Just War Quotes

An unjust peace is better than a just war.

We're trying to sell peace, like a product, you know, and sell it like people sell soap or soft drinks. And it's the only way to get people aware that peace is possible, and it isn't just inevitable to have violence. Not just war - all forms of violence.

In modern war... you will die like a dog for no good reason.

I am confirmed in my belief that war is utter destructive violent chaos. There is no "art," no "order(s)," no "just war." No matter what the ideologies, wars are the same.

War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.

Marx was wrong: It is not only the 'means of production' that shape societies, but the means of destruction. In our own time, the costs of war, or just war readiness, are daunting. ... The resulting cost squeeze has led to a new type of society, perhaps best terms a 'depleted' state, in which the military has drained reources from all other social functions.

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.

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.

A "just war" - if there could be such a thing - would not require conscription. Volunteers would be plentiful.

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.

There are many different ways of categorizing news. It doesn't have to be just war and famine and serious politics.

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

World War II made war reputable because it was a just war. I wouldn't have missed it for anything. You know how many other just wars there have been? Not many. And the guys I served with became my brothers. If it weren't for World War II, I'd now be the garden editor of The Indianapolis Star. I wouldn't have moved away.

Our brave men and women have made many sacrifices in just wars to defeat the forces of evil. We have exported our greatest values: freedom and opportunity, which have lifted millions out of poverty. At home, these values allow Americans to use their God-given potential and make their dreams reality.

If America were in a just war I'd volunteer for the front line. I'd do the shuffling and win the war.

It may be true that every necessary war must also really be a just war; but it does not absolutely follow that every just war is a necessary war.

Wars results in immediate deaths and destruction, but the environmental consequences can last hundreds, often thousands of years. And it is not just war itself that undermines our life support system, but also the research and development, military exercises and general preparations for battle that are carried out on a daily basis in most parts of the world. The majority of this pre-war activity takes place without the benefit of civilian scrutiny and therefore we are unaware of some of what is being done to our environment in the name of 'security.

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.

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.

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.

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

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. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.

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

War's a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at.

Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.

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

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

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall with our English dead.

Only the dead have seen the end of the war.

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

No more wars, no more bloodshed. Peace unto you. Shalom, salaam, forever.

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

All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones.

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.

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

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

There never was a good war or a bad revolution.

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

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

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

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

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

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

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

Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.

War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man.

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.

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

War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.

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.