Mark Twain Quotes

I do not wish a foreign army to spill the blood of my people.

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

The State thrives on war - unless, of course, it is defeated and crushed - expands on it, glories in it.

I don't like war. I particularly don't like the celebration of war, which I think the administration is a little bit guilty of.

He is ready, if the occasion presents itself, to throw the whole English population in the St. Lawrence.

We decry violence all the time in this country, but look at our history. We were born in a violent revolution, and we've been in wars ever since. We're not a pacific people.

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.

We are a Nation of peace and compassion, yet these people have and will devote every fiber of their beings to the destruction of Americans and our Country.

Wars are caused by undefended wealth.

Sometimes I think war is God's way of teaching us geography.

What this country needs what every country needs occasionally is a good hard bloody war to revive the vice of patriotism on which its existence as a nation depends.

An army is a nation; it is one of the vices of our age.

Nations have the tendency to be born in blood.

Young people have come to look upon war as a kind of beneficent deity, which ... develops patriotism and courage. But it is only fair, too, to let them know that the garments of the deity are filthy and that some of her influences debase and befoul.

National sentiments can cause such sinful phenomena as aggressive nationalism, xenophobia, national exclusiveness and inter-ethnic enmity. At their extremes, these phenomena often lead to the restriction of the rights of individuals and nations, wars and other manifestations of violence

What right have the rulers of nations to unsheath the sword of destruction, and to let loose the demons of desolation upon mankind, whenever caprice or pride, ambition or avarice, shall prescribe?

To make a people great it is necessary to send them to battle even if you have to kick them in the ass.

War, hate, jealousy, racism - what are they but manifestations of fear?

Those who dare to interpret God's will must never claim Him as an asset for one nation or group rather than another. War springs from the love and loyalty which should be offered to God being applied to some God substitute, one of the most dangerous being nationalism.

Patriotism is nationalism, and always leads to war.

The religion of Christ is peace and good-will,--the religion of Christendom is war and ill-will.

All that is good in Heaven and on Earth is born of love. This war is not just. This war is not good. Love is the only thing worth fighting for.

The stench of the trail of Ego in our History. It is ego - ego, the fountain cry, origin, sole source of war.

Against the vast majority of my countrymen, even at this moment, in the name of humanity and civilization, I protest against our share in the destruction of Germany. A month ago Europe was a peaceful comity of nations; if an Englishman killed a German, he was hanged. Now, if an Englishman kills a German, or if a German kills an Englishman, he is a patriot, who has deserved well of his country.

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.