Margaret MacMillan Quotes

To say that man is a reasoning animal is a very different thing than to say that most of man's decisions are based on his rational process. That I don't believe at all.

It goes without saying that when survival is threatened, struggles erupt between peoples, and unfortunate wars between nations result.

War is just an effect, not a cause.

Wars are not a choice we make for no reason.

It is not uncommon in modern times to see governments straining every nerve to keep the peace, and the people whom they represent, with patriotic enthusiasm and resentment over real or fancied wrongs, urging them forward to war.

We have war when at least one of the parties to a conflict wants something more than it wants peace.

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

You don't have to be Sigmund Freud to surmise that war has a perverse appeal for the human race, nor is the attraction limited to religious fanatics committing mass murder and suicide for the greater glory of God.

War is the most serious of the complicated relationships of humankind.

You help us pay for the war we’ll fight; we’ll launch it while you’re asleep at night. We don’t need friends all around the world; We’ll buy our friends with our flag unfurled, And spread our arms on a global scale To show the world that we still prevail. Oh, we’re not leaders inspiring peace, But we’re in power as the world’s police. So pay your tax for our little war, And we’ll not ask for any more. This year!

I know you Americans want a war but I'm not going to let you have it.

The great questions of the day are not to be decided by speeches and majorities ... but by iron and blood.

The causes of war are the same as the causes of competition among individuals: acquisitiveness, pugnacity, and pride; the desire for food, land, materials, fuels, mastery. The state has our instincts without our restraints.

As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable.

What makes a nation most likely to take part in war was not policy or interest, but sentiment.

The English people would never consent to go to war for a cause in which England was not manifestly interested.

We seek a logical understanding of mass violence, but war and civil strife rarely explode because of rational grievances. Complaints about oppression, poverty or injustice may serve as superficial catalysts, but few wars can be traced to objective decision-making by the dispassionate leaders of cool-headed populations. War is an act of passion, not of policy.

The pursuit of self-interest, no matter how artfully it be managed, inevitably leads to war in the long run, and all the more inevitably when the management is artful than when it is crude.

Let us face squarely the paradox that the world which goes to war is a world, usually, genuinely desiring peace.

War is the continuation of politics." In this sense war is politics and war itself is political action.... It can therefore be said that politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.

I'm not that worried about war. Insecurity is the word I would use - insecurity and tension and conflict. I thought civilized people had abandoned wars. Sometimes people don't make rational decisions.

To us, it is incomprehensible that millions of Christian men killed and tortured each other because Napoleon was ambitious or Alexander was firm, or because England's policy was astute or the Duke of Oldenburg was wronged. We cannot grasp what connection such circumstances have the with the actual fact of slaughter and violence: why because the Duke was wronged, thousands of men from the other side of Europe killed and ruined the people of Smolensk and Moscow and were killed by them.

At bottom, every state regards another as a gang of robbers who will fall upon it as soon as there is an opportunity.

Reason is the first victim of strong emotion.

You just have to come to grips with the fact that people don't like to be invaded or bombed by anybody. And America has been engaged in that.