Gunter Grass Quotes

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.

The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations.

We decry violence all the time in this country, but look at our history. We were born in a violent revolution, and we've been in wars ever since. We're not a pacific people.

Remember that politics, colonialism, imperialism and war also originate in the human brain.

Every nation is a band of robbers, who prey without restraint, or remorse, on their neighbors.

All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war.

On whatever side we regard the history of Europe, we shall perceive it to be a tissue of crimes, follies, and misfortunes, of politics without design, and wars without consequence.

There are no warlike people, just warlike leaders.

We are not required to support Hapsburg wars of aggression.

There can be no peace until this German spirit of Militarism is crushed.

As European history makes painfully clear, a return to aggressive nationalism could be dangerous, not just for the continent but also for the world.

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.

Man is the only Patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other people's countries, and keep them from grabbing slices of his. And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for the universal brotherhood of man - with his mouth.

Germany has reduced savagery to a science, and this great war for the victorious peace of justice must go on until the German cancer is cut clean out of the world body.

The French, the Italians, the Germans, the Spanish and the English have spent centuries killing each other.

German militarism and Nazism have devastated twice in our generation the lands of German neighbors.

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.

If you want to study the social and political history of modern nations, study hell.

the world's chief war-monger

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 can hardly repress our press and our people too. They are thirsting for war against England.

Perhaps when the next great war comes we may see that sight unprecedented in all history, a jingo with a bullet-hole in him.

[Theodore Roosevelt] came down here [Washington DC] looking for war. He did not care whom we fought as long as there was a scrap.

The Hun [Germany] is always either at your throat or at your feet.

The people, ever greedy for war, till they suffer by it …