Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

The likely economic effects [of the war in Iraq] would be relatively small... Under every plausible scenario, the negative effect will be quite small relative to the economic benefits.

There is no more cruel illusion than that war makes a people richer.

Battles are never the end of war; for the dead must be buried and the cost of the conflict must be paid.

A singular fact about modern war is that it takes charge. Once begun it has to be carried to its conclusion, and carrying it there sets in motion events that may be beyond men's control. Doing what has to be done to win, men perform acts that alter the very soil in which society's roots are nourished.

We don't want wars even when we win.

So far as business and money are concerned, a country gains nothing by a successful war, even though that war involves the acquisition of immense new provinces.

Economically considered, war and revolution are always bad business.

Well, we won the war. You know what that means. In twenty years, we'll all be driving Iraqi cars.

It is not only the living who are killed in war.

There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.

Everyone’s future has changed in these six months last past. This is to be a terrible, ruinous war, and a war in which the nation cannot succeed. It can never subjugate these savage millions of the South. It must make peace at last with the barbarous communities off its Southern frontier. I was prosperous and well off last November. I believe my assets to be reduced fifty per cent, at least. But I hope I can still provide wholesome training for my three boys. With that patrimony they can fight out the battle of life for themselves. Their mother is plucky and can stand self-denial. I clearly see that this is a most severe personal calamity to me, but I welcome it cordially, for it has shown that I belong to community that is brave and generous, and that the City of New York is not sordid and selfish.

This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed — for anyone, and certainly not for anyone as baffled as George W. Bush. All he knows is that his father started the war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child-President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it. Now.

If Roosevelt took this country into war and won, he might be one of the great figures of all time. But if we lost, he would be damned forever. The cards are now stacked against us.

6,000 people were killed, crippled, and wounded during the War of Independence. The economy was devastated - there was no milk, just milk powder. No eggs, but egg powder. Meat was only once a week.

And we will win the war, and there will be costs. But the military folks understand that, and so do I, and so does the Secretary of Defense.

If war is glorified, it tends to eclipse the policies it is meant to serve.

No one wins a war. It is true, there are degrees of loss, but no one wins.

Unfortunately, the war has cost America greatly - politically - throughout the world.

One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.

Experts say that if we go to war with Iraq, oil could reach as much as $80 a barrel. Of course, after the war it will be free.

Why spend 18 hours watching someone else's war, when you know how it comes out? We win, and then have to buy all their cars.

War is the suicide of humanity because it kills the heart and kills love.

People rarely win wars, governments rarely lose them. People get killed. Governments moult and regroup, hydra-headed. They use flags first to shrink-wrap people's minds and smother thought, and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury their willing dead.

War and drink are the two things man is never too poor to buy.

Necessities can be many, but the one that is stronger is that which constrains you to win or to die.