Thomas Babington Macaulay Quotes

No war ought ever to be undertaken but under circumstances which render all intercourse of courtesy between the combatants impossible. It is a bad thing that men should hate each other; but it is far worse that they should contract the habit of cutting one another's throats without hatred. War is never lenient but where it is wanton; when men are compelled to fight in self-defence, they must hate and avenge: this may be bad; but it is human nature.

It is fear which leads us to war, ... It is fear which leads us to believe that we must kill or be killed. Fear which leads us to attack those who have not attacked us. Fear which leads us to ring our nation in the very heavens with weapons of mass destruction.

All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal.

Against war it may be said that it makes the victor stupid and the vanquished revengeful.

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!

I hate the way war is seen as something inherently brutal and ugly. Yes, much of war brings out the worst part of our [people's] nature. But in war, all kinds of noble human traits have been developed, such as discipline, cohesion, pride.

It is nothing but fanaticism and beautiful soulism to expect very much (or even, much only) from humanity when it has forgotten how to wage war.

The story of the human race is war. Except for brief and precarious interludes there has never been peace in the world; and long before history began murderous strife was universal and unending.

Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. God help me, I do love it so.

Why is war such an easy option? Why does peace remain such an elusive goal? We know statesmen skilled at waging war, but where are those dedicated enough to humanity to find a way to avoid war

War: A by-product of the arts of peace.

Peace is not sought in order to provoke war, but war is waged in order to attain peace.

Either war is obsolete, or men are.

If we must fight, then by God we will fight. And I hope they [the Croats and Bosnians] will not be so crazy as to fight against us. Because if we don’t know how to work well or to do business, at least we know how to fight well.

You can’t have peace without a war.

It's very unfortunate that war has always been and probably always will be a part of human beings on this planet. It's a terrible thing.

If civilization has an opposite, it is war.

Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable.

If peace is equated simply with the absence of war, it can become abject pacifism that turns the world over to the most ruthless.

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.

War stirs in men's hearts the mud of their worst instincts. It puts a premium on violence, nourishes hatred, and gives free rein to cupidity. It crushes the weak, exalts the unworthy, and bolsters tyranny .. .Time and time again it has destroyed all ordered living, devastated hope, and put the prophets to death.

Beyond the futility of armed force, and ultimately more important, is the fact that war in our time inevitably results in the indiscriminate killing of large numbers of people. To put it more bluntly, war is terrorism. That is why a 'war on terrorism' is a contradiction in terms.

Peace is impossible, war is improbable.

There is no telling how many wars it will take to secure freedom in the homeland.

War is an act of force, and to the application of that force there is no limit. Each of the adversaries forces the hand of the other, and a reciprocal action results which in theory can have no limit.