preventive war is a crime not easily committed by a country that retains any traces of democracy.

  George Orwell

  Country, War, Democracy

  George Orwell, Peter Hobley Davison, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1998). “It is what I think: 1947-1948”

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Possibly my hatred of war blinds me so that I cannot comprehend the arguments they adduce. But, in my opinion, there is no such thing as a preventive war. Although this suggestion is repeatedly made, none has yet explained how war prevents war. Worse than this, no one has been able to explain away the fact that war creates the conditions that beget war.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  War, Hatred, Suggestions

  35 Copy quote

• The target of preventive war must have several characteristics. It must be virtually defenceless; it must be important enough to be worth the trouble; it must be possible to portray it as the ultimate evil and an imminent threat to our survival.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Evil, Survival

  Noam Chomsky (2008). “The Essential Chomsky”, p.378, The New Press

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• You don't lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Funny, Relationship, Leadership

  328 Copy quote

• There is no more dangerous thing for a democracy than a foreign policy based on presidential preventive war.

  Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

  War, Presidential, Democracy

  14 Copy quote

• There is only one kind of freedom and that's individual liberty. Our lives come from our creator and our liberty comes from our creator. It has nothing to do with government granting it.

  Ron Paul

  Government, Liberty, Kind

  19 Copy quote

• War is never economically beneficial except for those in position to profit from war expenditures.

  Ron Paul

  Money, War, Historical

  "Conscription – The Terrible Price of War". www.antiwar.com. November 26, 2003.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

  Isaac Asimov

  Wise, Peace, Military

  Isaac Asimov (1951). “The foundation trilogy: three classics of science fiction”

  99 Copy quote

  Show source

• Cliches about supporting the troops are designed to distract from failed policies, policies promoted by powerful special interests that benefit from war, anything to steer the discussion away from the real reasons the war in Iraq will not end anytime soon.

  Ron Paul

  Powerful, War, Real

  11 Copy quote

• I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Peace, War, Hate

  Speech in Ottawa on January 10, 1946. "Eisenhower Speaks: Dwight D. Eisenhower in His Messages and Speeches". Book edited by Rudolph L. Treuenfels, 1948.

  112 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  177 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'd like to see a more aggressive attitude on the part of the United States. That doesn't mean launching an immediate preventive war.

  Curtis LeMay

  Attitude, War, Mean

  "Mission With LeMay: My Story" by Curtis E. LeMay, MacKinlay Kantor, (p. 559), 1965.

  49 Copy quote

  Show source

• Dollars and guns are no substitutes for brains and will power.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Knowledge, Gun, Brain

  10 Copy quote

• There never was a good war or a bad revolution.

  Edward Abbey

  Veterans Day, Peace, War

  Edward Abbey (1998). “The Fool's Progress: An Honest Novel”, p.140, Macmillan

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Success, Business, Military

  Quoted in Richard Nixon, Six Crises (1962)

  69 Copy quote

  Show source

• I do not believe there is such a thing as a God.

  George Holyoake

  Soccer, Believe, Atheism

  11 Copy quote

• People in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than governments.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Running, Peace, Government

  TV talk with Prime Minister Macmillan, August 31, 1959.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Running, Peace, Believe

  Broadcast discussion, 31 Aug. 1959

  65 Copy quote

  Show source

• Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven't had capitalism.

  Ron Paul

  Should, Deficit Spending, Capitalism

  Ron Paul (2008). “Pillars of Prosperity: Free Markets, Honest Money, Private Property”, p.43, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  24 Copy quote

  Show source