Henry L. Stimson Quotes

Oh, sure, we have another world war coming, and another great depression, but where are the leaders this time?

The year 1915 was one of meager results, the advantages remaining on the side of the Central Powers, with this understanding, however: The Allies were growing stronger because Great Britain was making rapid progress in marshaling her resources for war.

Japan cannot conquer China with America in her rear, Soviet Russia on her right and England on her left - her most powerful enemies in the South Sea all flanking her. It is this international situation that constitutes one of Japan's great weaknesses.

Muslim & Hindu in India, like Jews & Arab in Palestine, will continue to quarrel until one of the contending parties invites the Russians to come in & help them. After that, the date of World War No. 3 is anybody’s guess. … Every good wish to you in your difficult task.

Britain and America won the last world war. We will win the next world war.

Always--from the very day we were attacked--it was right militarily as well as morally to reject the arguments of those shortsighted people who would have had us throw Britain and Russia to the Nazi wolves and concentrate against the Japanese

On December 7, 1941, an event took place that had nothing to do with me or my family and yet which had devastating consequences for all of us - Japan bombed Pearl Harbour in a surprise attack. With that event began one of the shoddiest chapters in the tortuous history of democracy in North America.

shane: so is world war fifteen over out there? claire:i think so

If in the 1930s nuclear weapons had been invented and the Allies had been faced by Nazi SS20s and Backfire Bombers, would it then have been morally right to have handed Hitler control of one of the most terrible weapons man has ever made? Would not that have been the one way to ensure that the thousand year Reich became exactly that? Would not unilateralism have given to Hitler the world domination he sought?

These four mongrels are supposed to be our defense against Communism and the extremes of Arab Nationalism in the Middle East.

In World War Two, in the OSS, we knew what our motivation was: to beat the goddamn Nazis. In the Cold War, we knew what our motivation was: to beat the Goddamn Russians. Suddenly the Cold War is over, and what is the motivation? What would compel someone to spend their lives doing this kind of thing?

We had won many pacific islands where the Japanese fought to the death rather than surrender …. We had killed 100,000 people in Tokyo in a single night. It destroyed the city but as far as we could tell it had no effect on their morale. We had to shock the Japanese into surrender.

Russia and China completely disagree with the international order that was established after World War II, and they're trying to take it apart right before our eyes.

Harry Truman, with what he did in dropping and having the guts to drop the bomb in 1944, saved - saved millions of American lives.

We're in a world war.

It's becoming plainer and plainer that what is going on in South America and in South-Eastern Asia is directly related to the war in Russia, for they are all parts of one single Great World War.

One of the lessons learned in the Middle East is to never try to anticipate the other side's moves.

Our generation was born during the turmoil following the First World War. That war marked the dividing line - at least for the Western World - between the comfortable security of the 19th century and the instability and flux of our own time.

We have to ask if it is once again the summer of 1914. Small acts of terror in the Middle East, in South Asia, could lead to cataclysm as they did in Sarajevo.

I've been interested in Japan since the 1930s, when I read about Japan's vicious crimes in Manchuria and China.

I was four years old when Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941 by Japan, and overnight, the world was plunged into a world war. America suddenly was swept up by hysteria.

Fifty years would seem to be time enough to prepare a definitive history of the Second World War. In an age of instant data-gathering, one might think that the historians could have arrived at a consensus for interpreting the main events of the war. In reality, no such consensus exists.

The 20th century saw three great-power confrontations. Two of them turned into total war. We lucked out on the third. Do we really want to roll those dice again?

Germany, which has lately united 80 million Germans, has submitted certain neighboring countries to her supremacy and gained military strength in many aspects, and thus has become, as clearly can be seen, a dangerous rival to principal imperialistic powers in Europe - England and France. That is why they declared war on Germany on a pretext of fulfilling the obligations given to Poland. It is now clearer than ever, how remote the real aims of the cabinets in these countries were from the interests of defending the now disintegrated Poland or Czechoslovakia.

It's a very serious matter. And what should we do about it? We should reinforce NATO. We need to be prepared to take solid actions to make it clear that we will not tolerate any intervention, and Russian intervention.