Barry Goldwater Quotes

I try to avoid conflict. I don't want people to be unhappy.

We would like to see you departing peacefully.

I'm not looking for a battle with anybody, neither the council nor our labor partners.

I don't fight anybody anytime or anywhere.

The best way to avoid warfare is if no one shows up.

Every time that we've ever fought, we fought to keep from bein' destroyed. We've never started a war.

But we want peace, I would move all my people down this way. I could then keep them all quietly near camp.

I will make the greatest efforts to seek a way for Taiwan and mainland China to interact that is mutually acceptable to both sides. I will not be provocative; there will not be any surprises.

I prefer the most unfair peace to the most righteous war.

All States do not have the same interests, but are there any interests which cannot be infinitely better reconciled before than after a war?

I want peace [in my administration] and I am told that your friend Theodore [Roosevelt]—whom I know only slightly—is always getting into rows with everybody. I am afraid he is too pugnacious.

Sometimes in international politics, the better part of wisdom is to defer dangers rather than try to eliminate them altogether instantly.

We cannot afford to fight our neighbor, even if we disagree on many things.

My own rhetoric is not so 'us versus them.' I don't like fighting.

There should be an honest attempt at the reconciliation of differences before resorting to combat.

The violence seems to be diminishing. They've stared into the abyss a bit. I think they've all concluded that further violence... is not in their interests.

Many hard comments have been made on my efforts in India from the side of the Congress party, yet I feel content in the deep conviction that the offer I traveled 22,000 miles to discuss with Indian leaders was a real contribution to a solution of our differences.

Number one, that it is smart to communicate and negotiate with your enemy instead of just waging war with bombs and weapons of mass destruction.

This is a day we have managed to avoid for a quarter of a century.

If I could cause world peace by taking someone out to lunch, I'd go, 'Well, war isn't that terrible.'

The Ahmadinejads of the world, the bin Ladens of the world, will not change their ways, regardless of how hard we try to explain to them that peace begins with them.

It is highly probable that in most cases, war could be avoided or ended. For discussions allow passion to subside, and to persuade alienated neighbors, or at least one of them, to listen to the voice of a conciliator is a step in the direction of peace.

Good wishes alone will not ensure peace.

The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.

Let us move from the era of confrontation to the era of negotiation.