Aristotle Quotes

The question before the United States is whether the magnitude of its power will eclipse the light by which it was founded, or whether it will use its power to serve greater light. Does it seek mastery to dominate or mastery to serve?

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 justice of a war basically refers to the question whether there is a right to attack in the first place. Justice in a war is concerned with whether the fighting happens in accordance with the international laws of war.

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

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.

With the indiscriminate nature of modern military technology (no such thing as a "smart bomb," it turns out) all wars are wars against civilians, and are therefore inherently immoral. This is true even when a war is considered "just," because it is fought against a tyrant, against an aggressor, to correct a stolen boundary.

In war, as in politics, no evil - even if it is permissible under the rules - is excusable unless it is absolutely necessary. Everything beyond that is a crime.

It was my view then, and still is, that you don't make war without knowing why. Knowledge of course, is always imperfect, but it seemed to me that when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause. You can't fix your mistakes. Once people are dead, you can't make them undead.

War can only be qualified by its object, and there is neither foreign war nor civil war, there is only just or unjust war.

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 would be a joke if the conduct of the victor had to be justified to the vanquished.

The majority of the so-called great powers have long been exploiting and enslaving a whole series of small and weak peoples. And the imperialist war is nothing other than a war for the division and redivision of this kind of booty.

Wars, therefore, are to be undertaken for this end, that we may live in peace, without being injured; but when we obtain the victory, we must preserve those enemies who behaved without cruelty or inhumanity during the war.

The best state is that in which bad men are not allowed to hold office, and good men are not allowed to refuse office.

As a mother trying to raise kids with some kind of a code, an honorable way to solve problems without using violence, I find it interesting to live in a country where your government is allowed to kill, whether it's war or execution. What interests me is not who deserves to die but who deserves to kill.

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.

The idea of authority, which they represented, was associated in our minds with a greater insight and a more humane wisdom.

...war is just to those for whom it is necessary, and arms are clear of impiety for those who have no hope left but in arms.

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.

War knows no law except that of might.

We go to war only to make peace. We never went to war with any other design. We carry the national conscience wherever we go.

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

You may be obliged to wage war, but not to use poisoned arrows.

[...] to introduce into the philosophy of war itself a principle of moderation would be an absurdity