James Longstreet Quotes

The lowest standards of ethics of which a right-thinking man can possibly conceive is taught to the common soldier whose trade is to shoot his fellow men. In youth he may have learned the command, 'Thou shalt not kill,' but the ruler takes the boy just as he enters manhood and teaches him that his highest duty is to shoot a bullet through his neighbor's heart - and this, unmoved by passion or feeling or hatred, and without the least regard to right or wrong, but simply because his ruler gives the word.

Sometimes you deal with the devil not because you want to, but because if you don't, someone else will.

When I was cognizant of the war, I was very angry at the street-corner liberals who were trying to defame the footsoldier. Because there was a man who had no choice. He was a cog in the wheel, just trying to survive. I was always aware of that.

Classical tragedy was the war between good and evil. We wanted evil to be defeated and good to be victorious. But the battle in modern tragedy is between good and good. And no matter which side wins, we'll still be heartbroken.

When a good man lends himself to the advocacy of slavery, he must, at least for a time, feel himself to be any where but at home, amongst his new thoughts, doctrines, and modes of reasoning.

It was my duty to shoot the enemy, and I don't regret it. My regrets are for the people I couldn't save: Marines, soldiers, buddies. I'm not naive, and I don't romanticize war. The worst moments of my life have come as a SEAL. But I can stand before God with a clear conscience about doing my job.

What do you do when you get a draft notice and you think a war is wrong? And I struggled with that for months prior to my being inducted into the army, and I'm still struggling with it, 40 years later.

Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier.

Many a dormant moral issue is brought to life by economic pressure.

I went [to war] because I couldn't help it. I didn't want the glory or the pay; I wanted the right thing done.

I wish they were all dead and we were, too. It would be best." Well, there's no good response to that. I can hardly dispute it since I was walking around with a syringe to kill Peeta when I found them. Do I really want him dead? What I want...what I want is to have him back.

Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

Are we not also married to conscience which we would love to get rid of often enough since it is more bothersome than a man or a woman ever could become?

The Mexican War was a training ground for generals, so that when the sad self-murders settled on us, the leaders knew the techniques for making it properly horrible.

Knowing that something is wrong and doing it anyway happens very often in life, and I doubt I will ever know why.

Should any Iraqi officer or soldier receive an order from Saddam Hussein.... don't follow that order. Because if you choose to do so, when Iraq is liberated, you will be treated, tried and persecuted as a war criminal.

In the struggle of good against evil, it's always the people who get killed.

Of course I want to be good, but that may not be to your advantage.

When I look back on it, I think, "Why didn't you stop the cruelty earlier?" To stand back was contrary to my upbringing and nature. When I stood back as a noninterfering experimental scientist, I was, in a sense, as drawn into the power of the situation as any prisoners and guards.

A just war is in the long run far better for a man's soul than the most prosperous peace.

This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.

I was struck by the joy of those pilots in committing coldblooded murder . . . Frankly, this is not cojones. This is cowardice.

...but for a soldier his duty is plain. He is to obey the orders of all those placed over him and whip the enemy wherever he meets him.

I don't understand why it's a sin if you love something and want to keep it from having to suffer.

Were prayers of murderers, when fighting on the “right side” of the war, ever heard—let alone answered?