Fiorello H. La Guardia Quotes

It required a strong heart to stand up against such talk, but I urged my people to be quiet and not to begin a war.

When I was defense minister, I was very popular, and now that I'm president, I'm unpopular because I'm trying to make peace. It's much easier to make war and get trophies.

[Peace] cannot be honorable or secure, if the sovereign betrays a pusillanimous aversion to war.

Churchill knew the importance of peace, and he also knew the price of it. Churchill finally got his voice, of course. He stressed strategy, but it was his voice that armed England at last with the old-fashioned moral concepts of honor and duty, justice and mercy.

You can't come away with this cosmic perspective thinking that you are better than others and want to fight. That's why you'll never have astrophysicists leading nations into war.

But when will our leaders learn - war is not the answer.

All war represents a failure of diplomacy.

I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices today than any of you to secure peace.

War is failure of diplomacy.

To Perpetual Peace

A leader who does not hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader.

I have done all I can to prevent wars. All my life I've been dedicated to preventing just what has happened today.

A leader who doesn’t hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader.

If you can secure peace, you may be cursed by a lot of hotheads but … you will be blessed in Europe and by future generations

Whatever miseries this war brings upon us, it is making us wiser, and, we trust, better. Wiser, for we are learning our weakness, our narrowness, our selfishness, our ignorance, in lessons of sorrow and shame. Better, because all that is noble in men and women is demanded by the time, and our people are rising to the standard the time calls for. For this is the question the hour is putting to each of us: Are you ready, if need be, to sacrifice all that you have and hope for in this world, that the generations to follow you may inherit a whole country whose natural condition shall be peace, and not a broken province which must live under the perpetual threat, if not in the constant presence, of war and all that war brings with it? If we are all ready for this sacrifice, battles may be lost, but the campaign and its grand object must be won.

We must fight for peace bravely as we fought in war.

War is a serious game in which a man risks his reputation, his troops, and his country. A sensible man will search himself to know whether or not he is fitted for the trade.

Every war, every revolution, demands the sacrifice of a generation, of a collectivity, by those who undertake it.

So the whole war is because we can't talk to each other.

Bonaparte's wish is Peace, nay that he is afraid of war to the last degree.

One of the most persistent ambiguities that we face is that everybody talks about peace as a goal. However, it does not take sharpest-eyed sophistication to discern that while everbody talks about peace, peace has become practically nobody's business among the power-wielders. Many men cry Peace! Peace! but they refuse to do the things that make for peace.

Resort to force in the Great War (I) failed to bring tranquillity. Victory and defeat alike were sterile. That lesson the world should have learned.

War doesn't negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace.

Now, and ever, I shall do all in my power for peace, consistently with the maintenance of government.

Having a spine is overrated. If everybody squealed and ran away, there'd be no more wars.