War Speech Quotes

#1. In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the People.
(Canton, OH, Anti-War Speech, June 16, 1918)

Eugene V. Debs

#2. At all times, day by day, we have to continue fighting for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom from want ... for these are things that must be gained in peace as well as in war.

Eleanor Roosevelt

#3. I believe that the freedom of speech should be protected, but so should a family's right to privacy as they grieve their loss. There is a time and a place for vigorous debate on the War on Terror, but during a family's last goodbye is not it.

Dave Reichert

#4. That your power of command
with simple language was
one of the magnificent things of
our century.
(from the poem: result)

Charles Bukowski

#5. It is Barack Obama who is at war with this country. Recent events prove it. This is not a cliche. It's not a figure of speech. Obama is at war with the U.S. economy.

Rush Limbaugh

#6. [I]n my own case at least I feel my professional need for freedom of speech and expression prejudices me toward a government whose constitution guarantees it.

John Updike

#7. We Americans pride ourselves on our freedom to speak, to say what we believe. But of what use is it to speak if only those who already agree with us listen? A first step toward the abolition of war is learning to listen with respect and sympathy.

Nel Noddings

#8. Look into the face of a man who will kill you for a belief and your nostrils will snuff up the scent of abomination. Hear a speech declaring a holy war and, I assure you, your ears should catch the clink of evil's scales and the dragging of its monstrous tail over the purity of the language.

Terry Pratchett

#9. We must never forget that if the war in Vietnam is lost ... the right of free speech will be extinguished throughout the world.

Richard M. Nixon

#10. The idea that war should be conducted within a moral framework may seem like a quaint medieval practice, but as speech separates humans from the apes, so morality separates civilisation from the barbarians.

Eric Corley

#11. Freedom rings bells to wake us from the comfort of beautiful dreams and empower the efforts that turn them into reality.

Aberjhani

#12. Lamon, that speech won't scour. It is a flat failure and the people are disappointed.

Abraham Lincoln

#13. Every person under the sound of my voice is a soldier. You are either fighting for your freedom or betraying the fight for freedom or enlisted in the army to deny somebody else freedom. - Malcom X

Maya Angelou

#14. I had a right to my own political opinions. I am a Southern woman, born with Revolutionary blood in my veins. Freedom of speech and of thought were my birthright, guaranteed, signed and sealed by the blood of our fathers.

Rose O'Neal Greenhow

#15. George Bernard Shaw of England stopped over just long enough to make one speech in Bombay, India, started a war and 100 Indians killed each other. That's what I call good speech-making. The only enthusiasm any of our speakers can rouse is a demand to kill the speaker.

Will Rogers

#16. First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully.

John Yoo

#17. Gorbachev gave us freedom of worship and freedom of speech and freedom to see what was going on and freedom to vote, but that freedom won't last unless it is underpinned by economic freedom.

Boris Yeltsin

#18. Speeches made to the people are essential to the arousing of enthusiasm for a war.

Benito Mussolini

#19. Barack Obama can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word "victory" except when he's talking about his own campaign.

Sarah Palin

#20. The good guys fight for freedom, justice and most words that don't put food on the table. The bad fight to scrub those words from our speech. Only problem is, both sides claim to be good.

David Gunn

#21. I say we have no time for debate. Indeed, we have no need for it, since the decision has been made for us. We must fight. There is no other path!

Kaoru Kurimoto

#22. Freedom of speech is one of the greatest American liberties, and I hope this pardon serves as a reminder of the precious freedoms we are fighting to preserve as we continue to wage the war on terror.

George Pataki

#23. Not slaves," said Halyard, chuckling patronizingly. "Citizens, employed by government. They have same rights as other citizens - free speech, freedom of worship, the right to vote. Before the war, they worked in the Ilium Works, controlling machines, but now machines control themselves much better.

Anonymous

#24. I thought of Pericles' speech to the families of the Athenian war dead, in which he said, What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.

Eric Greitens

#25. Wo Hunger herrscht, ist auf die Dauer kein Friede."

("Where there is hunger, there cannot be lasting peace.)

Speech before the United Nations General Assembly, September 26, 1973

Willy Brandt

#26. Resist this war on God, freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

Ben Carson

#27. Guerrilla war is a test of wills. Obama's actual objectives - rollback in Iraq, containment in Syria - are not unreasonable. But they require commitment and determination. In other words, will. You can't just make one speech declaring war, then disappear and go fundraising.

Charles Krauthammer

#28. A poet who knew that a war leader in his speech on the eve of battle will be both a man of civilization and its raging opposite.

Adam Nicolson

#29. I never would've imagined in the first part of my life that I could've stood up and said anything. The war in Vietnam changed me. I was so angry. Some of my speeches probably weren't well considered.

Jane Fonda

#30. One of the problems of not allowing the American people to read what bin Laden has said is that in October 2001 just after the war began in Afghanistan, he gave a speech that had two parts to it.

Michael Scheuer

#31. So far as I am concerned I have no doctrinaire belief in free speech. In the interest of the war it is necessary to sacrifice some of it.

Walter Lippmann

#32. Free speech is a great idea, but were in a war.

Lindsey Graham

#33. Nonviolence is not just abstention from war, fighting, or animal flesh. It is abstention from negative thoughts and negative speech.

Nathaniel Altman

#34. Be a craftsman in speech that thou mayest be strong, for the strength of one is the tongue, and speech is mightier than all fighting.

Ptahhotep

#35. Curtailment of free speech is rationalized on grounds that a more compelling American tradition forbids criticism of the government when the nation is at war ... Nothing can be more destructive of our fundamental democratic traditions than the vicious effort to silence dissenters.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#36. To The Veterans of the United States of America
Thank you, for the cost you paid for our freedom, thank you for the freedom to live in safety and pursue happiness, for freedom of speech (thus my book), and for all the freedoms that we daily take for granted.

Sara Niles