Causes of War Quotes

I knew from history that war comes with frightening regularity, often fought over the same ground and similar causes as previous conflicts.

Participants in all conflicts with more than two belligerents have different motivations for deciding to fight, and this was emphatically true in 1914.

When you look at the startling ruins of Nuremberg, you are looking at a result of the war. When you look at the prisoners on view in the courthouse, you are looking at 22 of the causes.

War is human. People fight for the same reasons that the Greek Historian Thucydides identified nearly 2,500 years ago: fear, honor and interest.

I wish we could see understanding the First World War as a European issue, or even a global one, and not a nationalistic one.

Lenin was the first to discover that capitalism 'inevitably' caused war; and he discovered this only when the First World War was already being fought. Of course he was right. Since every great state was capitalist in 1914.

A smart soldier wants to know the causes of wars. Also how to end them. After all, war is the normal state of affairs, isn't it? Peace is the name of the ideal we deduce from the fact that there have been interludes between wars.

What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. The threat of violence, the fear of violence, or actual violence, is the instrument of this dreadful will. You can see the will to power in bedrooms, kitchens, factories, unions and the borders of states. Listen to this and remember it. The nation state is merely human nature inflated to monstrous proportions. QED, nations are entities whose laws are written by violence. Thus it ever was, so ever shall it be.

War is the usual condition of Europe. A thirty years' supply of causes of war is always on hand.

To deal with the true causes of war one must begin by recognizing as of prime relevancy to the solution of the problem the familiar fact that civilization is a partial, incomplete, and, to a great extent, superficial modification of barbarism.

I was against the war with Iraq. First of all, they didn't knock down the World Trade Centre. It wasn't Iraq that knocked down the World Trade Centre.

Among the general Causes is, First, the unwillingness of the people to pay them [taxes]; arising from an opinion, that by delay and reluctancy they may wholly avoid them, with a suspicion that what is imposed is too much, or that what is collected is embezzled or ill expended, or that it is unequally levied and assessed…. Moreover, the peoples believing that Forms of Government shall in a few years produce any considerable alteration as to the wealth of the Subject; that the Form which is most ancient and present is not the best for the place; that any established family or person is not better then any new pretender, or even then the best Election that can be made; that Sovereignty is invisible, and that it is not certainly annexed unto some certain person or persons …. Causes of Civil War are also, that the Wealth of the Nation is in too few mens’ hands … the allowing Luxury in some, whilst others starve.

Lightly armed nations can move toward war just as easily as those which are armed to the teeth, and they will do so if the usual causes of war are not removed.

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.

I used to think that the causes of war were predominantly economic. I came to think that they were more psychological. I am now coming to think that they are decisively "personal," arising from the defects and ambitions of those who have the power to influence the currents of nations.

World War II has always been of great interest to me. I've known for decades that it was just one more war the politicians suckered us into.

What does anyone really know about the impetus to go to war? And so much is uncovered in hindsight. And there are aspects of even past wars that are only coming out now. Historians discover letters here, notes there, and look very carefully at different aspects of not only any conflict but any great historical event.

I have a friend that is a WWII buff, and we sat and talked a lot about stuff like the war and the reasons behind it, and you now it's all in the uniform. Once you're in it, it usually does all the work for you.