War Renunciation Quotes

There is now all this patriotic indignation about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Japanese expansionism in Asia. Yet not a word about American and European expansionism in the same area.... We must make a start. We must renounce war as an instrument of policy.... Even as I speak to you I may be guilty of what some men call treason.... You young men should refuse to take up arms. Young women tear down the patriotic posters. And all of you — young and old — put away your flags.

Two thousand years ago, we abandoned imperialism and militarism. We have been peace-lovers ever since.

I dare predict that the influence of the Treaty of Renunciation of War will be felt in a large proportion of all future international acts.

If you recognize the right of every nation to construe for itself what is aggressive war and what is defensive war, you have not accomplished much by agreeing to renounce war.

After the end of the Second World War it was a categorical imperative for us to declare that we renounced war forever in a central article of the new Constitution.

In Japan itself there have all along been attempts by some to obliterate the article about renunciation of war from the Constitution and for this purpose they have taken every opportunity to make use of pressures from abroad.

The Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.

It is accordance with our determination to refrain from aggression and build up a sentiment and practice among nations more favorable to peace, that we ratified a treaty for the limitation of naval armaments made in 1921, earnestly sought for a further extension of this principle in 1927, and have secured the consent of fourteen important nations to the negotiation of a treaty condemning recourse to war, renouncing it is an instrument of national policy, and pledging each other to seek no solution of their disagreements except by pacific means.