John Burns Quotes

It seems incredible that the Russian Government should plunge Europe into war in order to make themselves the protectors of the Serbians.

It's true that the question of Iraq divided Europe.

At the Imperial Conference on December 1, it was decided to make war against England and the United States.

When the Egyptians decide something, probably it is not appropriate for the U.S. When the Americans decide something, this, of course, is not appropriate for Egypt.

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.

European history has shown only too clearly the weakness of multilateral defensive alliances between complete sovereign nations as a means of opposing desperate and determined bids for domination of the European scene

If Germany wins, she will dominate France; the independence of Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and perhaps of Norway and Sweden, will be a mere shadow; their separate existence as nations will be fiction; all their harbours will be at Germany's disposal; she will dominate the whole of Western Europe, and this will make our position quite impossible. We could not exist as a first class State under such circumstances.

You help us pay for the war we’ll fight; we’ll launch it while you’re asleep at night. We don’t need friends all around the world; We’ll buy our friends with our flag unfurled, And spread our arms on a global scale To show the world that we still prevail. Oh, we’re not leaders inspiring peace, But we’re in power as the world’s police. So pay your tax for our little war, And we’ll not ask for any more. This year!

For four hundred years the foreign policy of England has to oppose the strongest, most aggressive, most dominating Power on the Continent …

The situation is extraordinary. It is militarism run stark mad. Unless someone acting for you can bring about a different understanding there is some day to be an awful cataclysm.

A European war is bound to come sooner or later in which the issue will be one of a struggle between Germandom and Slavdom.

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.

Serbia must now be dealt with.

Wars are never fought for altruistic reasons. They're usually fought for hegemony, for business. And then of course there's the business of war.

To us, it is incomprehensible that millions of Christian men killed and tortured each other because Napoleon was ambitious or Alexander was firm, or because England's policy was astute or the Duke of Oldenburg was wronged. We cannot grasp what connection such circumstances have the with the actual fact of slaughter and violence: why because the Duke was wronged, thousands of men from the other side of Europe killed and ruined the people of Smolensk and Moscow and were killed by them.

The great mistake about Europe is taking the countries seriously and letting them quarrel and drop bombs on one another.

Politics and war are remarkably similar situations.

A war between Europeans is a civil war.

But they were going to war anyway and they were going to bully and pressure countries to vote for it.

We are not at war with Egypt. We are in an armed conflict.

The United States can tell you all about what's wrong with the British, to say nothing of the Russians.

I believe - though I may be wrong, because I'm no expert - that this war is about what most wars are about: hegemony, money, power and oil.

The president, clearly as a result of the war and the afterglow of the war, is in a time of great attention.

First, we could have defied both of them and could have gone to war against both of these nations for this violation of international law and interference with our neutral rights.

It is inconceivable that even the gang who runs Russia would be willing to take on war, but one always has to remember that there seemed to be no reason in 1939 for Hitler to start war, and yet he did, and he started it with a world practically unprepared.