Just War Quotes

Even in war moral power is to physical as three parts out of four.

Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time... I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal.... Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier.

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.

For a war to be just, three conditions are necessary—public authority, just cause, right motive.

We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations—acting individually or in concert—will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

I'm not a pacifist at all; I think there is a notion of "just war" that can be persuasively argued. I think in the face of Nazis, in the face of apartheid, that I would have joined those armies. But that's the last, last resort.

All counter-revolutionary wars are unjust, all revolutionary wars are just.

Whether a war is “just” or “unjust”, whether it is a war of aggression or of defense, the protection and care due to the wounded and sick are in no way affected.

War, in some instances, especially defensive, has been authorized by Heaven.

War is just when it is necessary; arms are permissible when there is no hope except in arms.

A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their own choice, is often the means of their regeneration.

I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war.

While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.

I think that war is diplomacy by other means, for sure, and there have been wars that have been fought for righteous reasons. There are wars that have had to be fought, and there will probably continue to be.

Man has no right to kill his brother. It is no excuse that he does so in uniform: he only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder.

For a war to be just three conditions are necessary - public authority, just cause, right motive.

I’m not opposed to all wars; just dumb wars.

I see no reason to use offensive tools unless you're defending the country or in a state of war, or you want to achieve some really important thing for the good of the nation and others.

A just fear of an imminent danger, though be no blow given, is a lawful cause of war.

The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.

The people who are sending our men and women in uniform into conflict need to understand that there are some things worth fighting for, but also understand the high cost of war.

War is a last and terrible defense of even a righteous cause, and sets at defiance all the ordinary laws and customs of society.

I know in war good people can feel obliged for good reasons to do things they would normally object to and recoil from.

In defense of our persons and properties under actual violation, we took up arms. When that violence shall be removed, when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, hostilities shall cease on our part also.

War is not merely justifiable, but imperative upon honorable men, upon an honorable nation, where peace can only be obtained by the sacrifice of conscientious conviction or of national welfare.