Montesquieu Quotes

All great civilizations, in their early stages, are based on success in war.

A conquering army on the border will not be stopped by eloquence.

The root of the evil is not the construction of new, more dreadful weapons. It is the spirit of conquest.

The State thrives on war - unless, of course, it is defeated and crushed - expands on it, glories in it.

The more bombers, the less room for doves of peace.

The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.

If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage a total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now.

The Arab world is not in a compromising mood. It's likely that your plan is rational and logical, but the fate of nations is not decided by rational logic. Nations never concede; they fight. You won't get anything by peaceful means or compromise. You can, perhaps, get something, but only by the force of your arms. We shall try to defeat you. I am not sure we'll succeed, but we'll try. We were able to drive out the Crusaders, but on the other hand we lost Spain and Persia. It may be that we shall lose Palestine. But it's too late to talk of peaceful solutions.

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.

Violence always leads to more violence…. To the conqueror comes a conqueror.

Preparation for war is a constant stimulus to suspicion and ill will.

The object of war is victory; that of victory is conquest; and that of conquest preservation.

War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games.

A conqueror is always a lover of peace.

War is the trade of Kings.

We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war, we have to attack that way of life.

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

The history of our civilization has been one of intermittent war.

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

Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.

Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.

Let us first render ourselves popular by mighty deeds, and afterwards we will speak of peace and clemency. In the disputes of others let us always put ourselves on the side of the stronger. If we would become rich in men and cattle, we cannot help making enemies; but they will not roar for ever.