Those wars are unjust which are undertaken without provocation. For only a war waged for revenge or defense can be just.

I will never relent in defending America – whatever it takes.

Revenge, lust, ambition, pride, and self-will are too often exalted as the gods of man’s idolatry; while holiness, peace, contentment, and humility are viewed as unworthy of a serious thought.

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.

Debt is part of the human condition. Civilization is based on exchanges – on gifts, trades, loans – and the revenges and insults that come when they are not paid back.

Pop flies, in a sense, are just a diversion for a second baseman. Grounders are his stock trade.

If you can’t beat them, arrange to have them beaten.

We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.

I’m not an expert on the arms race.

Nothing is more dangerous to one’s own faith than the work of an apologist. No doctrine of that faith seems to me so spectral, so unreal as one that I have just successfully defended in a public debate.

At the end of 2003, my game was complete. Shooting, defense, using the dribble, transition, midrange stuff was all there. Then it was about fine-tuning and trying to improve in each area.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.

Part of the reason there’s an injunction to the truth, for example, is that if you’re in a circumstance of extreme uncertainty, your best weapon, let’s say, or your best tool or your best defense is the truth, because it keeps things simpler.

And if you’re horrible to me I’m going to write a song about you and you are not going to like it. That’s how I operate.

This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.

If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?

The Marine Corps is the Navy’s police force and as long as I am President that is what it will remain. They have a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin’s.

Whoever has provoked men to rage against him has always gained a party in his favor, too.

To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man’s most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.

Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy, but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince’s part to pardon.

It might be pardonable to refuse to defend some men, but to defend them negligently is nothing short of criminal.

I am not a self-help writer. I am a self-problem writer. When people read my books, I provoke some things. I cannot justify my work. I do my work; it is up to them to classify it, to judge.

If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War.

Wars are caused by undefended wealth.

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.

America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people.

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.

Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.

In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.

Education is the cheap defense of nations.

It takes two to make a murder. There are born victims, born to have their throats cut, as the cut-throats are born to be hanged.

I gave ‚em a sword. And they stuck it in, and they twisted it with relish. And I guess if I had been in their position, I’d have done the same thing.

NATO was constructed on the – with the reason, whether one believes it or not, that it was going to defend Western Europe from Russian assault. Once the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union was beginning to collapse, that reason was gone. So, first question: why does NATO exist?

When a nation is surrounded by weaponized nations, she has to equip herself.

Neither the Army nor the Navy is of any protection, or very little protection, against aerial raids.

Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession.

In defense of our persons and properties under actual violation, we took up arms. When that violence shall be removed, when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, hostilities shall cease on our part also.

I consider myself a moderate Republican. I have very, very moderate social views, and I’m pretty strong on, on defense matters.

Morality arose largely as an empirical defence of the individual and society. Ever since intelligent beings began to be in contact, and consequently in friction, they have felt the need to guard themselves against each other’s encroachments.

There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.

Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.

Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.

To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves.

Virtuous people often revenge themselves for the constraints to which they submit by the boredom which they inspire.

Peace can be contributed to by respect for our ability in defense.

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.

The power of an air force is terrific when there is nothing to oppose it.

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.

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

An eye for an eye only leads to more blindness.

Iran has little capacity to deploy force. Its strategic doctrines are defensive, designed to deter invasion long enough for diplomacy to set it.

I am the commander in chief of the United States armed forces, and Iraq is gonna have to ultimately provide for its own security.

It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge.

If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.

It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.

Before Nelson Mandela was arrested in 1962, he was an angry, relatively young man. He founded the ANC’s military wing. When he was released, he surprised everyone because he was talking about reconciliation and forgiveness and not about revenge.

We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.

We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.