Quotes & Sayings About Armaments

The very existence of armaments and great armies psychologically accustoms us to accept the philosophy of militarism. They inevitably increase fear and hate in the world. — Norman Thomas

Overall, white men run America. From nuclear armaments to the filth and jeopardy of New York City subways to the cruel mismanagement of health care, is there anything to boast about? — June Jordan

But the destruction of any starship was a shocking thing to witness. Resilient and ferocious as they might appear, she was keenly conscious of the fragile life-forms protected by the hulls and armaments. Those weren't just ships exploding before her eyes. They were sentient beings, each of whom had families, friends, hopes, dreams, lives, until they met with unassailable force and ceased to exist in a brilliant flash of light. — Kirsten Beyer

The gross domestic product (GDP) was created in the 1930s to measure the value of the sum total of economic goods and services generated over a single year. The problem with the index is that it counts negative as well as positive economic activity. If a country invests large sums of money in armaments, builds prisons, expands police security, and has to clean up polluted environments and the like, it's included in the GDP. Simon Kuznets, an American who invented the GDP measurement tool, pointed out early on that "[t]he welfare of a nation can . . . scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income."28 Later in life, Kuznets became even more emphatic about the drawbacks of relying on the GDP as a gauge of economic prosperity. He warned that "[d]istinctions must be kept in mind between quantity and quality of growth . . . . Goals for 'more' growth should specify more growth of what and for what."29 — Jeremy Rifkin

Limitation of armaments in itself is economically and financially important quite apart from security. — Ludwig Quidde

Dodd listened intently as Hitler portrayed Germany as a well-meaning, peace-seeking nation whose modest desire for equality of armaments was being opposed by other nations. 'It was not the address of a thinker,' Dodd wrote in his diary, 'but of an emotionalist claiming that Germany had in no way been responsible for the World War and that she was the victim of wicked enemies. — Erik Larson

I propose getting rid of conventional armaments and replacing them with reasonably priced hydrogen bombs that will be distributed equally throughout the world. — Idi Amin

Armaments; extremely useful for fighting wars, a deadweight in any civil economy. — John Ralston Saul

Armaments are necessary - or are maintained on the pretext of necessity - because of a real or an imagined danger of war. — Ludwig Quidde

Hubris is an incurable American disease. As incurable as the military-industrial machine that keeps coming up with the armaments that make wars seem like slam dunks, but which last for decades; wars that are fought by a very small percentage of the population and, regular effusive acknowledgement of veterans notwithstanding, can be ignored for years. — Don Watson

It is idle to say that nations can struggle to outdo each other in building armaments and never use them. History demonstrates the contrary, and we have but to go back to the last war to see the appalling effect of nations competing in great armaments. — Frank B. Kellogg

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the world. — Patrick Henry

Let us assume that the ideal were reached; let us imagine a state of international life in which the danger of war no longer exists. Then no one would dare to demand a penny for obviously completely superfluous armaments. — Ludwig Quidde

Do not fear or misunderstand when the Government say they are looking to our defences. I give you my word that there will be no great armaments. — Stanley Baldwin

The peoples of many countries are being taxed to the point of poverty and starvation ... to enable governments to engage in a mad race in armaments ... This grave menace to the peace of the world is due in no small measure to the uncontrolled activities of the manufacturers and merchants of engines of destruction, and it must be met by the concerted actions of the peoples of all nations. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

If I could have just 1 per cent of the money spent on global armaments, no one in this world would go to bed hungry. — Mohamed ElBaradei

A point has been reached where the peoples of the Americas must take cognizance of growing ill-will, of marked trends toward aggression, of increasing armaments, of shortening tempers
a situation which has in it many of the elements that lead to the tragedy of general war ... Peace is threatened by those who seek selfish power. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Reagan bankrupted the Soviet Union by increasing armaments. — Norman Mailer

Behold a republic standing erect while empires all around are bowed beneath the weight of their own armaments - a republic whose flag is loved while other flags are only feared. — William Jennings Bryan

Any survey of the free world's defense structure cannot fail to impart a feeling of regret that so much of our effort and resources must be devoted to armaments. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

All the vested interests and people who profit by war will - with the journals they control - resolutely oppose any reduction of armaments. — Randal Cremer

Then maybe you can help me out with something. I need an armaments shop. I want to buy a sword. A really good one." Jace looked surprised, then amused. "What for?" "Oh, you know. Killing." Clary made a hand gesture she hoped conveyed her murderous intentions toward all things evil. — Cassandra Clare

Lebedev: France has a clear and defined policy ... The French know what they want. They just want to wipe out the Krauts, finish, but Germany, my friend, is playing a very different tune. Germany has many more birds in her sights than just France ...
Shabelsky: Nonsense! ... In my view the German are cowards and the French are cowards ... They're just thumbing their noses at each other. Believe me, things will stop there. They won't fight.
Borkin: And as I see it, why fight? What's the point of these
armaments, congresses, expenditures? You know what I'd do? I'd gather together dogs from all over the country, give them a good dose of rabies and let them loose in enemy country. In a month all my enemies would be running rabid. — Anton Chekhov

I came here as a practical man, to talk, not simply on the question of peace and war, but to treat another question which is of hardly less importance - the enormous and burdensome standing armaments which it is the practice of modern Governments to sustain in time of peace. — Richard Cobden

What. Are. Thooooooose?" the walrus moaned.
On the holo-screen airing the happenings in Genevieve Square, a swarm of scorpspitters released by the Glass Eyes was scuttling toward Alyss and the other. Never before had a Wonderlander seen these scorpion-like contraptions that could bullets of deadly poison from their "tails"
not even Bibwit, who assumed they were the latest in a long line of armaments invented by Redd. But before a single scorpspitter curled its tail into a C to take aim at the queen, she imagined into existance a horde of disembodied boots with steel-plated soles, which hovered monetarily in the air, then
With a slight nod, she brought them down hard, stomping the scorpspitters flat, squishing their armor-crapaces and making absract art of their wiry guts.
Ooh, now why can't Queen Alyss do that to the Glass Eyes?" the walrus-bulter cried. — Frank Beddor

For India to enter into the race for armaments is to court suicide. — Mahatma Gandhi

Hitler's architect and later Minister of Armaments, Albert Speer. Speer had been imprisoned for his role in the use of slave labor during the war, but though he was found guilty for a number of crimes, and served nineteen years in prison, upon his release which was supported by such people as French president Charles DeGaulle and other high-ranking politicians, he was considered in many ways a "good German". He had admitted his guilt at the Nuremberg War Crimes trials after the war, and acknowledged that the crimes committed under Hitler would haunt Germany forever. He wrote his memoirs in prison and spoke not only about his complicity in the use of slave labor but also his attempts to thwart some of Hitler's more barbaric plans at the end of the war. Much of the proceeds from his bestselling memoirs went to Jewish organizations, though this was not discovered until after Speer had died. — Leonard Cooper

Japan has always regarded the aircraft carrier as one of the most offensive of armaments. — Isoroku Yamamoto

Third, there is value in any experience that exercises those ethical restraints collectively called 'sportsmanship'. Our tools for the pursuit of wildlife improve faster than we do, and sportsmanship is the voluntary limitation in the use of these armaments. It is aimed to augment the role of skill and shrink the role of Gadgets in the pursuit of wild things. — Aldo Leopold

Armaments do not, generally speaking, cause wars. This notion, the logical crux of all arguments in favor of disarmament, turns the causal relationship upside down. Actually, it is wars, or conflicts threatening war, that cause armaments, not the reverse. — James Burnham

For it is not Histories that I am writing, but Lives; and in the most illustrious deeds there is not always a manifestation of virtue or vice, nay, a slight thing like a phrase or a jest often makes a greater revelation of character than battles where thousands fall, or the greatest armaments, or sieges of cities. — Plutarch

We have to admit that, notwithstanding all the efforts in which governments and peoples have participated, no corresponding change has been wrought in the aspect of the world's armaments. — Henry Campbell-Bannerman

I think that one of the things that we all ask ourselves, whoever we are, is: who stands to make a lot of money out of this [wars]? And, certainly, it comes back to people like armaments makers, and so on and so forth. — Jacqueline Winspear

Man invents the most inhuman armaments to assault others so like himself that uniforms are needed to distinguish between friend and foe. — Thor Heyerdahl

There is no economic necessity for continuing the arms race after the World War, even from the standpoint of the capitalist class itself, with the exception of at most certain armaments interests. — Anonymous

The arts can do more to sustain the peace than all the wars, the armaments, and the threats and warnings of politicians. — Arthur Miller

So many in our world today are suffering from isolation, war and oppression. So much money is spent on the construction of armaments. Many, many young people are in despair because of the danger ... — Jean Vanier

There is a common belief that under modern conditions peace cannot be assured except on the basis of an equal balance of armaments ... [but] true and lasting peace among nations cannot consist in the possession of an equal supply of armaments but only in mutual trust. — Pope John XXIII

There is a limit where all armaments ain't strong enough to secure current world economic system and practice. — Toba Beta

Our defense is not in our armaments, nor in science, nor in going underground. Our defense is in law and order. — Albert Einstein

The present level of armaments could be taken as the starting point. It could be stipulated in an international treaty that these armaments should be simultaneously and uniformly reduced by a certain proportion in all countries. — Ludwig Quidde

In all ages statesmen have found it hard to understand the psychology of revolutionary governments bound to the wheel of armaments and debts. For it is a cycle that cannot be reversed. It can only be broken or its pace accelerated. — Arthur Bryant

I am firmly convinced that in the world of today all nations will be forced to the conclusion that cooperation for law, justice, and peace is the only alternative to a constant race in armaments-including atomic armaments-and to other disruptive practices that will bring the nations participating in them on either side to a common ruin, the equivalent of universal suicide. — Cordell Hull

We stand for the dismantling of foreign military bases. We stand for a reduction of armed forces and armaments in areas where military confrontation is especially dangerous, above all in central Europe. — Leonid Brezhnev

Disarmament or limitation of armaments, which depends on the progress made on security, also contributes to the maintenance of peace. — Ludwig Quidde

A nation's hope of lasting peace cannot be firmly based upon any race in armaments but rather upon just relations and honest understanding with all other nations. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

Every success in limiting armaments is a sign that the will to achieve mutual understanding exists, and every such success thus supports the fight for international law and order. — Ludwig Quidde

Certain it is that a great responsibility rests upon the statesmen of all nations, not only to fulfill the promises for reduction in armaments, but to maintain the confidence of the people of the world in the hope of an enduring peace. — Frank B. Kellogg

We are firmly convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations as with individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties, and history bears witness to the fact that a just nation is trusted on its word when recourse is had to armaments and wars to bridle others. — Thomas Jefferson

Facts, when combined with ideas, constitute the greatest force in the world. They are greater than armaments, greater than finance, greater than science, business and law because they constitute the common denominator of all of them. — Carl W. Ackerman

Japan likewise put her hopes of victory on a different basis from that prevalent in the United States. ( ... ) Even when she was winning, her civilian statesmen, her High Command, and her soldiers repeated that this was no contest between armaments; it was pitting of our faith in things against their faith in spirit. — Ruth Benedict

We pacifists have not ceased to point to the grave danger of armaments and to insist on their curtailment. — Ludwig Quidde

We are an adaptable species and this adaptability has enabled us to survive. However, adaptability can also constitute a threat; we may become habituated to certain dangers and fail to recognize them until it's too late. Nuclear armaments are the most conspicuous example; as you read this you are in effect wearing a military uniform and sitting in a very exposed trench. You exist at the whim of people whose power does not derive from your own consent and who regard you as expendable, disposable. You merely failed to notice the moment at which you were conscripted. A "normal" life consists in living as if this most salient of facts was not a fact at all. — Christopher Hitchens

What is happened in the years since the Second World War is not a temporary truce. It is not simply a ceasefire. Instead of battling with weapons and armaments, people battle only with arguments and ideas. — Gordon Brown

In my opinion there is no other salvation for civilization and even for the human race than the creation of a world government with security on the basis of law. As long as there are sovereign states with their separate armaments and armament secrets, new world wars cannot be avoided. — Albert Einstein

The first man of science was he who looked into a thing, not to learn whether it furnished him with food, or shelter, or weapons, or tools, armaments, or playwiths but who sought to know it for the gratification of knowing. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Without armaments peace cannot be kept; wars are waged not only to repel injustice but also to establish a firm peace. — Martin Luther

The dismantling of the vast and wholly parasitic armaments industry had given an unprecedented - sometimes, indeed, unhealthy - boost to the world economy. No longer were vital raw materials and brilliant engineering talents swallowed up in a virtual black hole - or, even worse, turned to destruction. Instead, they could be used to repair the ravages and neglect of centuries, by rebuilding the world. — Arthur C. Clarke

I have spent my life in the study of military strength as a deterrent to war, and in the character of military armaments necessary to win a war. The study of the first of these questions is still profitable, but we are rapidly getting to the point that no war can be won. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

I know of no more important subject to the peace of Europe and the world than the reasonable reduction of armaments, especially in Europe, and of naval armaments throughout the world. — Frank B. Kellogg

Since in every European country between 1870 and 1914 there was a war party demanding armaments, an individualist party demanding ruthless competition, an imperialist party demanding a free hand over backward peoples, a socialist party demanding the conquest of power and a racialist party demanding internal purges against aliens - all of them, when appeals to greed and glory failed, invoked Spencer and Darwin, which was to say science incarnate. — Jacques Barzun

There can never be complete agreement on international control and the administration of atomic energy or on general disarmament until there is a modification of the traditional concept of national sovereignty. For as long as atomic energy and armaments are considered a vital part of national security no nation will give more than lip service to international treaties. — Albert Einstein

But it is a fallacy, if one is examining the methods by which security can be attained, to start upon the assumption, as so many hon. Members do, that we get security by an increase of air armaments or an increase of any other form of armaments. — Stafford Cripps

We wake up to find the whole world building competitive trade barriers, just as we found it a few years ago building competitive armaments. We are trying to reduce armaments to preserve the world's solvency. We shall have to reduce competitive trade barriers to preserve the world's sanity. As between the two, trade barriers are more destructive than armaments and more threatening to the peace of the world. — Owen D. Young

People, and not only Americans, are losing their sons, husbands, brothers, and fathers for no other reason than the profits of US armaments corporations, and the gullible American people seem proud of it. Those ribbon decals on their cars, SUVs and monster trucks proclaim their naive loyalty to the armaments industries and to the whores in Washington who promote wars. — Paul Craig Roberts

I must say that the United States, of all the countries of the West, is the least guilty and has done the most in order to prevent it. The United States has helped Europe to win the First and the Second World Wars. It twice raised Europe from postwar destruction - twice - for ten, twenty, thirty years it has stood as a shield protecting Europe while European countries counted their nickels to avoid paying for their armies (better yet, to have none at all), to avoid paying for armaments, thinking about how to leave NATO, knowing that in any case America would protect them. These counties started it all, despite their thousand year old civilization and culture, even though they are closer to the danger and should have seen it more clearly. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Of course, the kind of support that Cuba could give us was very limited when it came to building up our army, since they didn't manufacture armaments in the quantities that we required. So we turned to Algeria and the Soviet Union for support. — Daniel Ortega

Personally, I do not believe that we shall have greater armaments in the future than we have had in the past. On the contrary, I believe there will be a gradual diminution in this respect. — William Watson

It is my thesis that flying saucers are real and that they are space ships from another solar system. I think that they possibly are manned by intelligent observers who are members of a race that may have been investigating our Earth for centuries. I think that they possibly have been sent out to conduct systematic, long-range investigations, first of men, animals, vegetation, and more recently of atomic centers, armaments an centers of armament production. — Hermann Oberth

The time has come for those nations that rely on the force of nuclear armaments to respectfully heed the voices of peace-loving people, not least the atomic bomb survivors, to strive in good faith for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, and to advance towards the complete abolishment of all such weapons. — Iccho Itoh

Any brief military advantage the USA might gain with nuclear weapons would be offset by political and psychological losses and damage to American prestige. The United States might even touch off a worldwide armaments race. — Albert Einstein

I know that military alliances and armament have been the reliance for peace for centuries, but they do not produce peace; and when war comes, as it inevitably does under such conditions, these armaments and alliances but intensify and broaden the conflict. — Frank B. Kellogg

As Darwin noted, "It is certain that with almost all animals there is a struggle between the males for the possession of the female." When males of a species battle it out directly, be it through the clashing antlers of deer, the stabbing horns of the stag beetle, the head butting of stalk-eyed flies, or the bloody battles of massive elephant seals, they win access to females by driving off competitors. Selection will favor any trait that promotes such victories so long as the increased chance of getting mates more than offsets any reduced survival. This kind of selection produces armaments: stronger weapons, larger body size, or anything that helps a male win physical contests. — Jerry A. Coyne

Did you know that every two hours the nations of this world spend as much on armaments as they spend on the children of this world every year? — Peter Ustinov

The moral is obvious it is that great armaments lead inevitably to war. — Edward Dunlop

That was an ordinary way for a patriotic American to talk back then. It's hard to believe how sick of war we used to be.[ ... ]We used to call armaments manufacturers "Merchants of Death."
Can you imagine that?
Nowadays, of course, just about our only solvent industry is the merchandising of death, bankrolled by our grandchildren, so that the message of our principal art forms, movies and television and political speeches and newspaper columns, for the sake of the economy, simply has to be this: War is hell, all right, but the only way a boy can become a man is in a shoot-out of some kind, preferably, but by no means necessarily, on a battlefield. — Kurt Vonnegut

Thus, if armaments were curtailed without a secure peace and all countries disarmed proportionately, military security would have been in no way affected. — Ludwig Quidde

It will be sufficient to point to the enormous burdens which armaments place on the economic, social, and intellectual resources of a nation, as well as on its budget and taxes. — Ludwig Quidde

A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very easy to govern. It demands no social reform. It does not haggle over expenditures for armaments and military equipment. It pays without discussion, it ruins itself, and that is an excellent thing for the syndicates of financiers and manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain. — Anatole France

The real weakness of England lies, not in incomplete armaments or unfortified coasts, not in the poverty that creeps through sunless lanes, or the drunkenness that brawls in loathsome courts, but simply in the fact that her ideals are emotional and not intellectual. — Oscar Wilde

This truth may be unfashionable, unpalatable, no doubt unpopular, but, if it is the truth, the story of mankind shows that war was universal and unceasing for millions of years before armaments were invented or armies organized. Indeed, the lucid intervals of peace and order only occurred in human history after armaments in the hands of strong governments have come into being, and civilization in every age has been nursed only in cradles guarded by superior weapons and superior discipline. — Winston Churchill

Every time we hold our tongues instead of returning the sharp retort, show patience with another's faults, show a little more love and kindness, we are helping to stock-pile more of these peace-bringing qualities in the world instead of armaments for war. — Connie Foster

In different countries the basis of resistance takes different forms, but it comes chiefly from the conservative groups. Hence it becomes increasingly difficult to go on spending in the presence of persisting deficits and rising debt. Some form of spending must be found that will command the support of the conservative groups. Political leaders, embarrassed by their subsidies to the poor, soon learned that one of the easiest ways to spend money is on military establishments and armaments, because it commands the support of the groups most opposed to spending. — John T. Flynn

There is a great difference, then, between "power" and "authority." Power refers to one's ability to coerce others (through physical, economic, or other means) to do one's bidding. One can possess the means of power: physical strength, armaments, and money. But authority must be performed. Authority refers to one's ability to gain the trust and willing obedience of others. While power rests on intimidation, authority survives through inspiration. — Joshua Meyrowitz

It has to be admitted that starving nations never seem to be quite so starving that they cannot afford to have far more expensive armaments than anybody else. — T.H. White

Armaments, universal debt, and planned obsolescence - those are the three pillars of Western prosperity. If war, waste, and moneylenders were abolished, you'd collapse. And while you people are overconsuming the rest of the world sinks more and more deeply into chronic disaster. — Aldous Huxley

And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men; sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations, than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever. Therefore as portrait-painters are more exact in the lines and features of the face, in which the character is seen, than in the other parts of the body, so I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks and indications of the souls of men, and while I endeavor by these to portray their lives, may be free to leave more weighty matters and great battles to be treated of by others. — Plutarch

If a country develops an economic system that is based on how to pay for the war, and if the amounts of fixed capital investment that are apparent are tied up in armaments, and if that country is a major exporter of arms, and its industrial fabric is dependent on them, then it would be in that country's interests to ensure that it always had a market. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is clearly in the interests of the world's leading arms exporters to make sure that there is always a war going on somewhere. — Marilyn Waring

My aim was to create armaments to protect the borders of my motherland. It is not my fault that the Kalashnikov became very well-known in the world; that it was used in many troubled places. I think the policies of these countries are to blame, not the designers. Man is born to protect his family, his children, his wife. But I want you to know that apart from armaments, I have written three books in which I try to educate our youth to show respect for their families, for old people, for history. — Mikhail Kalashnikov

Militarism is basically a way of thinking, a certain interpretation of the function of the state; this manner of thinking is, moreover, revealed by its outer forms: by armaments and state organization. — Christian Lous Lange

The question of armaments, whether on land or sea, is the most immediately and intensely practical question connected with the future fortunes of nations and of mankind. — Woodrow Wilson

If we fail to meet the challenge of either Soviet or Western imperialism, then no amount of foreign aid, no aggrandizement of armaments, no new pacts or doctrines or high-level conferences can prevent further setbacks to our course and to our security. — John F. Kennedy

We must wake up to the insane reality of our time. We are all irresponsible, unless we demand from the responsible decision makers that modern armaments must no longer be made available to people whose former battle axes and swords our ancestors condemned. — Thor Heyerdahl

For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeteers, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conquerors rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting. — George S. Patton Jr.

When we get to the point, as we one day will, that both sides know that in any outbreak of general hostilities, regardless of the element of surprise, destruction will be both reciprocal and complete, possibly we will have sense enough to meet at the conference table with the understanding that the era of armaments has ended and the human race must conform its actions to this truth or die. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

A program of "disarmament," while imperialist antagonisms survive, is the most pernicious of fictions. Even if it were realized by way of general agreement - an obviously fantastic assumption!- that would by no means
prevent a new war. The imperialists do not make war because there are armaments; on the contrary, they forge
arms when they need to fight. — Leon Trotsky

So long as peace is not attained by law (so argue the advocates of armaments) the military protection of a country must not be undermined, and until such is the case disarmament is impossible. — Ludwig Quidde

Among pacifists it was above all the English who always insisted on the importance of disarmament. They said that the man in the street would not understand the kind of pacifism that neglected to demand immediate restriction of armaments. — Ludwig Quidde

By the age of six the average child will have completed the basic American education ... From television, the child will have learned how to pick a lock, commit a fairly elaborate bank holdup, prevent wetness all day long, get the laundry twice as white, and kill people with a variety of sophisticated armaments. — John F. Kennedy

If you look at the First World War, the Kaiser was actually, actively buying a lot of the armaments from Britain! in the years, in the run-up to the First World War. And I mean, there was a connection there. He was, indeed, Queen Victoria's grandson. You know, they were all related, all these royal families. — Jacqueline Winspear