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

In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.

I think war is so incredibly backward, and I don’t think it’s intelligent, and it’s not sane. So why would you want to support it?

You can’t say civilization don’t advance… in every war they kill you in a new way.

Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes… can no longer be of concern to great powers alone.

I’m convinced that no one can amount to a damn in the arts if he becomes sweetly reasonable, seeing all sides of a picture, forgiving all sins.

I don’t have to see a murder in order to condemn murder.

The only defensible war is a war of defense.

Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.

Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.

Any government that supports, protects or harbours terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent and equally guilty of terrorist crimes.

We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the postive affirmation of peace.

War contributes greatly to global warming, which shouldn’t surprise us. All those bombs going off, all those rockets, all those planes and helicopters. All that fuel of various kinds being used. It pollutes the air and water of this very fragile and interconnected planet.

I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a method of settling international disputes.

As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.

War is the domain of physical exertion and suffering.

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

If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and of Hiroshima.

A faction willing to take the risks of making war on the ossified status quo in the Middle East can be described as many things, but not as conservative.

Character is always known. Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls.

War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.

War is the province of danger.

War is just when it is necessary; arms are permissible when there is no hope except in arms.

In war, events of importance are the result of trivial causes.

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.

A war with Pakistan would be an utter disaster.

I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offence.

Lots of people who complained about us receiving the MBE received theirs for heroism in the war – for killing people. We received ours for entertaining other people. I’d say we deserve ours more.

I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.

My great-grandfather and his two brothers fought at Gettysburg. They were in artillery, and they survived the war, thank goodness. So I revere what they did. I think their motivations were honorable when they undertook the war and participated in it along with other Southerners.

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.

America… just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.

Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.

A man who says that no patriot should attack the war until it is over… is saying no good son should warn his mother of a cliff until she has fallen.

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.

Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.

I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war.

War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason.

The U.S. military is not war weary. Our military draws strength from confronting our enemies when clear policy objectives are set and we are fully resourced for the fight.

Law is always better than war.

Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument you’re advancing. If you don’t you’re as good as dead. The other person will sense that something isn’t there, and no chain of reasoning, no matter how logical or elegant or brilliant, will win your case for you.

It has always been my private conviction that any man who puts his intelligence up against a fish and loses had it coming.

The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings, and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own.

When you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise.

I have known war as few men now living know it. It’s very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes.

If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.

I will never say something I don’t agree with or believe in… even if the reward is massive!

I hope my own children never have to fight a war.

The argument that resistance to the war should remain strictly nonviolent seems to me overwhelming.

There is an afterlife. I am convinced of this.

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

When I first went to places where people were suffering from war and persecution, I felt ashamed of my feelings of sadness. I could see more possibilities in my life.

You can’t make war in the Middle East without Egypt and you can’t make peace without Syria.

I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people of the earth will be killed.

One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society… shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.

The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the state governments, in times of peace and security.

We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.

No one can guarantee success in war, but only deserve it.

If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.