Friedrich Durrenmatt Quotes

How strange it is that murder has the sanction of law in one and only one of the human relationships, and that is the most important of all, that of nation to nation.

The State thrives on war - unless, of course, it is defeated and crushed - expands on it, glories in it.

We decry violence all the time in this country, but look at our history. We were born in a violent revolution, and we've been in wars ever since. We're not a pacific people.

Perhaps when the next great war comes we may see that sight unprecedented in all history, a jingo with a bullet-hole in him.

Nationalism, on my opinion, is nothing more than an idealistic rationalization for militarism and aggression.

In the present imperialistic milieu there can be no wars of national self-defense.

No state is free from militarism, which is inherent in the very concept of the sovereign state. There are merely differences of degree in the militarism of states.

I do not wish a foreign army to spill the blood of my people.

It has too often been too easy for rulers and governments to incite man to war.

I don't like war. I particularly don't like the celebration of war, which I think the administration is a little bit guilty of.

The greater the state, the more wrong and cruel its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power is founded.

Remember that politics, colonialism, imperialism and war also originate in the human brain.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

What this country needs what every country needs occasionally is a good hard bloody war to revive the vice of patriotism on which its existence as a nation depends.

In the Middle East, a nation whose youngsters are not willing to kill and get killed for it is a nation on borrowed time. It will not last long.

Nations have the tendency to be born in blood.

Never should the word peace fall from the mouths of our highest officials.... With such a country as ours, with her vast areas ... her immense natural resources, and her hundreds of millions of inhabitants, if all would prove their loyalty to their emperor and love of their country, what indeed is there to fear from any strong invader? Let us not think of making peace, nor rely solely upon diplomatic maneuvers.

Fascism believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism -- born of a renunciation of the struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have courage to meet it

To make a people great it is necessary to send them to battle even if you have to kick them in the ass.

The United States is a violent military state. It's been involved in military action all over the place.

The long years of fighting Napoleon's ambitions for a world empire had hardened the British into an 'us-against-them' mentality.

Patriotism is nationalism, and always leads to war.

At the bottom of all patriotism there is war: that is why I am no patriot.

the function of militarism is to kill. It cannot live except through murder.

The root of the evil is not the construction of new, more dreadful weapons. It is the spirit of conquest.