I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.

They are nations of eternal war. All their energies are expended in the destruction of the labor, property, and lives of their people.

From a letter to president Monroe, 1823.

We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.

A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.

The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force.

War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.

Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war.

(1915-1968)

He that is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.

War is the gambling table of governments, and citizens the dupes of the game.

That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of Nations is as shocking as it is true...

An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.

If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.

It is useless to attack men who could not be controlled even if conquered, while failure would leave us in an even worse position...

Thucydides was a Athenian historian, born in the 5th century, BC. Here, he is quoting the Athenian general Nikias on the proposed invasion of Sicily during the Peloponnesian War.

Love of power, operating through greed and through personal ambition, was the cause of all these evils.

I am not blaming those who are resolved to rule, only those who show an even greater readiness to submit.

This president failed so miserably in diplomacy that we are now forced to war.

Democracies become dictatorships if governments do not listen to the voice of the people.

All war represents a failure of diplomacy.

Justice itself tends to be corrupted by political passion.

That meddling in other people's affairs...formerly conducted by the most discreet intrigue is now openly advocated under the name of intervention.

Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions.

In modern war there is no such thing as victor and vanquished...There is only a loser, and the loser is mankind.

If you kill one person you are a murderer. If you kill ten people you are a monster. If you kill ten thousand you are a national hero.