"Indeed, conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism... Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots... Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others."
-Emma Goldman
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
"Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support, are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform."
-Henry David Thoreau
"Patriotism... means to stand by the country. It doesn't mean to stand by the president or any other public official (servant) save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the extent that by inefficiency he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth -- whether about the president or anyone else -- save in rare cases where this would make known to the enemy information of military value which would otherwise be unknown to him."
-Theodore Roosevelt
You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war
-Albert Einstein
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. 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
Even a cursory glance at history should convince one that individual crimes committed for selfish motives play a quite insignificant part in the human tragedy, compared to the numbers massacred in unselfish loyalty to one's tribe, nation, dynasty, church, or political ideology, ad majorem gloriam dei. The emphasis is on unselfish. Excepting a small minority of mercenary or sadistic disposition, wars are not fought for personal gain, but out of loyalty and devotion to king, country or cause. Homicide committed for personal reasons is a statistical rarity in all cultures, including our own. Homicide for unselfish reasons, at the risk of one's own life, is the dominant phenomenon of history.
- Arthur Koestler
The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.
- Robert Lynd
To wage a war for a purely moral reason is as absurd as to ravish a woman for a purely moral reason.
- H.L. Mencken
One of the most fashionable notions of our times is that social problems like poverty and oppression breed wars. Most wars, however, are started by well-fed people with time on their hands to dream up half-baked ideologies or grandiose ambitions, and to nurse real or imagined grievances.
- Thomas Sowell
In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.
- Leo Tolstoy
Political history is largely an account of mass violence and of the expenditure of vast resources to cope with mythical fears and hopes.
- Murray Edelman
-Emma Goldman
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
"Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support, are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform."
-Henry David Thoreau
"Patriotism... means to stand by the country. It doesn't mean to stand by the president or any other public official (servant) save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the extent that by inefficiency he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth -- whether about the president or anyone else -- save in rare cases where this would make known to the enemy information of military value which would otherwise be unknown to him."
-Theodore Roosevelt
You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war
-Albert Einstein
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. 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
Even a cursory glance at history should convince one that individual crimes committed for selfish motives play a quite insignificant part in the human tragedy, compared to the numbers massacred in unselfish loyalty to one's tribe, nation, dynasty, church, or political ideology, ad majorem gloriam dei. The emphasis is on unselfish. Excepting a small minority of mercenary or sadistic disposition, wars are not fought for personal gain, but out of loyalty and devotion to king, country or cause. Homicide committed for personal reasons is a statistical rarity in all cultures, including our own. Homicide for unselfish reasons, at the risk of one's own life, is the dominant phenomenon of history.
- Arthur Koestler
The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.
- Robert Lynd
To wage a war for a purely moral reason is as absurd as to ravish a woman for a purely moral reason.
- H.L. Mencken
One of the most fashionable notions of our times is that social problems like poverty and oppression breed wars. Most wars, however, are started by well-fed people with time on their hands to dream up half-baked ideologies or grandiose ambitions, and to nurse real or imagined grievances.
- Thomas Sowell
In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.
- Leo Tolstoy
Political history is largely an account of mass violence and of the expenditure of vast resources to cope with mythical fears and hopes.
- Murray Edelman