History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.

Israeli diplomat (1915-2002)

Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both.

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.

Military glory--that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood--that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy...

Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived.

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 a purpose—and you allow him to make war at pleasure.

We must recognize the chief characteristic of the modern era--a permanent state of what I call violent peace.

Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.

In war, truth is the first casualty.

Any excuse will serve a tyrant.

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

The great armies, accumulated to provide security and preserve the peace, carried the nations to war by their own weight.

No war is inevitable until it breaks out.

No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.

Wars based on principle are far more destructive...the attacker will not destroy that which he is after.

from the book "The Way of Zen"

When a war breaks out, people say: "It's too stupid, it can't last long." But though a war may be "too stupid," that doesn't prevent its lasting.

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

The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.

It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.

We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives...inside ourselves.

Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.

It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.