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Quotes about war and peace

540 quotes from 231 people

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Here was a place where men and life and death had reached the lowest form of degradation. How could any reward in national progress even faintly justify the establishment and operation of such a place?
Charles Lindbergh1902–1974After visiting the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp in Germany, as quoted in The New York Times (20 April 1980)
- Good & Evil
If we can cultivate in the world the idea that aggressive war-making is the way to the prisoner’s dock rather than the way to honors, we will have accomplished something toward making the peace more secure.
Robert H. Jackson1892–1954Statement on the War Trials Agreement (12 August 1945)
- Justice
I am not an absolute pacifist, because I can’t rule out the possibility that under some, carefully defined circumstances, some degree of violence may be justified, if it is focused directly at a great evil.
Howard Zinn1922–2010ZNet forum reply (26 May 1999)
I have not yet begun to fight!
John Paul Jones1747–1792Reply when asked whether his ship had struck, Battle of Flamborough Head (23 September 1779), as recalled by his first lieutenant, Richard Dale, in John Henry Sherburne’s Life and Character of John Paul Jones (1825); Jones’s own report gives no such words
- Courage
Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?
Bertrand Russell1872–1970The Russell-Einstein Manifesto (1955)
Of the love or hatred God has for the English, I know nothing, but I do know that they will all be thrown out of France, except those who die there.
JAJoan of Arc1412–1431Trial of condemnation, examination in prison (17 March 1431)
- God
Our technical civilization has just reached its greatest level of savagery. We will have to choose, in the more or less near future, between collective suicide and the intelligent use of our scientific conquests.
Albert Camus1913–1960Editorial in Combat (8 August 1945), after Hiroshima; translated in Between Hell and Reason (1991)
- Technology
Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures. And however undramatic the pursuit of peace, that pursuit must go on.
John F. Kennedy1917–1963Address to the UN General Assembly (20 September 1963)
We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist.
Queen Victoria1819–1901Said to Arthur Balfour at Windsor during “Black Week” (December 1899), as recorded in Lady Gwendolen Cecil, Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury, vol. 3 (1931)
- Failure
We’re going to go on offense, not just on defense, maximum lethality, not tepid legality, violent effect, not politically correct.
Pete Hegsethborn 1980“Trump’s throwback to ‘Department of War’ signals a retreat from modern world into past glory” Independent (September 5, 2025)
We made a film about the man who created the atomic bomb, and for better or for worse, we’re all living in Oppenheimer’s world. So I would really like to dedicate this to the peacemakers everywhere.
Cillian Murphyborn 1976“Cillian Murphy Wins Best Actor: “I Would Really Like to Dedicate This to the Peacemakers”” in Vanity Fair (10 March 2024)
- Movies
The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs, and explosions, and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy; and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own for the children, and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is, that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.
Rod Serling1924–1975Closing narration of The Twilight Zone, “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” (4 March 1960)
- Fear
Shall we be citizens in war, and aliens in peace? Would that be just?
Frederick Douglass1817–1895“What the Black Man Wants”, speech in Boston (1865)
- Justice
We all know that if Russia or China were guilty of what we have done in Vietnam, we would be exploding with moral indignation at these monstrous crimes.
Noam Chomskyborn 1928“On Resistance”, The New York Review of Books, December 7, 1967.
- Morality
We must never forget that victory to the rebellion meant death to the republic.
Frederick Douglass1817–1895Decoration Day address, Arlington National Cemetery (30 May 1871)
- History