John Hodgman Quotes

War is an absolute failure of imagination, scientific and political.

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

It has been claimed that the aim of the present war is to end war. But war cannot end war, neither can militarism destroy militarism.

To discover a system for the avoidance of war is a vital need of our civilisation.

Resort to force in the Great War (I) failed to bring tranquillity. Victory and defeat alike were sterile. That lesson the world should have learned.

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

Sweet is war to those who know it not.

Isn't it strange how the leaders of nations can talk so eloquently about peace while they prepare for war? ... There is no way to make peace while preparing for war.

Peace is hard work and we must not allow people to forget it.

The thing constantly overlooked by those hopefuls who talk about abolishing war is that it is by no means an evidence of decay but rather a proof of health and vigor.

War will exist as long as there's a food chain.

I consider even a victorious war as an evil, from which statesmanship must endeavor to spare nations.

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 is a curtain of dense black fabric across all the hopes and kindliness of mankind. Yet always it has let through some gleams of light, and not--I am not dreaming--it grows threadbare, and here and there and at a thousand points the light is breaking through.

War is an absolute failure of imagination, scientific and political. That a war can be represented as helping a people to 'feel good' about themselves, or their country, is a measure of that failure.

In Europe, war is a disease which has been in the family for generations: no one is surprised when it makes another leap. Even the patient only attends to it with part of his mind.

There's no war that will end all wars.

A smart soldier wants to know the causes of wars. Also how to end them. After all, war is the normal state of affairs, isn't it? Peace is the name of the ideal we deduce from the fact that there have been interludes between wars.

As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure.

War must never be a condition but, rather, a temporary scourge which we suffer as a child does a fever, knowing that health follows the long night of pain and that peace is health.

War...seems a mere madness, a collective insanity.

Today the real test of America's power and wisdom is not our capacity to make war but our capacity to prevent it. Prevention must be our overriding objective. It can be done. Surrendering to the inevitability of combat only paves the way for its occurring.

War has been more common than peace, and extended periods of peace have been rare in a world divided into multiple states

At the beginning of this century, people never questioned the effectiveness of war, never thought there could be real peace. Now, people are tired of war and see it as ineffective in solving anything.

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.