Radclyffe Hall Quotes

I'm not pro-war. But I think war has been the dominant condition of humankind, and peace has been the anomaly - certainly sustained periods of peace that profit great masses of people - and I think war has worked, even awful hellish wars: worked to staunch fascist aggression in Europe, worked to preserve the Union after secession in the United States, etc. Not always, maybe not often, but to say never is to reject history in favor of a wishful unreality.

There's not going to be a World War III, because there is no one to have World War III with.

We have short memories in football.

In one question you are expressing a world of opinion. Because it is you who thinks that America has been mistakenly starting these conflicts. I happen to agree with you, and I will repeat what your question suggested...we have mistakenly gotten into one fracas after another. Why we do that [United States has insisted on keeping up a string of enemies, and the wars associated with creating those enemies], I think it's because we're afraid to look in the mirror and understand who we are.

...the darkness does not lift but becomes yet heavier as I think how little we can hold in mind, how everything is constantly lapsing into oblivion with every extinguished life, how the world is, as it were, draining itself, in that the history of countless places and objects which themselves have no power or memory is never heard, never described or passed on.

Actually we're very lucky John McCain is not in charge because I think we would be in perpetual war.

Now that their long war was over, they could get on with the proper concern of all civilised nations, which is to prepare for the next one.

The peace movement didn't stop the Iraq but I think that Blair would not be able to go along and support an Iranian war.

My fellow Americans, let us take that first step. Let us...step back from the shadow of war and seek out the way of peace. And if that journey is a thousand miles, or even more, let history record that we, in this land, at this time, took the first step.

I think the President ought to bring everybody that's in American uniform back because we're headed for war.

War is the usual condition of Europe. A thirty years' supply of causes of war is always on hand.

All nations want peace, but they want a peace that suits them.

Parties on the back of Parties, at war with the world and with each other.

And always we had wars, and more wars, and still other wars - all over Europe, all over the world. "Sometimes in the private interest of royal families," Satan said, "sometimes to crush a weak nation; but never a war started by the aggressor for any clean purpose - there is no such war in the history of the race."

Whoever thinks war allows for lasting victories should take a look at European history books and learn their lesson.

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me work- I am the grass; I cover all. And pile them high at Gettysburg. And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. Shovel them under and let me work. Two years, ten years,and passengers ask the conductor- What place is this? Where are we now? I am the grass. Let me work.

I think Israel, as a number of commentators pointed out, is becoming an insane state. And we have to be honest about that. While the rest of the world wants peace, Europe wants peace, the US wants peace, but this state wants war, war and war.

But all history has taught us the grim lesson that no nation has ever been successful in avoiding the terrors of war by refusing to defend its rights - by attempting to placate aggression.

How idle a boast, after all, is the immortality of a name! Time is ever silently turning over his pages; we are too much engrossed by the story of the present to think of the character and anecdotes that gave interest to the past; and each age is a volume thrown aside and forgotten.

One would think that man would run out of wars.

I think anything is better than war. The extent to which one can negotiate with fanatics, I have no idea. I don't know.

It said, 'War Is Not the Answer.' I disagree. I think war absolutely is the answer. And if you don't agree with me, happy Fourth of July.

I'd like to think that the best bunker buster is a diplomat.

If you think I would have gone to war the way George Bush did, don't vote for me.

All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal.