James H. Madison Quotes

We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace.

Whenever there is talk of peace, there is anger in the military- industrial- political complex.

Politics is the womb in which war develops.”

It was an old lesson learned by governments: that war solves problems of control.

Politics and war are remarkably similar situations.

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

Democracies are poor breeding grounds for terrorism and war.

Democracy don't rule the world, You'd better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that's better left unsaid.

War is the ultimate tool of politics.

War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means.

War is the continuation of politics by other means.

Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.

Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

War is a terribly destructive force, even beyond the limits of the battlefronts and the war zones. It's influence involves the whole community. It warps men's judgement, distorts the true standard of patriotism, breeds distrust and suspicion among neighbors, inflames passions, encourages violence, develops abuse of power, tyrannizes over men and women even in the purely social relations of life, and terrifies whole communities into the most abject surrender of every right which is the heritage of free government.

Democracies are prone to war, and war consumes them.

In order to function, the United States needs an enemy.

Perpetual war for perpetual peace.

In no form of government is there an absolute identity of interest between the people and their rulers

The major conflicts of our day are autocrats verses the village square.

The spectacle which confronts all Europe today is a great conflict between democracy and dictatorship.

Anyone who clings to the historically untrue and thoroughly immoral doctrine that violence never solves anything, I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The Ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more disputes in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.

If this phrase of “the balance of power” is to be always an argument for war, the pretext for war will never be wanting …

From such beginnings of governments, what could be expected, but a continual system of war and extortion?

The best power of all is to be free, but Obama is not a free person. He is a prisoner of a military system. He talked about closing Guantanamo and ending the war in Iraq. Now he's taken on another war. What's happening?

This war of choice in Iraq is undermining the very fabric of American society.