Michael Ignatieff Quotes

The end of war is to procure by force the justice which cannot otherwise be obtained.

War is the ultimate tool of politics.

I'm really interested in how conflicts arise and how they reach points of no return. I'm no pacifist. Sometimes force is necessary. But war is a choice.

We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years … and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home … to live our own lives in peace. But there comes a time when soft power or talking with evil will not work where, unfortunately, hard power is the only thing that works.

Law stands mute in the midst of arms

It would be immoral to walk away from the consequences of our actions, leaving behind anarchy and civil war in Iraq.

What is more immoral than war?

Nothing can justify war.

I do not believe in terrorism, violence, destruction, murder, pre-emption, or War.

War should be made a crime, and those who instigate it should be punished as criminals.

I think, unfortunately, we live in a world where people attack other people and I think a legitimate rationale for war is the saving of human life, the saving of lives of people who cannot defend themselves.

War can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun.

We cannot be both the world's leading champion of peace and the world's leading supplier of the weapons of war.

I don't think the war in Afghanistan was ruthlessly enough waged.

Once you start a war, you have to win.

May the same Almighty Goodness banish the accursed monster, war, from all lands, with her hated associates, rapine and insatiable ambition!

There is no peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war - at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.

Henry Kissinger is the greatest living war criminal in the world today, with the blood of millions of people in Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos and Chile and East Timor on his hands. He will never appear in a court or be behind bars.

We must strive to restrain the destructive force of war, while recognizing its inexorable necessities

We cannot go on fighting a war for small hills.

Peacekeeping sometime requires killing to do the job properly..

It makes no difference who says that our objective is peace, even if he be the President of the United States. Our actions speak louder than words, and our actions in Asia today are the actions of warmaking.

Let the natural process of war among nations smother the weak.

Those who make war unjustly shall perish

It is very difficult to do one's duty. I was considered a barbarian because at the storming of the Praga, 7,000 people were killed. Europe says that I am a monster. I myself have read this in the papers, but I would have liked to talk to people about this and ask them: is it not better to finish a war with the death of 7,000 people rather than to drag it on and kill 100,000.