Howard Zinn Quotes

War is the continuation of politics by other means.

War is only caused through the political intercourse of governments and nations - war is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse with an admixture of other means.

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

From such beginnings of governments, what could be expected, but a continual system of war and extortion?

We always prefer war on our own terms to peace on someone else's.

When [men] go to war, what they want is to impose on their enemies the victor's will and call it peace.

War is the supreme form of prestige.

Der Krieg ist nichts als eine Fortsetzung des politischen Verkehrs mit Einmischung anderer Mittel. War is merely the continuation of policy with the admixture of other means.

War is like government, a matter of tact.

Politics and war are remarkably similar situations.

War is the ultimate tool of politics.

No one need think that the world can be ruled without blood. The civil sword shall and must be red and bloody.

Force in today's world, just as in the past, is what determines rights.

Whenever there is talk of peace, there is anger in the military- industrial- political complex.

Force, no matter how concealed, begets resistance.

Politics is pacific war.

War and democracy have never been happy bedfellows…. War has always threatened democracy.

Politics is the womb in which war develops.”

Anyone who clings to the historically untrue and thoroughly immoral doctrine that violence never solves anything, I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The Ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more disputes in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.

War is an absolute failure of imagination, scientific and political.

Wars happen because the ones who start them think they can win.

War's a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at.

War is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.

The thing constantly overlooked by those hopefuls who talk about abolishing war is that it is by no means an evidence of decay but rather a proof of health and vigor.

When all is said and done, and statesmen discuss the future of the world, the fact remains that people fight these wars.