James H. Boren Quotes

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 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.

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

The impression is given that this and other countries are at war with one another. They are not. Their governments, composed of men and responsible only to the men of each country, and backed by the majority of men who have caught the war and glory fever, have declared war on one another. The women of all these countries have not been consulted as to whether they would have war or not. If men deliberately shut out women, the peace-loving sex, from their rightful share in ruling their countries, then all the appeals and sentiments and prayers will be of no avail in preventing hostilities.

The United States will never take part in an aggressive war.

Now the situation is perilous, and the Powers are glaring at us like tigers eyeing their prey, all trying to barge into our country. Considering the financial and military situation in China today, we will of course try and avoid a war … But if our powerful enemies try and force us to yield to demands to which we cannot possibly consent, then we shall have no other alternative but to rely on the justice of our cause and to unite and fight.

War is always an option. Peace is not.

Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.

We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war, we have to attack that way of life.

All war represents a failure of diplomacy.

It's not a choice between war and peace. It's a choice between war and endless war. It's not appeasement. I think it's better even to call it American self-interest.

I hope that the German people will never again make the mistake of believing that because the American people are peace-loving, they will sit back hoping for peace if any nation uses force or the threat of force to acquire dominion over other peoples and other governments.

We cannot be both the world's leading champion of peace and the world's leading supplier of the weapons of war.

The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.

War is never a solution; it is an aggravation.

A sane person doesn't think war is a good idea.

The United States is not a nation to which peace is a necessity.

When two giants meet with each other, when there is too little room for them on the world's surface, they try to measure their strength in order to decide by war the debatable question of hegemony.

I’m not opposed to all wars; just dumb wars.

History will show that perhaps we did not think through the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad. But here we are.

We believe in peace, but we are not pacifists. Sometimes we have to use force

The most expensive peace is far less costly than the cheapest war.

There is no issue of greater importance to the U.S. Senate than war and peace.

As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable.