Arthur Koestler Quotes

I hate the way war is seen as something inherently brutal and ugly. Yes, much of war brings out the worst part of our [people's] nature. But in war, all kinds of noble human traits have been developed, such as discipline, cohesion, pride.

It is fear which leads us to war, ... It is fear which leads us to believe that we must kill or be killed. Fear which leads us to attack those who have not attacked us. Fear which leads us to ring our nation in the very heavens with weapons of mass destruction.

You consider war to be inevitable? Very good. Let everyone who advocates war be enrolled in a special regiment of advance-guards, for the front of every storm, of every attack, to lead them all!

The root of war is fear.

Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.

War will exist as long as there's a food chain.

After a lifetime of war-watching, I see war as an endemic human disease, and governments are the carriers.

When people go at war they cheapen things.

Men appear to prefer ruining one another's fortunes, and cutting each other's throats about a few paltry villages, to extending the grand means of human happiness.

War is pillage versus resistance and if illusions of magnitude could be transmuted into ideals of magnanimity, peace might be realized.

You can’t have peace without a war.

War...is as much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer.

Our conflict is not likely to cease so soon as every good man would wish. The measure of iniquity is not yet filled; and unless we can return a little more to first principles, and act a little more upon patriotic ground, I do not know when it will-or-what may be the issue of the contest. Speculation-peculation-engrossing-forestalling-with all their concomitants, afford too many melancholy proofs of the decay of public virtue; and too glaring instances of its being the interest and desire of too many, who would wish to be thought friends, to continue the war.

I want that there should be a belief, a faith in the possibility of removing mountains to the side of right. If we believe that war is wrong, as everyone must, then we ought to believe that by proper efforts on our part, it may be done away with.

Peace is not passive, it is active. Peace is not appeasement, it is strength. Peace does not 'happen,' it requires work.

War stirs in men's hearts the mud of their worst instincts. It puts a premium on violence, nourishes hatred, and gives free rein to cupidity. It crushes the weak, exalts the unworthy, and bolsters tyranny .. .Time and time again it has destroyed all ordered living, devastated hope, and put the prophets to death.

Beyond the futility of armed force, and ultimately more important, is the fact that war in our time inevitably results in the indiscriminate killing of large numbers of people. To put it more bluntly, war is terrorism. That is why a 'war on terrorism' is a contradiction in terms.

War is the normal state of the people.

One of the most persistent ambiguities that we face is that everybody talks about peace as a goal. However, it does not take sharpest-eyed sophistication to discern that while everbody talks about peace, peace has become practically nobody's business among the power-wielders. Many men cry Peace! Peace! but they refuse to do the things that make for peace.

Listen up—there’s no war that will end all wars,’ Crow tells me. ‘War breeds war. Lapping up the blood shed by violence, feeding on wounded flesh. War is a perfect, self-contained being. You need to know that.

Violence and war lead only to death.

Giving peace a chance only gives Saddam Hussein more time to prepare for war on his terms, at a time of his choosing, in pursuit of ambitions that will only grow as his power to achieve them grows.

It is nothing but fanaticism and beautiful soulism to expect very much (or even, much only) from humanity when it has forgotten how to wage war.

The story of the human race is war. Except for brief and precarious interludes there has never been peace in the world; and long before history began murderous strife was universal and unending.

Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. God help me, I do love it so.