Anti War Quotes

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  If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

  James Madison

  Inspirational, Freedom, Fear

  "The Last Enemy" by Rebecca Sato, www.pbs.org. November 11, 2010.

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• I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.

  George McGovern

  Dream, Peace, Military

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  85 Copy quote

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• In war, truth is the first casualty.

  Aeschylus

  Peace, War, Fighting

  70 Copy quote

• No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

  James Madison

  Freedom, War, Democracies Have

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

  75 Copy quote

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• 'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  War, Historical, Liberty

  "Law, Legislation and Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek. Volume 3: "The Political Order of a Free People". Chapter 17: "A Model Constitution", 1973.

  124 Copy quote

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

  Bertrand Russell

  Peace, Military, War

  66 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.

  82 Copy quote

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• Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

  James Madison

  Fear, War, Enemy

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

  27 Copy quote

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• War is the business of barbarians.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Peace, War, Barbarians

  20 Copy quote
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  There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.

  Howard Zinn

  Peace, War, Patriotic

  Howard Zinn (1993). “Failure to Quit: Reflections of an Optimistic Historian”, p.118, South End Press

  60 Copy quote

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• Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.

  George Washington

  Memorial Day, War, 4th Of July

  George Washington (1810). “Washington's Farewell Address to the People of the United States”, p.17

  77 Copy quote

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• Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have.

  Ronald Reagan

  Courage, War, Patriotic

  First Inaugural Address, delivered 20 January 1981

  81 Copy quote

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

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Funny, Wisdom

  Albert Einstein (2003). “Einstein's 1912 manuscript on the special theory of relativity”, George Braziller

  83 Copy quote

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• Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.

  Ronald Reagan

  Love, Peace, War

  114 Copy quote

• 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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• We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.

  Jimmy Carter

  Veterans Day, Peace, Children

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

  70 Copy quote

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• One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.

  Agatha Christie

  Peace, War, Winning

  Autobiography (1977) pt. 10

  18 Copy quote

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• What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood.

  Aldous Huxley

  Peace, War, Men

  Aldous Huxley (2001). “Complete Essays: 1936-1938”, Ivan R Dee

  15 Copy quote

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• The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.

  James Madison

  War, Liberty, Tyranny Founding Fathers

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1852). “The Federalist, on the new constitution, written in 1788, with an appendix, containing the letters of Pacificus and Helvidius on the proclamation of neutrality of 1793, also the original articles of confederation and the constitution of the United States”, p.451

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• War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.

  George Orwell

  Country, Money, War

  George Orwell, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1998). “The Complete Works of George Orwell: Facing unpleasant facts, 1937-1939”

  84 Copy quote

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• This world of ours... must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Respect, Fear, Hate

  Farewell Address, delivered 17 January 1961

  174 Copy quote

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• Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Peace

  40 Copy quote

• The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution.

  John F. Kennedy

  Peace, Military, War

  "John F. Kennedy: 1961 : containing the public messages, speeches, and statements of the president, January 20 to December 31, 1961" by John F. Kennedy, Washington: Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, 1962.

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• The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders...tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.

  Hermann Goring

  Country, Peace, Freedom

  Quoted in Gustave M. Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary (1947).

  559 Copy quote

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• I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Peace, War

  Mahatma Gandhi, Dennis Dalton (1996). “Gandhi: Selected Political Writings”, p.43, Hackett Publishing

  107 Copy quote

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