Emma Goldman Quotes

If we had less statesmanship, we would get along with fewer battleships.

War is just a racket... I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else.

Shall we be defenseless America, a weak and harmless nation, or shall we be defensive America, the fear and dread of all nations?

We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.

Often, my liberal Canadian brethren will claim that 'Canada doesn't get involved in foreign affairs or wars overseas. We turn the other cheek.' No. Canada doesn't have the military might to exercise any option other than to remain uninvolved. They aren't turning the other cheek. They're pulling a Sweden.

We pacifists have not ceased to point to the grave danger of armaments and to insist on their curtailment.

No nation ever had an army large enough to guarantee it against attack in time of peace, or ensure it of victory in time of war.

In times of peace, the war party insists on making preparation for war. As soon as prepared for, it insists on making war.

Only a strong America can guarantee a peaceful world.

So long as peace is not attained by law (so argue the advocates of armaments) the military protection of a country must not be undermined, and until such is the case disarmament is impossible.

The lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis is plain: Strength prevents war; weakness invites it. We need a commander-in-chief who understands that - and who won't leave us facing a foe who thinks he doesn't.

It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.

When distrust exists between governments, when there is a danger of war, they will not be willing to disarm even when logic indicates that disarmament would not affect military security at all.

The world organization debates disarmament in one room and, in the next room, moves the knights and pawns that make national arms imperative.

What a country calls its vital... interests are not things that help its people live, but things that help it make war.

A self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war.

... the notion that the greater the preparation for war the smaller the probability of its occurrence might well appear a reductio ad absurdum of militarism, implying, as it does, that the only way to secure an eternal world peace is to concentrate the entire energy of all nations upon the art of war ...

Let no one expect us to disarm unilaterally. We are not a naive people.

Without power, without a strong army and a strong navy, there can be no welfare for us .... The German nation will be either the hammer or the anvil.

Very near the heart of all foreign affairs is the relationship between policy and military power.

As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable.

As long as we can outproduce the world, can control the sea and can strike inland with the atomic bomb, we can assume certain risks otherwise unacceptable in an effort to restore world trade, to restore the balance of power —military power—and to eliminate some of the conditions which breed war.

The possession of highly developed armed forces by small nations is disastrous in all its consequences.

We especially ought to pray that the powers of Europe be so poised and counterpoised among themselves that their own security may require the presence of all their forces at home leaving the other parts of the world in undisturbed tranquility.

Though the object of being a Great Power is to be able to fight a Great War, the only way of remaining a Great Power is not to fight one.