Karl Kautsky Quotes

The first condition of success for the League of Nations is, therefore, a firm understanding between the British Empire and the United States of America and France and Italy that there will be no competitive building up of fleets or armies between them.

The core of detente [with Russia] is the reduction in arms.

We must halt the arms race before it halts humanity.

Disarmament has become the urgent imperative of our time. I do not say this because I equate the absence of arms to peace, or because I believe that bringing an end to the nuclear arms race automatically guarantees the peace, or because the elimination of nuclear warheads from the arsenals of the world will bring in its wake that change in attitude requisite to the peaceful settlement of disputes between nations. Disarmament is vital today, quite simply, because of the immense destructive capacity of which men dispose.

Disarment ... is a continuing imperative.

The relationship of the two problems is rather the reverse. To a great extent disarmament is dependent on guarantees of peace. Security comes first and disarmament second.

The popular, and one may say naive, idea is that peace can be secured by disarmament and that disarmament must therefore precede the attainment of absolute security and lasting peace.

Personally, I do not believe that we shall have greater armaments in the future than we have had in the past. On the contrary, I believe there will be a gradual diminution in this respect.

I can predict with absolute certainty that within another generation there will be another world war if the nations of the world do not concert the method by which to prevent it.

One cannot abolish only a single weapon, but only war as a whole.

We should, I believe, announce in no uncertain terms that we are against disarmament.

Arms control has to have a future, or none of us does.

Every nation must have some degree of military organization, even among the most peaceful peoples. The possession of armament however, no matter how necessary, breeds suspicion, fear, counter-armament and hate.

Moral disarmament is to safeguard the future; material disarmament is to save for the present, that there may be a future to safeguard.

True and solid peace of nations consists not in equality of arms, but in mutual trust alone.

Fortunately, the war has brought with it not alone a stark realization of what another war would mean to the world, but as well the creation of an international agency through which the nations of the world can, if they so desire, make peace a living reality.

Let us assume that the ideal were reached; let us imagine a state of international life in which the danger of war no longer exists. Then no one would dare to demand a penny for obviously completely superfluous armaments.

The burden for achieving disarmament cannot be borne by peace groups alone. Everybody, regardless of age, income, profession, gender or nationality, has a stake in this quest.

It is because I believe that it is in the power of such nations to lead the world back into the paths of peace that I propose to devote myself to explaining what, in my opinion, can and should be done to banish the fear of war that hangs so heavily over the world.

Disarmament or limitation of armaments, which depends on the progress made on security, also contributes to the maintenance of peace.

Even a total and universal disarmament does not guarantee the maintenance of peace.

I most sincerely wish that the world in which we live be free from the threat of a nuclear holocaust and from the ruinous arms race. It is my cherished desire that peace be not separated from freedom which is the right of every nation. This I desire and for this I pray.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative.

It has become impossible to give up the enterprise of disarmament without abandoning the whole great adventure of building up a collective peace system.

I appeal to the responsibility of the blocs and the major powers, not to seek security in the arms race, but rather in a meeting for joint disarmament and arms limitations.