Immanuel Kant Quotes

The tragedy of war is that it uses man's best to do man's worst.

War is to man what maternity is to a woman. From a philosophical and doctrinal viewpoint, I do not believe in perpetual peace.

War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason.

God and nature have thrown all human fortunes into the midst of mankind; and they are thus attainable rather by rapine than by industry, by wicked actions rather than by good. Hence it is that men feed upon each other, and those who cannot defend themselves must be worried.

War is a positive, precise and specific evil, of gigantic proportions ...making within the sphere of its influence all true grandeur impossible.

Hobbes clearly proves, that every creature Lives in a state of war by nature.

War spares not the brave, but the cowardly.

All wars are civil ones; for it is still man spilling his own blood, tearing out his own bowels.

We don't call war hell because it is fought without restraint. It is more nearly right to say that, when certain restraints are passed, the hellishness of war drives us to break with every remaining restraint in order to win. Here is the ultimate tyranny: those who resist aggression are forced to imitate, and perhaps even to exceed, the brutality of the aggressor.

In war, in some sense, lies the very genius of law. It is law creative and active; it is the first principle of the law. What is human warfare but just this, - an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party. Men make an arbitrary code, and, because it is not right, they try to make it prevail by might. The moral law does not want any champion. Its asserters do not go to war. It was never infringed with impunity. It is inconsistent to decry war and maintain law, for if there were no need of war there would be no need of law.

We cannot change the hearts of the people of the South, but we can make war so terrible that they will realize the fact that however brave and gallant and devoted to their country still they are mortal and should exhaust all peaceful remedies before they fly to war.

War is, we have been forced to admit, even in the face of its huge place in our civilization, an asocial trait.

If any honor existed in war, it was in fighting to protect others from harm

There is a great streak of violence in every human being. If it is not channeled and understood, it will break out in war or in madness.

What happened in World War II was what happened in war generally, and that was whatever the initiating cause, and however clear the moral reason is for the war in which one side looks better than the other, by the time the war ends both sides have been engaged in evil.

There's in people simply an urge to destroy, an urge to kill, to murder and rage, and until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change, wars will be waged, everything that has been built up, cultivated, and grown will be destroyed and disfigured, after which mankind will have to begin all over again

For although this was a very heroic war, with a parade of every sort of high moral principle, and with the most sonorous language employed upon both sides, it somehow failed to bring about either the reformation or the ruin of humankind: and after the conclusion of the murdering and general breakage, the world went on pretty much as it has done after all other wars, with a vague notion that a deal of time and effort had been unprofitably invested, and a conviction that it would be inglorious to say so.

Being anti-war in Hollywood was an act of bravery on the order of the keynote speaker at a PLO dinner making jokes about Ariel Sharon.

Peace by persuasion has a pleasant sound, but I think we should not be able to work it. We should have to tame the human race first, and history seems to show that that cannot be done.

War is an unmitigated evil. But it certainly does one good thing. It drives away fear and brings bravery to the surface.

Wars are to be undertaken in order that it may be possible to live in peace without molestation.

War. What was it about the prospect of some bloody enterprises that reduced men to the level of animals?

Peace is not sought in order to provoke war, but war is waged in order to attain peace.

Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts.