Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

War should never be thought of as something autonomous, but always as an instrument of policy.

War is too serious a matter to leave to soldiers.

You want to win the wars you fight. That’s why you have to pick your wars carefully.

Many Europeans are concerned that stronger sanctions are a slippery slope toward war unless the U.S. is at the table.

War is much too serious a thing to be left to military men.

We all know that in war the political and military factors have to complement each other.

War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men.

Woe to the statesman whose reason for entering a war do not appear so plausible at its end as at its beginning.

Whenever we get involved in a war, the White House seems to have 3 priorities: We cannot appear to be losing; we must appear to be winning; we must look like we know what we are doing.

Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld did not invent preemptive and preventive wars; they have a long history in U. S. foreign policy.

Americans have learned that it is harder to end wars than it is to begin them

It is easier to begin a war than to end one, which is why the decision to start a conflict should not be entrusted to the person who wages it. Post‐war presidents have abandoned this wisdom.

Military action without political context is ineffective.

I am one who believes that we are, in fact, engaged in a worldwide war against terrorism. We must have the serenity to accept the fact that war is not going to go away if we ignore it.

We've made some mistakes in this country in times past - the Korean conflict proceeding that, some say proceeding the Persian Gulf War, where we were ambiguous as to what we would do.

To my mind, what we ought to have maintained from the beginning was the strictest neutrality. If we had done this, I do not believe we would have been on the verge of war at the present time.

We all say no to war, we are all for justice and peace. But sometimes in order to maintain peace, armed action is necessary. But we hope it won't be the case.

What I've learned, and will try to remember from now on, is that defending your country's credibility is never sufficient reason to fight a war.

I think there has to be greater heed paid by the Security Council members to military advice.

The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.

Preventing a war is tantamount to winning a war.

We were so shocked by how fast that war went that President Bush did not have a plan, a peace plan.

The only foreign policy advice I heard from China was when they said to Sudan, 'Don't go back to war.' That's all they said. They didn't push anything else.

We try very quickly to show that we are not at war with the Iraqi people. We're trying to deal with the people who are indeed themselves at war with the Iraqi people.

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.