Pre-emptive war might fall within the framework of international law.

Arguments are to be avoided: they are always vulgar and often convincing.

Diplomacy: the art of restraining power.

Maybe if everybody in leadership was a woman, you might not get into the conflicts in the first place. But if you watch the women who have made it to the top, they haven’t exactly been non-aggressive – including me.

The Army was always big on Clausewitz, the Prussian; the Navy on Alfred Thayer Mahan, the American; and the Air Force on Giulio Douhet, the Italian. But the Marine Corps has always been more Eastern-oriented. I am much more comfortable with Sun-tzu and his approach to warfare.

When we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies.

To secure peace is to prepare for war.

When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration?

Luckily for me, people don’t scream at me that much in my everyday life.

The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.

Poverty breeds despair. We know this. Despair breeds violence. We know this. In turbulent times, isn’t it cheaper, and smarter, to make friends out of potential enemies than to defend yourself against them later?

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

God’s love is too great to be confined to any one side of a conflict or to any one religion.

You must show the world that you abhor fighting.

You probably don’t need more weapons than what’s required to destroy every city on earth. There’s only 2,300 cities. So, the United States, by that criteria, only needs 2,300 nuclear weapons – well, we’ve got more than 25,000!

We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.

No one doubts that innocent men, women and children have been the victims of chemical weapons attacks in Syria. And there’s no doubt who is responsible for this heinous use of chemical weapons in Syria: the Syrian regime.

Conflict cannot survive without your participation.

Since the civil war in Laos was resumed in earnest in 1963, American participation has been veiled in secrecy.

Remind yourself that winning an argument or proving your point really gets you nowhere in the long run. Win through your actions, not your words.

I think we would find, if you study the conduct of guerilla-type wars, that the Obama Administration has hit more targets on a broader scale than the Nixon Administration ever did.

I’ve never fought with anyone. A lot of people talk to me, and they’re like, ‚Oh, you would have been fighting all the time when you were younger,‘ but I’m like, ‚I never fought with anyone because I always knew that if I hurt myself, I might lose important time in my cricket career,‘ so I never got into any fight, ever in my life.

Passive aggressors who are adept at this will have trained themselves to remain calm, while you get irritated and emotional.

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.

Diplomacy is listening to what the other guy needs. Preserving your own position, but listening to the other guy. You have to develop relationships with other people so when the tough times come, you can work together.

I grew up in an environment where being polite was taken as a weakness. So I just fought everybody.

When rich people fight wars with one another, poor people are the ones to die.

In all private quarrels the duller nature is triumphant by reason of dullness.

Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.

‚Some Kind Of Monster‘ is such a nightmare for any musician to watch because you’re watching a band be honest to each other. Not a good idea, man!

Treachery has existed as long as there’s been warfare, and there’s always been a few people that you couldn’t trust.

It’s tough to negotiate from a position of weakness.

I have a scheme for stopping war. It’s this – no nation is allowed to enter a war till they have paid for the last one.

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.

If we want to fight people in the world, we should fight them with pillows – pillows stuffed with food, medicine, music… That would be so much cheaper than bombs.

The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.

If you don’t like what someone has to say, argue with them.

The target of preventive war must have several characteristics. It must be virtually defenceless; it must be important enough to be worth the trouble; it must be possible to portray it as the ultimate evil and an imminent threat to our survival.

When I was elected President nobody asked me to negotiate between Israel and Egypt. It was not even a question raised in my campaign. But I felt that one of the reasons that I was elected President was to try to bring peace to the Holy Land.

The most terrible job in warfare is to be a second lieutenant leading a platoon when you are on the battlefield.

Sports are such a great teacher. I think of everything they’ve taught me: camaraderie, humility, how to resolve differences.

War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.

To Sun-tzu and the ancient Chinese, doing something extraordinary had little effect without a setup of something ordinary. You had to mix the two – to fix your opponent’s expectations with some banal, ordinary maneuver, a comfortable pattern that they would then expect you to follow.

Drones are just another weapon, and they turn out to be a very effective weapon that puts no American troops at risk, and I don’t see why we shouldn’t use them against identified enemy targets.

To me, it’s OK to have differences. But we don’t have to be mad about it. You know? And I think that’s where sometimes we get so passionate that we – you know, it turns into anger.

Like the experience of warfare, the endurance of grave or terminal illness involves long periods of tedium and anxiety, punctuated by briefer interludes of stark terror and pain.

When things haven’t gone well for you, call in a secretary or a staff man and chew him out. You will sleep better and they will appreciate the attention.

Don’t hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft.

An army marches on its stomach.

More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars – yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments.

Generally, the view that I’ve had on Twitter is if you’re on Twitter, you’re in, like, the meme – you’re in meme war land. If you’re on Twitter, you’re in the arena. And so, essentially, if you attack me, it is therefore OK for me to attack back.

Take the diplomacy out of war and the thing would fall flat in a week.

You have to make sure you know why you are going to war and then use decisive force to end it as soon as possible.

The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed. It is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed to produce valuable and lasting results.

We must, all of us, learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise.

For good or for ill, air mastery is today the supreme expression of military power and fleets and armies, however vital and important, must accept a subordinate rank.

You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.

An eye for an eye only leads to more blindness.

Total war is no longer war waged by all members of one national community against all those of another. It is total… because it may well involve the whole world.

Always remember that your calmness under fire is your best defense in any argument or discussion.

Peace comes when you talk to the guy you most hate. And that’s where the courage of a leader comes, because when you sit down with your enemy, you as a leader must already have very considerable confidence from your own constituency.