Benjamin Franklin Quotes

You cannot prevent and prepare for war at the same time.

Preventing war is much better than protesting against the war. Protesting the war is too late.

We best avoid wars by taking even physical action to stop small ones.

Today the real test of America's power and wisdom is not our capacity to make war but our capacity to prevent it. Prevention must be our overriding objective. It can be done. Surrendering to the inevitability of combat only paves the way for its occurring.

Preventing a war is tantamount to winning a war.

If we examine the Hague Convention carefully, we see that it considers the offer of good offices a duty of every nation. In other words, such offers should be made whenever a dispute becomes critical and threatens to explode into war.

Waging war we understand, but not waging peace, or at any rate less consciously so.

Disarmament of itself does not produce peace or security. Only removing the source of conflict does.

We have to develop preventive diplomacy.

It's a fraction of the cost to prevent a war than prosecute a war.

The power of making war often prevents it, and in our case would give efficacy to our desire of peace.

There are no makers of peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war - at least as exigent.

We are trying to prevent a third world war.

Peace is a fulltime job. It's protecting civilians, overseeing elections, and disarming ex-combatants. Peace, like war, must be waged.

The conduct of war was so much more interesting than its prevention.

War is possible only if you have a lot of enemies. If all the enemies get together and form one front - if you cut down the number of enemies - there would be no war.

You wait for the war to happen like vultures. If you want to help, prevent the war. Don't save the remnants. Save them all.

You have to be willing to sacrifice as much to prevent war, as soldiers are willing to sacrifice to wage war.

I consider even a victorious war as an evil, from which statesmanship must endeavor to spare nations.

I value peace, and I should unwillingly see any event take place which would render war a necessary resource.

In Europe, war is a disease which has been in the family for generations: no one is surprised when it makes another leap. Even the patient only attends to it with part of his mind.

To stop war by the perfection of engines of destruction alone, might consume centuries and centuries. Other means must be employed to hasten the end.

A smart soldier wants to know the causes of wars. Also how to end them. After all, war is the normal state of affairs, isn't it? Peace is the name of the ideal we deduce from the fact that there have been interludes between wars.

Working with the UN's diplomacy and development arms, we can prevent minor differences from escalating into wars. When conflicts do break out, UN peacekeepers should play a role in defusing and settling them. Without giving up our sovereignty, we can help the UN with better training and better command and control in order to develop more effective peacekeeping forces.

Rosalynn said, "Jimmy, if we could only get Prime Minister Begin and President Sadat up here on this mountain for a few days, I believe they might consider how they could prevent another war between their countries." That gave me the idea, and a few weeks later, I invited both men to join me for a series of private talks. In September 1978, they both came to Camp David.