Paul Keating Quotes

World War I broke out largely because of an arms race, and World War II because of the lack of an arms race.

The first World War in so many ways shaped the 20th century and really remade our world for the worse.

Today we know that World War II began not in 1939 or 1941 but in the 1920's and 1930's when those who should have known better persuaded themselves that they were not their brother's keeper.

The more the history of the World War and what led up to it is studied, the more clearly those tragic years become revealed as a vast collapse of civilization.

The horrors of the Second World War, the chilling winds of the Cold War and the crushing weight of the Iron Curtain are little more than fading memories. Ideals that once commanded great loyalty are now taken for granted.

The war against terror is every bit as important as our fight against fascism in World War II. Or our struggle against the spread of Communism during the Cold War.

In the 1930s, there were so many different conflicts going on between the British, the French, the Russians, the Germans, the Spaniards, the Romanians and so on.

The first 'world' war was in reality the last European war fought by globally significant European powers.

The First World War was a war devoid of any virtue. It arose from the quagmire of European tribalism: a complex interplay of nation-state destinies overlaid by notions of cultural superiority peppered with racism.

The First World War may have been a uniquely horrific war, but it was also plainly a just war.

Remember how the first world war broke out. It broke out as a result of the desire to redivide the world.

The Second World War simplified things like race, and people came down on very clear lines.

We first fought... in the name of religion, then Communism, and now in the name of drugs and terrorism. Our excuses for global domination always change.

In the First World War, there was the sudden passion of nationalism, and the killing took place because of these emotions. But the Soviet case is different, because you had systematic murder, like the Holocaust.

I was brought in touch with developing post World War I ideas in Europe.

There is no consensus even today on the merits of Napoleon - and certainly no agreement on the rights and wrongs of the origins of the First World War.

Four years of world war, at a cost in human suffering which our minds are mercifully too limited to imagine, led to the very clear realization that international anarchy must be abandoned if civilization was to survive.

Culturally, the First World War is the war that stands in for other wars.

There are no militarist adventuristic groups in USSR as among dominating classes in certain other countries where dangerous talk of "third world war" is being encouraged by foul imperialists. True supporters of peace will find real and faithful ally in USSR. This does not mean that our concern for the maintenance of our Armed Forces will diminish. Our Government and Red Army leaders are doing everything to assure that our Army is second to no other Army as regards newest types of armament.

Everyone has come to recognize that the Great War [World War I] was utter social insanity, and was a crazy war, and we had no business in it at all.

Today the Great Powers openly emphasize the League of Nations while behind the scenes they steadily expand their military armaments. We cannot dismiss as the foolish talk of idiots those who predict the outbreak after 1936 of a second world war. We must be prepared …

Defeat [in World War II] was better for the nation than if we had become extremely militaristic as a result of victory.

He who is calmly convinced of the probability of a great European war can come to no other conclusion than the following: The next European war will be such a desperate gamble as the world has never seen. In all probability it will be the last war.

The same contending powers behind the First and Second World Wars are now preparing the Third World War. This we should know, and we as the sons and daughters of an oppressed country are part of the loot.

Britain and America won the last world war. We will win the next world war.