Dwight D. Eisenhower on war and peace

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.

You do not lead by hitting people over the head — that’s assault, not leadership.

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

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

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

George S. Patton1885–1945

If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

Winston Churchill1874–1965The Second World War, Volume I: The Gathering Storm (1948) Chapter 19 (Prague, Albania, and the Polish Guarantee).

• Freedom