Quotes About Power And War

#1. Rome had freed the Greeks, but on condition that both war and class war should end. Freedom without war was a novel and irksome life for the city-states that made up Hellas; the upper classes yearned to play power politics against neighboring cities, and

Will Durant

#2. In this distribution of powers the wisdom of our constitution is manifested. It is the province and duty of the Executive to preserve to the Nation the blessings of peace. The Legislature alone can interrupt those blessings, by placing the Nation in a state of War.

Alexander Hamilton

#3. Our mission is to speak the truth to power. We send home that first rough draft of history. We can and do make a difference in exposing the horrors of war and especially the atrocities that befall civilians.

Marie Colvin

#4. For us who are now in power, we need to be challenged to serve the people and ignore our own egos and personal interests so that we can really demonstrate to other African states that it is possible to share power without going to war.

Wangari Maathai

#5. Today the real test of America's power and wisdom is not our capacity to make war but our capacity to prevent it. Prevention must be our overriding objective. It can be done. Surrendering to the inevitability of combat only paves the way for its occurring.

Dale E. Turner

#6. The vast majority of beings who incarnate on this planet are at the stage of their evolution where power is the dominant theme. They are learning about power. That is why we live in a world where there are so many wars and so much destruction.

Frederick Lenz

#7. War provides an outlet for every evil element in man's nature. It enfranchises cupidity and greed gives a charter to petty tyranny, glorifies cruelty and places in positions of power the vulgar and base.

C.E.M. Joad

#8. When Marxist dictators shoot their way into power in Central America, the Democrats don't blame the guerrillas and their Soviet allies, they blame United States' policies of one hundred years ago, but then they always blame America first.

Jeane Kirkpatrick

#9. American policy seems to be wed to a perpetual state of war. Why? History shows that the world will always be in flux or turmoil, with different peoples competing for visibility and power. The U.S. cannot fix the fate of every nation.

Camille Paglia

#10. Were half the power that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of arsenals or forts.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

#11. This tune goes manly.
Come, go we to the King. Our power is ready;
Our lack is nothing but our leave. Macbeth
Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above
Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may.
The night is long that never finds the day.
They exit.

William Shakespeare

#12. My wants are simple. I have no desire to latch onto a monster symbol of fate and power and prove my manhood in titanic piscine war. But sometimes I do like a couple of cooperative fish of frying size.

John Steinbeck

#13. If you will not have it thus: if in the pride of power, if in contempt of reason and reliance upon force, you say we shall not go, but shall remain as subjects to you, then, gentlemen of the North, a war is to be inaugurated the like of which men have not seen ...

Jefferson Davis

#14. May the power of Christ, which brings freedom and service, be felt in so many hearts afflicted by war, persecution and slavery.

Pope Francis

#15. War has all the characteristics of socialism most conservatives hate: Centralized power, state planning, false rationalism, restricted liberties, foolish optimism about intended results, and blindness to unintended secondary results.

Joseph Sobran

#16. Modern war is fought by a number of strong, sweaty horsemen with constipation, who have their eyes on power, on wealth and on glory, and who obey the rules just when it pleases them.

Dorothy Dunnett

#17. Ancient boundaries are meaningless, except for political purposes; old divisions of clan and tribe are sentimental remnants of the pre-atomic age; neither creed nor color nor place of origin is relevant to the realities of modern power to utterly seek and destroy.

Sydney J. Harris

#18. I feel sad for him. Sad for the boy bound to the killer. I am sad for the youth betrayed by their leaders for symbols and flags and war and power.

Susan Abulhawa

#19. We need to expose the motives of our political leaders, point out their connections to corporate power, show how huge profits are being made out of death and suffering.

Howard Zinn

#20. During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man.

Thomas Hobbes

#21. All conflicts can be resolved. Wars and conflicts are not inevitable. They are caused by human beings. There are always interests that are furthered by war. Therefore those who have power and influence can also stop them. Peace is a question of will.

Martti Ahtisaari

#22. Whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.

John Locke

#23. In strategy the longest way round is often the shortest way there- a direct approach to the object exhausts the attacker and hardens the resistance by compression, whereas an indirect approach loosens the defender's hold by upsetting his balance.

B.H. Liddell Hart

#24. Wisdom consists of knowing how to distinguish the nature of trouble, and in choosing the lesser evil.

Niccolo Machiavelli

#25. When it came to political power, blacks need not apply. Add to this steaming stew the growing tensions over the Vietnam War and the movement for civil rights, and you had plenty of elements to fire the imagination of a novice journalist.

Andrea Mitchell

#26. Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima ... The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.

Harry S. Truman

#27. Poverty and Discontent appear in every Face (except the Countenances of the Rich) and dwell upon every Tongue." He spoke of a few men, fed by "Lust of Power, Lust of Fame, Lust of Money," who got rich during the war.

Howard Zinn

#28. In war, State power is pushed to its ultimate, and, under the slogans of "defense" and "emergency," it can impose a tyranny upon the public such as might be openly resisted in time of peace.

Murray N. Rothbard

#29. The white flashed back into a red ball in the southeast. They all knew what it was. It was Orlando, or McCoy Base, or both. It was the power supply for Timucuan County.
Thus the lights went out, and in that moment civilization in Fort Repose retreated a hundred years.
So ended The Day.

Pat Frank

#30. Politics and war were just different names for power, and the price of power was predictably high and could be precisely measured-in dollards,yen,euros,rubles,riyals, and blood.

Tara Janzen

#31. War is honorable
In those who do their native rights maintain;
In those whose swords an iron barrier are
Between the lawless spoiler and the weak;
But is, in those who draw th' offensive blade
For added power or gain, sordid and despicable
As meanest office of the worldly churl.

Joanna Baillie

#32. I have seen the poor suffer when nobles seek the purity of ideals. I have seen the powerless die when princes believe in the nostalgia of their dreams. I have seen the common people torn from peace and thrown into war when kings yearn to test the clarity of their vision.

Ken Liu

#33. The U.S. has since the end of World War II had an answer - we stand for free peoples and free markets, we are willing to support and defend them - we will sustain a balance of power that favors freedom.

Condoleezza Rice

#34. [S]tatism is a system of institutionalized violence and perpetual civil war. It leaves men no choice but to fight to seize political power
to rob or be robbed, to kill or be killed ... Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by production.

Ayn Rand

#35. As always, there was an all-American war hero look to him, coded in his tousled brown hair, his summer-narrowed hazel eyes, the straight nose that ancient Anglo-Saxons had graciously passed on to him. Everything about him suggested valor and power and a firm handshake.

Maggie Stiefvater

#36. The words we choose can build communities, reunite loved ones, and inspire others. They can be a catalyst for change. However, our words also have the power to destroy and divide: they can start a war, reduce a lifelong relationship to a collection of memories, or end a life.

Simon S. Tam

#37. Revolutions and revolutionary wars are inevitable in class society, and without them it is impossible to accomplish any leap in social development and to overthrow the reactionary ruling classes and therefore impossible for the people to win political power.

Mao Zedong

#38. The Hollywood atmosphere of crises and continuous anxiety is a kind of hysteria which prevents people from thinking, and is not too different from the way dictators use wars and continuous threats of war as an emotional basis for maintaining their power.

Hortense Powdermaker

#39. The first and absolute requirement of strategic air power in this war was control of the air in order to carry out sustained operations without prohibitive losses.

Carl Andrew Spaatz

#40. In almost every country there are elements of opinion which would welcome such a conclusion because they wish to return to the politics of the balance of power, unrestricted and unregulated armaments, international anarchy, and preparation for war.

Arthur Henderson

#41. Is life less thrilling if your neighbors are rational, if they don't bomb your power stations whenever they feel you need to be admonished? Is it less rousing if they don't rattle your windows and nerves with indiscriminate sonic booms just because they can?

Rabih Alameddine

#42. Well, your God is silent and sleeping while the Japanese are busy torturing and killing us Koreans. We are as helpless as flies and it is getting worse as the war goes on.

Sook Nyul Choi

#43. Ever since the Second World War, television signals (as well as FM radio and radar) have served as Homo sapiens' emissaries into deep space. High-frequency, high-power broadcasts have filled an Earth-centered bubble more than 60 light-years in radius with signals.

Seth Shostak

#44. The war being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq is bringing about a fundamental change to the environment that has given rise and power to the extremists who export terrorism.

Craig L. Thomas

#45. From the point of the view of the nation's power, it was obvious that while we were fighting the Sino-Japanese war, every effort was to be made to avoid adding to our enemies and opening additional fronts.

Hideki Tojo

#46. Being a soldier [in the wars of modern power politics] was like being on a team in a sport that drew no crowds, except for the players' own parents and friends.

Dan Wakefield

#47. Let us ask Mary to help us respond to violence, to conflict and to war, with the power of dialogue, reconciliation and love. She is our mother: may she help us to find peace; all of us are her children!

Pope Francis

#48. I used to want to be a war photographer, and I used to want to be a ballerina and a comedian. I used to want to be a writer. I invalidated myself; it's a mistake for me.

Cat Power

#49. Not in government or force, not in slavery or war, but in the creative, and thereby spiritual, power of freedom, shall our inspiration be found.

F. A. Harper

#50. The White House isn't the place to learn how to deal with international crisis, the balance of power, war and peace, and the economic future of the next generation.

Joe Biden

#51. Drugs, sex, Satan, and power, Eve mused. A religious war? Hadn't humans fought and died for beliefs since the dawn of time? Animals fought for territory; people fought for territory as well. And for gain, for passion, for beliefs. For the hell of it.

J.D. Robb

#52. Air Power is, above all, a psychological weapon - and only short-sighted soldiers, too battle-minded, underrate the importance of psychological factors in war.

B.H. Liddell Hart

#53. To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues.

Thomas Hobbes

#54. They tell us that the rules of power and the rules of war are the same, the art is to deceive; and you will deceive, and be deceived in your turn, whether you are an ambassador or a suitor.

Hilary Mantel

#55. The Greek Civil War led to three decades of illegality for the Left, which had to operate under front organisations. The Cold War entrenched in power - backed by the US and Britain - a monarchist, authoritarian right for whom political violence was customary.

Anonymous

#56. One way to drive home the futility and evil of war is to tap the distancing power of satire.

Steven Pinker

#57. Anyone can battle for pride, power, vanity, greed, or hate, but war should always be approached with an equal measure of wisdom and strength. It's not just enough to know when to fight, but to know when to lay down the sword and negotiate. Not everything in the world is worth fighting for.

Sherrilyn Kenyon

#58. I was only one woman alone, and had no power to move to action full-fed, sleek- coated, ease-loving, pleasure-seeking, well-paid,and well-placed countrymen in this war- trampled, dead, old land, each one afraid that he should be called upon to do something.

Clara Barton

#59. The chief fruit of the First World War was the Russian Revolution and the rise of Communism as a national power.

Whittaker Chambers

#60. I want my life to be a battle cry, a war zone, an arrow pointed and loosed into the heart of domination: patriarchy, imperialism, industrialization, every system of power and sadism.

Lierre Keith

#61. What I'm really worried about is war. Will the former rich countries really accept a completely changed world economy, and a shift of power away from where it has been the last 50 to 100 to 150 years, back to Asia?

Hans Rosling

#62. It is only through an abandonment of the idea that those entrusted with power have an exclusive right to decide upon war, and the substitution of a public opinion equipped with all the facts and taken into the confidence of the ruling classes, that peace can be assured to the world.

Frederic C. Howe

#63. It is because I believe that it is in the power of such nations to lead the world back into the paths of peace that I propose to devote myself to explaining what, in my opinion, can and should be done to banish the fear of war that hangs so heavily over the world.

Arthur Henderson

#64. When Numa died, Rome by the twin disciplines of peace and war was as eminent for self-mastery as for military power.

Livy

#65. Much blood has been spilled over words, and a great deal of it over the word 'God.' (125)

Jean-Yves Leloup

#66. There are always people willing to commit unspeakable human atrocity in exchange for a little power and privilege.

Chris Hedges

#67. The theoretically unrestricted right to develop power, to wage war against other states, is antisocial and is doubly dangerous, because the state as a mass entity represents a low moral and intellectual level.

Christian Lous Lange

#68. When WWII ended, the Cold War started, and the interest of the Western world was not to completely break Germany. So all those Nazis who had been controlling the country now had the power to rebuild it. I think there were many of them who just continued their life in society; it's a very known fact.

Arnon Goldfinger

#69. When power corrupts, it keeps a log of its progress, written into that most sensitive memory device, the human face. Who could withstand the light? What viewer could believe in the war, the system, the countless lies about American freedom, looking into these mugs shots of the bought and sold?

Thomas Pynchon

#70. War is an initiation into the power of life and death. Women touch that power on the moment of birth, men at the edge of death.

William Broyles Jr.

#71. The battlefields of World War I established the importance of petroleum as an element of national power when the internal combustion machine overtook the horse and the coal-powered locomotive.

Daniel Yergin

#72. It was necessary that millions of men in whose hands lay the real power
the soldiers who fired, or transported provisions and guns
should consent to carry out the will of these weak individuals ...

Leo Tolstoy

#73. There will be miracles After the last war is won Science and poetry rule in the new world to come Prophets and angels Gave us the power to see What an amazing future there will be

Billy Joel

#74. Throughout the history of the United States , war has been the primary impetus behind the growth and development of the central state. It has been the lever by which presidents and other national officials have bolstered the power of the state in the face of tenacious popular resistance.

Bruce D. Porter

#75. An increase in the supply of paper money, and hence a decrease in the purchasing power of the currencies in which most bonds were denominated. A rational investor who anticipated a major war would sell bonds in anticipation of these effects.

Niall Ferguson

#76. But all of us-at home, at war, wherever we may be-are within the reach of God's love and power. We all can pray. We all should pray. We should ask the fulfillment of God's will.

Harry S. Truman

#77. It is no accident, then, that each of our major wars has served to enhance the power of government in Washington: the Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Edward S. Greenberg

#78. It is in war that the State really comes into its own: swelling in power, in number, in pride, in absolute dominion over the economy and the society.

Murray N. Rothbard

#79. One of the many reasons that Padma will always be a secondary power on the Council is his belief that all power must be taken, that all power must come through fear. True power comes when others offer it to you and you merely accept it as a gift, not as the spoils of some personal war.

Laurell K. Hamilton

#80. The Soviet Knight is dying inside his armour. He is a secondary power like you British. He can start a war but cannot continue one and cannot win one. Believe me.

John Le Carre

#81. Busty' Roberts had joined the Royal Artillery in 1914 and since then had steadily risen to the rank of Gunner. Now the crunch: someone with a perverted sense of humour made him a Lance Bombardier. Roberts went insane with power. The war now consisted of two people, him and Hitler.

Spike Milligan

#82. Peace, like war, can succeed only where there is a will to enforce it, and where there is available power to enforce it.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

#83. For the sake of one soul. For one loved one. For one life." I called power into my blasting rod, and its tip glowed incandescent white. "The way I see it, there's nothing else worth fighting a war for.

Jim Butcher

#84. Since National Socialism came to power, I have striven to make its consequences milder for its victims and to prepare the way for a change. In that, my conscience drove me
and in the end, that is a man's duty.

Helmuth James Graf Von Moltke

#85. The governments of the Western nations, whether monarchical or republican, had passed into the invisible hands of a plutocracy, international in power and grasp. It was, I venture to suggest, this semi-occult power which ... pushed the mass of the American people into the cauldron of World War I.

J. F. C. Fuller

#86. Where power beckoned the strongest of men to come and lay hold to its glory, there would always be greed and war.

Lexy Timms

#87. If more women were in power, they wouldn't let wars break out," she said. "Women can't be bothered with all this fighting. We see war for what it is- a matter of broken bodies and crying mothers.

Alexander McCall Smith

#88. I am not a dictator, and I do not think I will become one. I will not maintain power with a machine gun.

Fidel Castro

#89. Four things greater than all things are Women and horses and power and War.

Rudyard Kipling

#90. Niko's angular face caught a flicker of firelight and Tempus saw his future there: sharp purpose, discipline, and power in perfect balance; love of man and gods, and mercy transcending all. If war ever wore a more humane face, this one would make it so.

Janet Morris

#91. The power to cause pain is the only power that matters, the power to kill and destroy, because if you can't kill then you are always subject to those who can, and nothing and one will ever save you.

Orson Scott Card

#92. I invite all to trust in the merits and in the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Through His atoning sacrifice, we can gain the courage to win all the wars of our time, even in the midst of our difficulties, challenges, and temptations. Let us trust in His # love and power to save.

Ulisses Soares

#93. If you print money like in Zimbabwe ... the purchasing power of money goes down, and the standards of living go down, and eventually, you have a civil war.

Marc Faber

#94. Unjust war is to be abhorred; but woe to the nation that does not make ready to hold its own in time of need against all who would harm it! And woe thrice over to the nation in which the average man loses the fighting edge, loses the power to serve as a soldier if the day of need should arise!

Theodore Roosevelt

#95. Wake up ! This ain't war between good and evil anymore.
This is war between good people for their respective survival.
Whoever lose in this war, will be remembered as the evil one.

Toba Beta

#96. We are fighting to vindicate the principle that small nationalities are not to be crushed in defiance of international good faith at the arbitrary will of a strong and overmastering Power.

H. H. Asquith

#97. The basis of tragedy is man's helplessness against disease, war and death; the basis of comedy is man's helplessness against vanity (the vanity of love, greed, lust, power).

Dawn Powell

#98. And so long as they were at war, their power was preserved, but when they had attained empire they fell, for of the arts of peace they knew nothing, and had never engaged in any employment higher than war.

Aristotle.

#99. There is God only in the desert, he wanted to acknowledge that now. Outside of this there was just trade and power, money and war.

Michael Ondaatje

#100. The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it.

James Madison