Pierre Manent Quotes

The more borders we have, the more quarrels, the more wars. That's one way to think about borders - they're trouble.

Boundary and peace treaties are not inspired documents.

Borders cannot be redrawn in blood.

Every nation reserves the right to go to war with every other nation. Therefore, every ethnic group wants to be a nation.

The Labour party believes in the right of peoples to govern themselves, and to enjoy a way of life which they themselves decide upon. We concede that right to Russia. We concede that right to Germany, and it is because we are claiming it for ourselves, and Germany denies it to us, that we are at war with Germany

All nations want peace, but they want a peace that suits them.

I hope that the German people will never again make the mistake of believing that because the American people are peace-loving, they will sit back hoping for peace if any nation uses force or the threat of force to acquire dominion over other peoples and other governments.

In these days of intimate relations, of economic stress and of intense desire to protect national interests and advance national opportunity, the treatment of questions which, from a legal standpoint, are domestic, often seriously affects international relations. The principle, each nation for itself to the full extent of its powers, is the principle of war, not of peace.

Poor Wilson did not understand that a frontier which is not defended with bayonets, force and honor cannot be secured by any other principle.

I believe it is peace for our time.

No country can be expected to make peace with a nation that denies its right to exist.

We sit there because there is a war going on. But once we have peace we don’t want to be sitting on your Suez Canal.

There can be no reconciliation where there is no open warfare. There must be a battle, a brave boisterous battle, with pennants waving and cannon roaring, before there can be peaceful treaties and enthusiastic shaking of hands.

This is not a peace. It is an armistice for 20 years.

Peace: In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.

...In practice it is found that International Law is always on the side of strong battalions...It is puerile...to apply to the dealings of a nation with its neighbor's territory the morality which would be applicable to two individuals possessing adjoining property, and protected from mutual wrong by a law superior to both.

I would sacrifice peace in order to win sovereignty for Bosnia, but for that peace in Bosnia, I would not sacrifice sovereignty.

We always prefer war on our own terms to peace on someone else's.

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

Now that their long war was over, they could get on with the proper concern of all civilised nations, which is to prepare for the next one.

My attempt and prayer are and will be for an honorable peace between belligerent nations in the least possible time.

Germany will never break the peace of its own accord.

Peace renders nations happier and men weaker.

History offers examples of winning in diplomacy after losing in war.

If peace cannot be maintained with honour, it is no longer peace.