Prologue

I destroy my enemies when

I make them my friends.

—Abraham Lincoln

~~~

For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.

—Sun Tzu

Every gun that's made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the genius of its scientists, the sweat of its laborers. ...This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

—Dwight D. Eisenhower

War on the other hand is such a terrible thing, that no man, especially a Christian man, has the right to assume the responsibility of starting it.

—Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

Man has no right to kill his brother. It is no excuse that he does so in uniform: he only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder.

—Percy Bysshe Shelley

Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

—Jesus of Nazareth

When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing.

—Dwight D. Eisenhower

The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings, and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own.

—Aldous Huxley

All war must be just the killing of strangers against whom you feel no personal animosity; strangers whom, in other circumstances, you would help if you found them in trouble, and who would help you if you needed it... Before I had chance in another war, the desire to kill people to whom I had not been introduced had passed away.

—Mark Twain

“Great panic among the locals” as the American drones continued to hover over the defenseless towns even after the attack. No one could be sure when or if the robots would fire again. There was no way to stop the machines; they were impervious, implacable, just floating there, groaning in the sky, their “pilots” sitting safely and comfortably before computer screens thousands of miles away. You couldn’t get away, you couldn’t hide, you couldn’t protect your children.

—Chris Floyd

Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich.

—Sir Peter Ustinov

I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.

—Franklin D. Roosevelt

Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out...and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel. ...And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of man"— with his mouth.

—Mark Twain, What is Man?

He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

—Albert Einstein

If we do not end war, war will end us. Everybody says that, millions of people believe it, and nobody does anything.

—H.G. Wells

The foundation of all mental illness is the unwillingness

to experience legitimate suffering.

—Carl Jung

Part I

In war, truth is the first casualty.

—Aeschylus

~~~

All war is deception.

—Sun Tzu

It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.

—Donald Rumsfeld,

pitching "Operation Iraqi Freedom"

The United States is a nation engaged in what will be a long war.

—Donald Rumsfeld

No country has ever benefited from a protracted war.

—Sun Tzu

For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there.

—Lyndon Johnson

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

—Voltaire

You stand against an evil — an evil of mass murderers. It's an evil that can't be appeased, it can't be ignored and it certainly cannot be allowed to prevail.

—Donald Rumsfeld

Statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.

—Mark Twain, Chronicle of Young Satan

When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

—Plato

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

—Joseph Goebbels

There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dare to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the street looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. ...We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are intellectual prostitutes.

—John Swinton, chief editorialist, NYT, 1880

We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promise of discretion for almost forty years... It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto determination practiced in past centuries.

—David Rockefeller

Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.

Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.

Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

—Herman Göring interviewed by Gustave Gilbert

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

—George Orwell

Part II

Cui bono?

—Lucius Cassius

~~~

War is a racket. It always has been... A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

—USMC Major General Smedley Butler

I soon realized there was a different purpose for the war, that we were putting in place a permanent military occupation. It was my firsthand experience during my deployment that showed me the reality of the Iraq War and led me to begin to question U.S. foreign policy. I began to wonder what U.S. foreign policy as a whole was about. I saw that Iraq was a microcosm. The U.S. military is used to conquer countries for the rich, to seize markets, land, resources and labor for Wall Street. This is what drives U.S. foreign policy.

—Mike Prysner

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.

—Theodore Roosevelt

The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies.

—Dick Cheney, 1999

According to some estimates we (Pentagon) cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions.

—Donald Rumsfeld

We know it's gone. But we don't know what they spent it on.

—Jim Minnery,

Defense Finance and Accounting Service

My 2003 budget calls for more than $48 billion in new defense spending.

—George W. Bush

War is a highly planned and cooperative form of theft.

—Jacob Bronowski

All wars are fought for money.

—Socrates

People had better watch what they say.

—Ari Fleischer

We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq.

—Binyamin Netanyahu

We have one party. We have the party of big business. It has two right wings, one called Democratic, one called Republican.

—Gore Vidal

Power does not rest with the electorate. It does not reside with either of the two major political parties. It is not represented by the press. It is not arbitrated by a judiciary that protects us from predators. Power rests with corporations. And corporations gain very lucrative profits from war, even wars we have no chance of winning. All polite appeals to the formal systems of power will not end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We must physically obstruct the war machine or accept a role as its accomplice.

—Chris Hedges

I hope we shall crush in its infancy the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

—Thomas Jefferson

Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.

—Benito Mussolini

Somebody has to take government's place, and business seems to me to be a logical entity to do it.

—David Rockefeller

The end of democracy and the defeat of the American revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of the lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.

—Thomas Jefferson

...to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.

—Theodore Roosevelt

Let me control a people's currency and I care not who makes their laws.

—Meyer Nathaniel Rothschild

You are a den of vipers. I intend to rout you out, and by the Eternal God I will rout you out. If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution before morning.

—Andrew Jackson

The real menace of our republic is this invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy length over city, state and nation. Like the octopus of real life, it operates under cover of a self created screen....At the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller Standard Oil interests and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as international bankers. The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both political parties.

—John F. Hylan, New York City Mayor, 1922

And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.

—Sen. Dick Durbin

The money power preys upon the nation in time of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me, and causes me to tremble for the safety of our country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the republic is destroyed.

—Abraham Lincoln

The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the US Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.

—Thomas Friedman

The high office of President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the Americans' freedom, and before I leave office I must inform the citizen of his plight.

—John F. Kennedy

History shows that (people) can be deflected from their natural tendencies by artful propaganda, bogus crises, or other political trickery.

—Robert Higgs

I hate it when they say, ‘He gave his life for his country.’ They don’t die for the honor and glory of their country. We kill them.

—Rear Admiral Gene R. LaRocque

In case you haven’t noticed, we…dehumanize our own soldiers, not because of their religion or race, but because of their low social class. Send ’em anywhere. Make ’em do anything. Piece of cake.

— Kurt Vonnegut

Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy.

—Henry Kissinger

Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?

—Muhammad Ali

For the United States, supporting civil society groups is a critical part of our work to advance democracy. But it's not the only part. Our national security strategy reaffirms that democratic values are a cornerstone of our foreign policy.

—Hillary Clinton

I am the Commander-in-Chief of a country that’s responsible for ending a war and working in another theater to confront a ruthless adversary that directly threatens the American people.

—Barack Obama

You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people... can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride.

—General William Tecumseh Sherman

I believed going into the war that we were there to help the Iraqi people and find weapons of mass destruction. But it quickly became clear that these two reasons for the war were absolutely false. If you mentioned weapons of mass destruction to intelligence officers they would laugh at you. It was not even part of the mission to look for these things. If it was part of the mission I would have known because I was part of the only intelligence company in the north of the country. I thought that maybe we were there to help the Iraqi people, but all I saw when I was there was Iraqis brutalized and their living conditions deteriorate drastically. Iraqis would tell me we were worse than Saddam.

—Mike Prysner

Oh what a tangled web we weave

When first we practise to deceive

—Sir Walter Scott

Part III

It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.

—Unnamed U.S. Army Officer

~~~

To initiate a war of aggression...is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.

—Nuremburg War Tribunal

Well, when the President does it that means that it is not illegal.

—Richard Nixon

Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism.

—Rev. Martin Luther King

We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.

—Lesley Stahl interview with

Madeleine Albright on Iraq sanctions

♫ Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran♫

—John McCain

Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that.

—John Lennon

Wars of aggression are the most barbarous of all human endeavors and are, more often than not, the instruments of insane tyrants who hear voices.

—Rodrigue Tremblay

I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George go and end the tyranny in Iraq,' and I did.

—George W. Bush

God told me to smite Osama bin Laden, so I invaded Afghanistan. Then he told me to smite Saddam Hussein, so I invaded Iraq. Now he wants me to work on the Middle East problem...

—George W. Bush

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

—Plato

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.

—George Orwell

War is the ultimate tool of politics.

—R. Buckminster Fuller

When [men] go to war, what they want is to impose on their enemies the victor's will and call it peace.

—St. Augustine

According to the CIA's report, all U.S. intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons. There is little question that Saddam Hussein wants to develop nuclear weapons.

—John Kerry

We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.

—Condoleeza Rice

Cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of war.

—William Shakespeare

If there was ever a detonation in New York City, or London, or Johannesburg, the ramifications economically, politically and from a security perspective would be devastating.

—Barack Obama

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.

—H. L. Mencken

Omar Sheikh is the man who murdered Osama bin Laden.

—Benazir Bhutto

In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them.

—Thich Nhat Hanh

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

—Franklin D. Roosevelt

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

—Thomas Jefferson

A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.

—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.

—George Orwell

Gentlemen, you can't fight in here... this is the War Room!

—Peter Sellers, Dr. Strangelove

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.

—General Dwight D. Eisenhower

I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator; by defending myself against the Jews, I am fighting for the Lord.

—Adolf Hitler

Fernando Botero, Abu Ghraib

Part IV

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people

of good conscience to remain silent.

—Thomas Jefferson

~~~

We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will.

—Dick Cheney

Take the gloves off.

—Donald Rumsfeld

The chief pathologist of the University of Glasgow who is now chief pathologist of the United Kingdom wrote that the only explanation for this was "immersion in boiling water". He said it was immersion, not splattering or splashing, because there was a clear tide line around the upper torso and upper limbs. It was also clearly the kind of burning caused by boiling liquid not by flame. The pathologist also found that his fingernails had been pulled out. That clearly took me aback.

—Craig Murray

If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war.

—Unnamed Pentagon official

In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered; and I believe, farther, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.

—Benjamin Franklin, closing remarks at

the Constitutional Convention

God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance?

—Thomas Jefferson

Barack Obama has ordered the murder of an American citizen, without trial, without due process, without the production of any evidence. All it takes to kill any American citizen in this way is Barack Obama's signature on a piece of paper, his arbitrary designation of the target as a "suspected terrorist." In precisely the same way -- precisely the same way -- Josef Stalin would place a mark by a name in a list of "suspected terrorists" or "counterrevolutionaries," and the bearer of that name would die. This is the system we have now, the same as the Soviets had then: a leader with the unchallengeable power to kill citizens without due process.

—Chris Floyd

In much the same way that a previous generation of Americans countenanced legalized segregation, ours has countenanced legalized torture. And there is no clearer manifestation of this than our routine use of solitary confinement.

—Barack Obama

Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.

—Sir Francis Bacon

[Twenty-two year-old Private Bradley] Manning has been subjected for many months without pause to inhumane, personality-erasing, soul-destroying, insanity-inducing conditions of isolation similar to those perfected at America's Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado: all without so much as having been convicted of anything.

—Glenn Greenwald

If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves.

—Thomas Jefferson

Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?

—Barbara Bush

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

—Thomas Jefferson

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

—George Washington

The tyrant always talks as if he's preserving the best interests of his people when he actually acts to undermine them.

—Ramman Kenoun

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

—Benjamin Franklin

Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.

—John Adams

Part V

The first day we all pointed to our own countries.

The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents.

By the fifth day we were aware of only one Earth.

— Sultan bin Salman al-Saud,

on looking back at Earth from space

~~~

I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.

—Thomas Paine

Patriotism lies not in blind obedience to authority, but in the desire to search for the truth.

—Ramman Kenoun

Look, there is one statement that bothers me more than anything else, and that's the idea that when the troops are in combat everybody has to shut up. Imagine if we put troops in combat with a faulty rifle, and that rifle was malfunctioning and troops were dying as a result. I can't think anyone would allow that to happen, that would not speak up. Well, what's the difference between a faulty plan and strategy that's getting just as many troops killed?

—General Anthony Zinni

The citizen who sees his society’s democratic clothes being worn out and does not cry it out, is not a patriot, but a traitor.

— Mark Twain

The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

—Theodore Roosevelt

The maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country more good than it will do the enemy.

—Robert Taft

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.

—Howard Zinn

Patriotism at the expense of another nation is as wicked as racism at the expense of another race...Let us resolve to be patriots always, nationalists never.

—Rev. William Sloane Coffin

I ain't got no quarrel with the Vietcong. No Vietcong ever called me Nigger.

—Muhammad Ali

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.

—George Orwell

I love my country too much to be a nationalist.

—Albert Camus

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.

—Albert Einstein

Once the war against Saddam begins, we expect every American to support our military, and if they can't do that, to shut up. Americans, and indeed our allies, who actively work against our military once the war is underway will be considered enemies of the state by me. Just fair warning to you, Barbra Streisand, and others who see the world as you do.

—Bill O'Reilly

When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.

—Sinclair Lewis

To be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on saying, " Our country, right or wrong," and urge on the little war. Have you not perceived that that phrase is an insult to the nation?

—Mark Twain

The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people,

it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.

—Patrick Henry

With all the arguments, pro and con, for going to the moon, no one suggested that we should do it to look at the Earth. But that may in fact have been the most important reason of all.

—Joseph P. Allen

Epilogue

The eyes of love... see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defense each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.

—Bill Hicks

There is no trust more sacred than the one the world holds with children. There is no duty more important than ensuring that their rights are respected, that their welfare is protected, that their lives are free from fear and want and that they grow up in peace.

—Kofi Annan

Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought! Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder! Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human beings! Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction! Be heroes in an army of construction!

—Helen Keller

The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.

—Black Elk

Nothing in the world is more flexible and yielding than water. Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong, none can withstand it, because they have no way to change it. So the flexible overcome the adamant, the yielding overcome the forceful.

—Lao Tzu

Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind...War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.

—John F. Kennedy

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

—Rev. Martin Luther King

War is as outmoded as cannibalism, chattel slavery, blood-feuds, and dueling, an insult to God and humanity...a daily crucifixion of Christ.

—Muriel Lester

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

—Abraham Lincoln

This much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.

—Robert F. Kennedy

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

—Mohandas K. Gandhi

Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

—Albert Einstein

There is no time left for anything but to make peacework a dimension of our every waking activity.

—Elise Boulding

Human Beings, indeed all sentient beings, have the right to pursue happiness and live in peace and freedom.

—the XIVth Dalai Lama

As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.

—George Orwell

Working for peace in the future is to work for peace in the present moment.

—Thich Nhat Hahn

Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God.

—Jesus of Nazareth

Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace.

—Buddha

Violence and arms can never resolve the problems of men.

—Pope John Paul II

A people free to choose will always choose peace.

—Ronald Reagan

There was never a good war or a bad peace.

—Benjamin Franklin

One more such victory and we are undone.

—Pyrrhus of Epirus

War would end if the dead could return.

—Stanley Baldwin

War is a defeat for humanity.

—Pope John Paul II

Either war is obsolete,

or men are.

—R. Buckminster Fuller