Ernest Hemingway Quotes

Of course the people don't want war... It is the leaders...who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along...all you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

Naturally the common people don't want war ... but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.

… once America goes off to war, it can't very well return without having fought one. If it doesn't find its enemy, for the sake of the enraged folks back home, it will have to manufacture one. Once war begins, it will develop a momentum, a logic and a justification of its own, and we'll lose sight of why it's being fought in the first place.

When foreign affairs were ruled by autocracies or oligarchies the danger of war was in sinister purpose. When foreign affairs are ruled by democracies the danger of war will be in mistaken beliefs.

The force which makes for war does not derive its strength from the interested motives of evil men; it derives its strength from the disinterested motives of good men.

This war is being played in the realm of public opinion and has dire consequences for our soldiers in Iraq, the future of our country, and freedom around the world.

The Iraq War was the biggest issue for people of my generation in the West. It was also the clearest case, in my living memory, of media manipulation and the creation of a war through ignorance.

It is not uncommon in modern times to see governments straining every nerve to keep the peace, and the people whom they represent, with patriotic enthusiasm and resentment over real or fancied wrongs, urging them forward to war.

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.

When people don't understand that the government doesn't have their interests in mind, they're more susceptible to go to war.

Every war results from the struggle for markets and spheres of influence, and every war is sold to the public by professional liars and totally sincere religious maniacs, as a Holy Crusade to save God and Goodness from Satan and Evil.

It is not every cause of war that should lead to war.

The English people would never consent to go to war for a cause in which England was not manifestly interested.

It is from the pride and ambition of rulers and the ignorance of the people that wars arise.

There is no passion to which the rulers of a people can address themselves with greater [political] effect [than war.]

Useful as a war against France, undertaken by the Government against the will of the people would be for our revolutionary development, just so dangerous must be the effect upon our democratic development of a war supported by blind popular enthusiasm.

Before the war is ended, the war party assumes the divine right to denounce and silence all opposition to war as unpatriotic and cowardly.

It has too often been too easy for rulers and governments to incite man to war.

The failure to dissect the cause of war leaves us open for the next installment.

During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.

When one nation is at war with another nation, the political machine does everything it can to vilify the people of the other nation, so it makes it easier to kill them. Which is understandable and it's happened this way throughout history.

The World War broke out with such elemental violence, and with such resort to all means for leading or misleading public opinion, that no time was available for reflection and consideration.

How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.

What a country calls its vital... interests are not things that help its people live, but things that help it make war.

I was not a conscientious objector. I was a political objector. I believed that finance and commercial rivalry had led to war.