Jeane Kirkpatrick Quotes

Democracies are poor breeding grounds for terrorism and war.

The idea that democracies never make war on each other rests on very thin historical ice.

There are no warlike people - just warlike leaders.

I have never met anyone who wasn't against war. Even Hitler and Mussolini were, according to themselves.

There are no warlike people, just warlike leaders.

I was never convinced that war was the best system to bring democracy to the country.

But I feel convinced, and I venture even to prophesy in this regard, that the time will come when there will also be a minister of peace in the cabinet, seated beside the ministers of war.

We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace.

We pacifists have not ceased to point to the grave danger of armaments and to insist on their curtailment.

The world must not reward aggression.

I think democracy is a universal idea and I think letting people rule themselves happens to be something that serves America and America’s interests.

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

When foreign affairs were ruled by autocracies or oligarchies the danger of war was in sinister purpose. When foreign affairs are ruled by democracies the danger of war will be in mistaken beliefs.

Democracies don't fight each other. Terrorists don't tend to come from places where they feel like they have recourse in a political system.

Such will be a great lesson of peace: teaching men that what they cannot take by an election, neither can they take it by war.

Democracies don't war; democracies are peaceful countries.

War: A by-product of the arts of peace.

The main goal of the future is to stop violence. The world is addicted to it.

Moreover, war has become a thing potentially so terrible and destructive that it should have been the common aim of statesmen to put an end to it forever.

Democracies, unlike dictatorships, are forgiving and generous, but they cannot survive unless they fight.

If I could cause world peace by taking someone out to lunch, I'd go, 'Well, war isn't that terrible.'

I have never advocated war except as a means of peace.

Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.

You don't spread democracy through the barrel of a gun.

The only excuse for war is that we may live in peace unharmed.