Charles Eliot Norton Quotes

Preventing a war is tantamount to winning a war.

Whenever you have a possibility of going in two ways, either for peace or for war, for peaceful methods of for military methods, in the present age there is a strong prejudice for the peaceful ones. War seldom ever leads to good results.

The great lesson to be learned in the battered towns of England and the ruined cities of Germany is that the best way to win a war is to prevent it from occurring.

So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all peoples to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it.

I consider even a victorious war as an evil, from which statesmanship must endeavor to spare nations.

Wars can be prevented just as surely as they can be provoked, and we who fail to prevent them, must share the guilt for the dead.

We should seek by all means in our power to avoid war, by analysing possible causes, by trying to remove them, by discussion in a spirit of collaboration and good will.

If we examine the Hague Convention carefully, we see that it considers the offer of good offices a duty of every nation. In other words, such offers should be made whenever a dispute becomes critical and threatens to explode into war.

War should be not a war of choice; it should be a war of necessity. And it should be a last resort.

Relieving the risk of a nuclear conflict with Iran diplomatically is superior than trying to do that militarily.

We've never declared war on anybody. We [Iran] defended ourselves against wars that were imposed on us. We have no desire to engage in confrontation with anybody.

You consider war to be inevitable? Very good. Let everyone who advocates war be enrolled in a special regiment of advance-guards, for the front of every storm, of every attack, to lead them all!

More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars. Yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between Governments. The once powerful malignant Nazi state is crumbling; the Japanese warlords are receiving in their homelands the retribution for which they asked when they attacked Pearl Harbor. But the mere conquest of our enemies is not enough; we must go on to do all in our power to conquer the doubts and the fears, the ignorance and the greed, which made this horror possible.

The folly of war is that it can have no natural end except in the extinction an entire people.

It is the responsibility of all of us to remind governments of their commitments to settle disputes by peaceful means and to negotiate in good faith under the UN Charter, and to denounce war agitation particularly by the media.

To discover a system for the avoidance of war is a vital need of our civilisation.

The way to prevent war is to bend every energy toward preventing it, not to proceed by the dubious indirection of preparing for it.

It is very important for I think those of us who desperately want peace, who see war as, at some level, a break-down, a manifestation of human weakness, to understand that sometimes it’s also necessary – and you know, to – to be able to balance two ideas at the same time; that we are constantly striving for peace, we are doubling up on our diplomacy, we are going to actively engage, we are going to try to see the world through other people’s eyes and not just our own.

The best missile defense system of all would be a just and lasting peace.

If we can cultivate in the world the idea that aggressive war-making is the way to the prisoner's dock rather than the way to honors, we will have accomplished something toward making the peace more secure.

Every war is its own excuse. That's why they're all surrounded with ideals. That's why they're all crusades.

We go to war only to make peace. We never went to war with any other design. We carry the national conscience wherever we go.

The biggest difference would be made if we don't have wars to begin with.

I can't possibly put myself in his [Tony Blair's] shoes and be inside his head but what I can say is that the security of the nation is the first duty of any government but at the same time for me going to war would always be the last resort. I would exhaust all other opportunities first.

I think when we think about the judgment of someone who might want World War III, we might think about someone who might shut down a bridge because they don't like their friends.