George H. W. Bush on war and peace

I do not like broccoli and I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I’m President of the United States and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli.

A President is neither prince nor pope, and I don’t seek a window on men’s souls. In fact, I yearn for a greater tolerance, an easy-goingness about each other’s attitudes and way of life.

America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the Nation and gentler the face of the world.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Thomas Jefferson1743–1826Letter to William Stephens Smith (13 November 1787). Manuscript at the Library of Congress.

• Liberty

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

Dwight D. Eisenhower1890–1969The Chance for Peace (1953)

• Guns

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

George S. Patton1885–1945