Ayn Rand Quotes

Liberty, as we all know, cannot flourish in a country that is permanently on a war footing, or even a near war footing. Permanent crisis justifies permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of central government.

[S]tatism is a system of institutionalized violence and perpetual civil war. It leaves men no choice but to fight to seize political power -- to rob or be robbed, to kill or be killed. ... Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by production.

At the end of the day we want to bring stability and hope to Iraq. That's the only way to defeat terrorism.

A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.

It has too often been too easy for rulers and governments to incite man to war.

Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

Peace. Now that he is dead, peace will return to my country.

When a nation is at war many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its efforts that their utterance will not be endured.

Statism is a guarantee of stagnation.

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom. And now, as in no other age, we seek it because we have been warned, by the power of modern weapons, that peace may be the only climate possible for human life itself.

The founders of the United Nations sought to replace a world at war with a world of civilized order. They hoped that a world of relentless conflict would give way to a new era, one where freedom from violence prevailed.... But the awful truth is that the use of violence for political gain has become more, not less, widespread in the last decade.

We have never declared war on China. We have only asked them to leave us in peace, to let us have our natural freedom.

Peace is preferable to war. But it’s not an absolute value, and so we always ask, “What kind of peace?

The best way to perpetuate poverty is spending on arms, and poverty itself is a form of violence. The wealthy industrialized countries have been too slow to recognize this. I hope that in this new century and new millennium, the world will learn that if you want peace, you must prepare for peace, plan for peace, work for it, and comply with its dictates. Lasting peace will never be achieved with the instruments of war.

Government does not cause affluence. Citizens of totalitarian countries have plenty of government and nothing of anything else.

Scratch an egalitarian, and you will inevitably find a statist.

I say this as the president of the country which has suffered more deaths, more blood and more sacrifices in this war.

Some must be warriors, that others may live in peace.

War and Authority are companions; Peace and Liberty are companions.

Believing that the happiness of mankind is best promoted by the useful pursuits of peace, that on these alone a stable prosperity can be founded, that the evils of war are great in their endurance, and have a long reckoning for ages to come, I have used my best endeavors to keep our country uncommitted in the troubles which afflict Europe, and which assail us on every side.

War is the Health of the State.

Humankind will not be free until the last Kremlin commissar is strangled with the entrails of the last Pentagon chief of staff.

We come here with no peaceful intent, but ready for battle, determined to avenge our wrongs and set our country free.

Peace is not in itself a dream, but we know it only as the result of a momentary equilibrium--an accident.