Tim O'Brien Quotes

The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.

Wars are just to those to whom they are necessary.

There never was a good war," said Franklin. "There have indeed been many wars in which a good man must take part, and take part with grave gladness to die if need be, a willing sacrifice, thankful to give life for what is dearer than life, and happy that even by death in war he is serving the cause of peace. But if a war be undertaken for the most righteous end, before the resources of peace have been tried and proved vain to secure it, that war has no defense, it is a national crime.

As the war was just in its origin and necessary and noble in its objects, we can reflect with a proud satisfaction that in carrying it on no principle of justice or honor, no usage of civilized nations, no precept of courtesy or humanity, have been infringed.

The third rule of ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means.

What I've learned, and will try to remember from now on, is that defending your country's credibility is never sufficient reason to fight a war.

I feel like war should occur only for the most vital and necessary reasons, and only then.

War, except in self-defense, is a failure of moral imagination.

Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time... I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal.

Are there really good wars and bad wars? We thought so during World War II, and in retrospect, we were right. But in Vietnam, and Iraq we were wrong.

You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I say unto you: it is the good war that hallows any cause.

When a soldier goes to war he has to have a moral justification for killing the other side.

War itself is justifiable only on principles of self-preservation:

I don't think it was a patriotic war. I think it was a mistake, a strategic mistake, and I think that the president of the United States wasn't patriotic in going after Saddam Hussein. He simply misled America and cost us casualties and killed and injured America's reputation around the world without valid reason for doing so. It's not patriotic; it's wrong.

President Bush admitted that the United States went to war in Iraq based on bad intelligence. But he says knowing what we know now he would still do it again. So at least we're learning from our mistakes.

How much atonement is enough? The bombing must be allowed as at least part-payment: those of our young people who are concerned about the moral problem posed by the Allied air offensive should at least consider the moral problem that would have been posed if the German civilian population had not suffered at all.

If war is ever lawful, then peace is sometimes sinful.

The legitimacy of a war is not established by how it is organized but by what it achieves.

For me personally and for most other Americans, this commitment to peace and diplomacy does not imply a blind or total pacifism. There are times when war is justified, and for many centuries the moral criteria for violence have been carefully delineated.

Some of us, perhaps all of us, believe that it is legitimate to kill enemy soldiers in a war, as if war were a special circumstance that shrinks the sizes of enemy souls.

It is the object only of war that makes it honorable.

History shows that wars are divided into two kinds-just and unjust. All wars that are progressive are just, and all wars that impede progress are unjust.

In modern eyes, precious though wars may be they must not be waged solely for the sake of the ideal harvest. Only when forced upon one, is a war now thought permissible.

What remains unchanged is the principle, which is that we do not launch wars without overwelming reasons, and overwhelming alliances, and without overwhelming force.

I will never conduct a war or start a war because we want to; the United States of America should only go to war because we have to. And if you live by that guidance, you'll never have veterans throwing away their medals or standing up in protest.