James F. Byrnes Quotes

Borders cannot be redrawn in blood.

There is nothing democratic about war. It’s a straight dictatorship. The use of force to attain an end desired. We the armed forces of the USA have put a government in the position to dictate the peace. We did not come over here to acquire jurisdiction over either the people or their countries. We came to give them back the right to govern themselves.

All war represents a failure of diplomacy.

All members will refrain in their international relations from the threat or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.

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!

However desirable the maintenance of ex-territorial rights hitherto enjoyed might be, it was obvious that the public opinion of this country would not countenance a war for the purpose of maintaining them.

War is always an option. Peace is not.

I would sacrifice peace in order to win sovereignty for Bosnia, but for that peace in Bosnia, I would not sacrifice sovereignty.

Peace is purchased from strength. It's not purchased from weakness or unilateral retreats.

If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.

Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.

I have never advocated war except as a means of peace.

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.

Whatever efforts for peace President Gorbachev had in mind, they were pretty substantially undercut very swiftly by Saddam Hussein.

We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war, we have to attack that way of life.

It is not uncommon in modern times to see governments straining every nerve to keep the peace, and the people whom they represent, with patriotic enthusiasm and resentment over real or fancied wrongs, urging them forward to war.

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.

War is the ultimate tool of politics.

War should never be entered upon until every agency of peace has failed.

Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.

War is the continuation of politics by other means.

We cannot be both the world's leading champion of peace and the world's leading supplier of the weapons of war.

Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.

The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.

I think declaring a no fly zone over foreign soil is tantamount to an act of war.