Lester B. Pearson Quotes

Experience has shown how deeply the seeds of war are planted by economic rivalry and social injustice.

He would see civilization in danger of perishing under the oppression of a gigantic paradox: he would see multitudes of people starving in the midst of plenty, and nations preparing for war although pledged to peace.

What does peace mean in a world in which the combined wealth of the world's 587 billionaires exceeds the combined gross domestic product of the world's 135 poorest countries?

I was never convinced that war was the best system to bring democracy to the country.

Moreover, war has become a thing potentially so terrible and destructive that it should have been the common aim of statesmen to put an end to it forever.

I am, on principle, opposed to war and in favor of peace because I regard peace as a positive good and war as a positive evil.

Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.

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

I have never advocated war except as a means of peace.

Although a soldier by profession, I have never felt any sort of fondness for war, and I have never advocated it, except as a means of peace.

Whoever lights the torch of war in Europe can wish for nothing but chaos.

We're not going to cure terrorism and spread peace and goodwill in the Middle East by killing innocent people, or I'm not even saying our bullets and bombs are killing them. The occupation that they don't have food. They don't have clean water. They don't have electricity. They don't have medicine. They don't have doctors.

I don't believe war is a way to solve problems. I think it's wrong. I don't have respect for the people that made the decisions to go on with war. I don't have that much respect for Bush. He's about war, I'm not about war - a lot of people aren't about war.

The economic and political roots of the conflicts are too strong for us to pretend to create a lasting state of harmonious understanding between men.

We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war, we have to attack that way of life.

All war represents a failure of diplomacy.

Either a war has to be fought, or it doesn't.

There was never a good war, or a bad peace.

I beg Osama to stop warring. He is a Muslim, and Islam means peace. Nobody wins in a war... I wish I were tapped in the problem about Iraq. I knew Saddam enough that I could have talked him into surrendering. But it's too late.

I could start a war in 30 seconds. But some countries spend 100 years trying to find peace. Just like good manners, peace has to be learned.

We think of violence as being conflict and fighting and wars and so forth, but the most ongoing horrific measure of violence is in the horrible poverty of the Third World... and the poverty in the United States as well.

'Capitalism' is a dirty word for many intellectuals, but there are a number of studies showing that open economies and free trade are negatively correlated with genocide and war.

We cannot be both the world's leading champion of peace and the world's leading supplier of the weapons of war.

If the nation is rich but people are poor, the country cannot be strong, and society will be unstable.

Today we take it for granted that war happens in smaller, poorer and more backward countries.