Antonio Guterres Quotes

Perhaps if all the peoples of the world understand what war really means, we would eliminate it.

Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes... can no longer be of concern to great powers alone.

Men and women who know the brutal reality of war, who know that war strips people of their very humanity, must unite in a new global partnership for peace.

The problem after a war is the victor. He thinks he has just proved that war and violence will pay. Who will now teach him a lesson?

The concept of military readiness is well understood, but readiness for what happens after the fighting stops is just as important.

Fortunately, the war has brought with it not alone a stark realization of what another war would mean to the world, but as well the creation of an international agency through which the nations of the world can, if they so desire, make peace a living reality.

After every war someone has to tidy up.

When you get billions in aid and your weapons resupplied and your ammunition stock resupplied, you don't learn the lesson that war is bad and nobody wins.

I can not believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.

The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.

The thing that really gets to me is that countries are in the news only when things get out of hand. That's when it's newsworthy. When the war ends, it's not newsworthy anymore; no one wants to think about it. Actually, the aftermath is the most important part. It's when people have to rebuild.

Anything that reduces war-related destruction should not be considered altogether immoral.

There can be no compromise with war; it cannot be reformed or controlled; cannot be disciplined into decency or codified into common sense.

All the aftermath that so frequently follows in the wake of war still confront the nation, and we now, as ever before, must hold fast to the ancient landmarks and see to it that all of these plagues that threaten so mightily shall be rendered harmless.

We must strive to restrain the destructive force of war, while recognizing its inexorable necessities

I have many times asked myself whether there can be more potent advocates of peace upon earth through the years to come than the massed multitude of silent witnesses to the desolation of war.

I cannot bear to see my innocent people suffer any longer. Ending the war is the only way to restore world peace and to relieve the nation from the terrible distress with which it is burdened.

Could we have avoided this terrible, bloody war! … Is it ever to end!

Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.

The possibility of the United States winning the war and losing the peace is real and serious

War, which remains an anomaly in a civilized world, has taken on so devastating and universal a character...that every thought and every effort should be aimed, above all, at making it impossible.

Wars are hard to exit. Once a war against poverty, crime, or terrorism is launched. Announcing a unilateral truce is usually political suicide. Presidents get boxed into absolutist policies in which compromise is impossible and victory is the only acceptable outcome.

Although war cannot be ended, wars can.

I think every day we look at the mess of the chaos of the civil war in Iraq, I think every day people become more and more convinced that the war was a mistake. I think we have to learn from the mistakes of our past.

A critical part of our relationship with Laos involves addressing the legacy of war.