Lise Meitner Quotes

War creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice.

It is almost inconceivable that citizens of that time were willing to support so bloody a war, by putting so high a price upon Union and Liberty.

It is a tough choice. In war, people die. But when we refuse to confront the enemy, we will face the enemy in New York and Washington, as we did on 9-11. As for responsiblity, of course we stand by our decision to go to war on Iraq. President Kennedy said that friend and foe alike should know where America stands.

A Pentagon official once said the people who would actually push the button probably have never seen a person die. He said the only hope -and it's a strange thought - is if they put the button to launch the nuclear war behind a man's heart. The President, then, with a rusty knife, would have to cut out the man's heart, kill the man, to get to the button.

I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima - and you know, is the price worth it?

I have never met a man [in the military], in or out of uniform, who ever said, "Let's use the missiles." They are even more terrified that the Bishops, because a great many of them don't expect to go to Heaven, which at least the Bishops do.

Every war, when viewed from the undistorted perspective of life’s sanctity, is a “civil war” waged by humanity against itself.

Yes, yes: Taking out Saddam Hussein means war, and war is bad for children and other living things. I went to grade school in the 1970s, and I recall the poster. But there are times when war is not only a tragic and unavoidable necessity, but also good for children and other living things.

I got a four year scholarship to Harvard, and while I was there they wanted to groom me for work in the Star Wars program designing weapons ignited by hydrogen bombs. I didn't want to do that. I thought about how many scientists had died in World War II.

The responsibility for the risks we posed to others in some of our most extreme actions in those underground years never leaves my thoughts for long. The antiwar movement in all its commitment, all its sacrifice and determination, could not stop the violence unleashed against Vietnam. And therein lies cause for real regret.

Some people tried to hurt us to protect themselves, their family and communities...This was one of the consequences of civil war. People stopped trusting each other, and every stranger became an enemy. Even people who knew you became extremely careful about how they related or spoke to you.

I think there's evil on both sides [of Syria], and I think that's one reason I don't want to be involved in civil war. I see things in personal terms. I just can't see sending one of my sons - or your son or daughter - to fight in a civil war, where on one side we have a dictator, who in all likelihood gassed his people.

War is a series of disasters which result in a winner.

Wars are never cured, they just go into remission for a few years.

It was my view then, and still is, that you don't make war without knowing why. Knowledge of course, is always imperfect, but it seemed to me that when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause. You can't fix your mistakes. Once people are dead, you can't make them undead.

In modern war there is no such thing as victor and vanquished... There is only a loser, and the loser is mankind.

What is wrong is not the great discoveries of science—information is always better than ignorance, no matter what information or what ignorance. What is wrong is the belief behind the information, the belief that information will change the world. It won’t.

There is no such thing as a good war or a bad peace.

[I am] saddened, saddened, that this president [Bush] failed so miserably at diplomacy that we're now forced to go to war. Saddened that we have to give up one life because this president couldn't create the kind of diplomatic effort that was so critical for our country.

Our young people have come to look upon war as a kind of beneficent deity, which not only adds to the national honor but uplifts a nation and develops patriotism and courage. That is all true. 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 a people.

And for the people who promote drones as the answer to everything, there is a danger from being distanced from the reality of the ugly mess of war.

When you use force, people get hurt, and when you kill people, their relatives don't like it. And usually war has some unanticipated consequences so it's something you shouldn't launch into, on the expectation that this is going to rally the nation. This is not like 'Friday Night Lights'.

The bombs in Vietnam explode at home; they destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America.

A common and natural result of an undue respect for law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart.

A war was coming either way. Now all I had to do was choose my opponent