John F. Kennedy Quotes

To secure peace is to prepare for war.

The grim fact is that we prepare for war like precocious giants, and for peace like retarded pygmies.

Our modern states are preparing for war without even knowing the future enemy.

In times of peace, the war party insists on making preparation for war. As soon as prepared for, it insists on making war.

In time of peace prepare for war.

You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.

To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.

If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War.

I am convinced there is no more effective method of preventing a war than a decisive stance illustrating that we are ready at any moment to repel possible attack.

Peace through strength works; but the flip side is war invited by weakness.

... the notion that the greater the preparation for war the smaller the probability of its occurrence might well appear a reductio ad absurdum of militarism, implying, as it does, that the only way to secure an eternal world peace is to concentrate the entire energy of all nations upon the art of war ...

One of the great advances of our time is the recognition that one of the ways to prevent war is to deter it by having the will and the capacity to use force to punish the aggressor.

To insist on strength ... is not war-mongering. It is peace-mongering.

A certain degree of preparation for war ... affords also the best security for the continuance of peace.

As head of a military structure I am responsible for the realization of military issues. If you want to have everlasting peace, you must be ready for war. We must be ready to face any provocation.

Those who want peace should prepare for war and be strong.

Lightly armed nations can move toward war just as easily as those which are armed to the teeth, and they will do so if the usual causes of war are not removed.

War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.

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

Every move we make in fear of the next war in fact hastens it.

There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.

I know that military alliances and armament have been the reliance for peace for centuries, but they do not produce peace; and when war comes, as it inevitably does under such conditions, these armaments and alliances but intensify and broaden the conflict.

On the contrary, I tried on numerous occasions to convince the American president not to go to war. I did what was within my capabilities to avoid that happening.

From 1836, down to last year, there is no proof of the Government having any confidence in the duration of peace, or possessing increased security against war.

What a country calls its vital... interests are not things that help its people live, but things that help it make war.