Pope John Paul II Quotes

I am totally against the war but violence is part of mankind and it's going to happen, but as musicians I think we've got to step up and say 'come on'.

The root of war is fear.

Either man will abolish war, or war will abolish man.

Stop war? Impossible! There is no cure for the world's disease.

As I watch what is happening in the Middle East and the carnage that comes over our television screens every evening, I cannot help but ask myself, what is wrong with humankind that we cannot stop the killing?

At the beginning of this century, people never questioned the effectiveness of war, never thought there could be real peace. Now, people are tired of war and see it as ineffective in solving anything.

Unfortunately, we have warring in the world, so the youngest minds, the brilliant minds, are sent off to war. I think that, you know, you have brilliant people with great possibilities and that's why I really am not really for war. I really am not.

You consider war to be inevitable? Very good. Let everyone who advocates war be enrolled in a special regiment of advance-guards, for the front of every storm, of every attack, to lead them all!

The greatest statesmen, philosophers, humanitarians ... have not been able to put an end to war. Why place that demand on photography?

I kept praying that I might be able to prevent a repetition of this stupidity called war. I have tried to keep the promise I made to myself, but the progress that the world is making toward peace seems like the crawling of a little child, very halting and slow.

The measure of civilization in a people is to be found in its just appreciation of the wrongfulness of war.

And always we had wars, and more wars, and still other wars - all over Europe, all over the world. "Sometimes in the private interest of royal families," Satan said, "sometimes to crush a weak nation; but never a war started by the aggressor for any clean purpose - there is no such war in the history of the race."

War cannot be humanized. It can only be abolished.

After a lifetime of war-watching, I see war as an endemic human disease, and governments are the carriers.

The one thing I don't understand is war.

Why is war such an easy option? Why does peace remain such an elusive goal? We know statesmen skilled at waging war, but where are those dedicated enough to humanity to find a way to avoid war

War is mankind's most tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men. Though you follow the trade of the warrior, you do so in the spirit of Washington - not of Genghis Khan. For Americans, only threat to our way of life justifies resort to conflict.

For realists, war is like surgery-a painful and dangerous activity that is sometimes necessary ... A pacifist is like a Christian Scientist who is against surgery even when the alternative is the crippling or death of the patient.

When people go at war they cheapen things.

The greatest threat to our world and its peace comes from those who want war, who prepare for it, and who, by holding out vague promises of future peace or by instilling fear of foreign aggression, try to make us accomplices to their plans.

I'm just baffled in the 21st century we as human beings are still dropping bombs on each other as a means to resolve issues.

It's very unfortunate that war has always been and probably always will be a part of human beings on this planet. It's a terrible thing.

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

Pacifism means letting the non-pacifists have control ... Pacifism will remain an ideal, war a fact. If the white races are resolved never to wage war again, the colored will act differently and become rulers of the world.