Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.

As long as mankind shall bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst for military glory will remain the vice of the most exalted characters.

Violence is an admission that one's ideas and goals cannot prevail on their own merits.

Kennedy (b. 1932) is a U.S. Senator (D, MA). (from 'The Anti-War Quote Book,' Quirk Books, Ed. by Eric Groves Sr.)

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.

All the gods are dead except the god of war.

It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.

Roosevelt (1884-1962) was the wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and an outspoken political activist in her own right. (From 'The Anti-War Quote Book,' Quirk Books, Ed. by Eric Groves Sr.)

All wars eventually act as boomerangs and the victor suffers as much as the vanquished.

from "My Day," February 7, 1939

Rulers who want to unleash war know very well that they must procure or invent a first victim.

My theory is, strong people don't need strong leaders.

Baker (1903-1986) was an African American civil rights worker. (quote from 'The Anti-War Quote Book,' edited Eric Groves, Sr., pub. Quirk Books, 2008)

The worst barbarity of war is that it forces men collectively to commit acts against which individually they would revolt with their whole being.

Most quarrels are inevitable at the time; incredible afterwards.

History is littered with wars which everybody knew would never happen.

The first casualty of war is not truth, but perspective. Once that's gone, truth, like compassion, reason, and all the other virtues, wanders around like a wounded orphan.

from "Treatise on Reason and Hysteria"

War is the blackest villainy of which human nature is capable.

Dulce bellum inexpertis (War is delightful to the inexperienced).

History is replete with examples of empires mounting impressive military campaigns on the cusp of their impending economic collapse.

Alterman is an American journalist, born in 1960. (quote from 'The Anti-War Quote Book,' edited Eric Groves, Sr., pub. Quirk Books, 2008)

A hospital alone shows what war is.

The 1st panacea of a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the 2nd is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; a permanent ruin.

No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one.

You can wipe out your opponents. But if you do it unjustly you become eligible for being wiped out yourself.

They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.

from "Notes on the Next War," published in Esquire Magazine, 1935.

For me war has become a flat, black depression without highlights, a revulsion of the mind and an exhaustion of the spirit.

No war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people.

(1855-1926)

God hates violence. He has ordained that all men fairly possess their property, not seize it.

Wars should be over in three days or less...and the American people must be all for it from the outset.