We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.

If you destroyed half the pharmaceutical production in the United States, we’d think it’s a pretty serious problem. In fact, we’d probably go to war.

We have always said that in our war with the Arabs we had a secret weapon – no alternative.

Politics are very much like war. We may even have to use poison gas at times.

The Washington leadership has put aside non-proliferation programmes and devoted its energies and resources to driving the country to war by extraordinary deceit, then trying to manage the catastrophe it created in Iraq.

Law is always better than war.

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.

Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself.

As commanders and staff officers, we are coaches and sentries for our units: how can we coach anything if we don’t know a hell of a lot more than just the TTPs?

Washington still refuses to provide evidence to support the claims in 1990 that a huge Iraqi military build-up on the Saudi border justified war.

Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.

In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one.

Most people know nobody in the military.

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.

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.

Organized murder is war, and though we demonstrate against a particular war, the nuclear, or any other kind of war, we have never demonstrated against war.

I was so upset with what was going on in the world. I just couldn’t stand the idea of being people tortured and that we even had such a thing as war. I hated the older generation, who had not done anything about it. Punk was a call-to-arms for me.

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.

This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room.

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.

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

The military can buy our diplomats some time.

It’s silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas.

When Hillary served in the Senate, I saw her work day and night as a member of the Armed Services Committee – working with Republicans and Democrats to keep our military strong and protect our troops and their families.

If you look back at the history of the twentieth century, Germany alone had practically destroyed Russia several times.

In war, you can only be killed once, but in politics, many times.

Germany has reduced savagery to a science, and this great war for the victorious peace of justice must go on until the German cancer is cut clean out of the world body.

To be perfectly just is an attribute of the divine nature; to be so to the utmost of our abilities, is the glory of man.

America has fought five wars since 1945 and has gained its objectives in only one of them, the Gulf War.

War is not an exercise of the will directed at an inanimate matter.

True glory takes root, and even spreads; all false pretences, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any counterfeit last long.

A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of some great idea. Rome represents conquest; Faith hovers over the towers of Jerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of the antique world, Art.

I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.

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

Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow.

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

The United States never lost a war or won a conference.

Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.

In 1962, war was avoided by Khrushchev’s willingness to accept Kennedy’s hegemonic demands.

Policy makers who have never served in the military continue to use the military to lead social change in this country.

War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man.

Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.

I’ve had some ‚riotous excursions of the human spirit‘ alongside the young Sailors and Marines, and it’s time to leave the stage to the young leaders who got their rank the old-fashioned way – they earned their stripes in combat.

There is no room for military people, including our veterans, to see themselves as victims, even if so many of our countrymen are prone to relish that role.

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

World War II broke out in 1939, and many people credit that war with saving the economy.

To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.

There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.

An unjust peace is better than a just war.

Waking up early was the first example I noticed in the SEAL Teams in which discipline was really the difference between being good and being exceptional.

A war is a horrible thing, but it’s also a unifier of countries.

We shall never be able to remove suspicion and fear as potential causes of war until communication is permitted to flow, free and open, across international boundaries.

There is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one side stands more or less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction.

In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

I shall proceed from the simple to the complex. But in war more than in any other subject we must begin by looking at the nature of the whole; for here more than elsewhere the part and the whole must always be thought of together.

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.

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.

An army marches on its stomach.

Truth is mysterious, elusive, always to be conquered. Liberty is dangerous, as hard to live with as it is elating. We must march toward these two goals, painfully but resolutely, certain in advance of our failings on so long a road.

The world knows that America will never start a war. This generation of Americans has had enough of war and hate… we want to build a world of peace where the weak are secure and the strong are just.

America means far more than a continent bounded by two oceans. It is more than pride of military power, glory in war, or in victory. It means more than vast expanse of farms, of great factories or mines, magnificent cities, or millions of automobiles and radios.