Eamon de Valera Quotes

War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means.

In the wars of the European Powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy to do so.

Have not the small Powers reason to fear that they will be victims in a subsequent conflict into which they will be dragged against their will in spite of their policy of indisputable independence and of their firm desire for neutrality? Are they not liable to become the subject of arrangements reached without their having been consulted?

So long as war exists on earth there will be some danger that even the Nation which most ardently desires peace may be drawn into war.

War should never be thought of as something autonomous, but always as an instrument of policy.

It is a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute..

Accidents will happen. We have formulated our policy on the assumption that some bluffing contest will eventually go wrong, resulting in dead soldiers. The focus has to be on minimizing damage.

In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, not does it comport with our policy so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defence.

I think when war becomes your life, I think it's very difficult to have the proper perspective to be able to create a fully balanced policy.

In a war everybody always knows all about Switzerland, in peace times it is just Switzerland but in war time it is the only country that everybody has confidence in, everybody.

We are not at war with Egypt. We are in an armed conflict.

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.

To my mind, what we ought to have maintained from the beginning was the strictest neutrality. If we had done this, I do not believe we would have been on the verge of war at the present time.

I don't go around trying to stir up foreign wars.

War and preparations for war have acquired a kind of legitimacy.

We try very quickly to show that we are not at war with the Iraqi people. We're trying to deal with the people who are indeed themselves at war with the Iraqi people.

I am in favor of a foreign policy that will cultivate relations of peace with all nations, and I will never give my influence, either as a private citizen or a public servant, for war, so long as it can be honorably avoided.

Despite an unqualified understanding that U.S. national security was inextricably bound up with Britain's survival, F.D.R. knew that his reelection in part rested on the hope that he would keep the country out of war.

What I'm trying to do, and my policy, is to disassociate, to shy away from what's going on in Syria.

We are fully aware that, in a world at war, each set of belligerents is over ready to regard those who are not with them as against them; but the course we have followed is a just course.

We're not going to baby sit a civil war.

I've been arguing this for months. This is not our war. This is not a war we should be in. Australia's better spending its time negotiating with North Korea.

Switzerland is a place where they don't like to fight, so they get people to do their fighting for them while they ski and eat chocolate.

Peace enforcement is a much more difficult kind of operation than peacekeeping.

The United States is not a nation to which peace is a necessity.