Quotes & Sayings About Necessary War

I like pacifists and people who have a heavy emotional identification with deathism and war would probably call me a pacifist, but I am a non-invasivist rather than a non-violentist. That is, I believe that an invaded people have the right to defend themselves by any means necessary. This includes putting ground glass or poison in the invaders' food, shooting at them from ambush, sabotage, the general strike, armed revolution, etc. It's up to the invaded to decide which of these techniques they will use. It's not up to some moralist to tell them which techniques are permissible. — Robert Anton Wilson

The people and the warmakers are two distinct groups. We must never say 'we' when discussing the US government's foreign policy. For one thing, the warmakers do not care about the opinions of the majority of Americans. It is silly and embarrassing for Americans to speak of 'we' when discussing their government's foreign policy, as if their input were necessary to or desired by those who make war. — Llewellyn Rockwell

Another thing is war. I am naturally warlike. Attacking is one of my instincts. Being able to be an enemy, being an enemy - these require a strong nature, perhaps; in any case every strong nature presupposes them. It needs resistances, so it seeks
resistance: aggressive pathos is just as integrally necessary to strength as the feeling of revenge and reaction is to weakness. Woman, forinstance, is vengeful: that is a condition of her weakness, as is her sensitivity to other people's afflictions. - The strength of anattacker can in a way be gauged by the opposition he requires; allgrowth makes itself manifest by searching out a more powerful opponent - or problem: for a philosopher who is warlike challenges problems to duels, too. The task is not to master all resistances, but only those against which one has to pit one's entire strength, suppleness, and mastery-at-arms - opponents who are equal ... — Friedrich Nietzsche

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

Will we turn our backs on science because it is perceived as a threat to God, abandoning all the promise of advancing our understanding of nature and applying that to the alleviation of suffering and the betterment of humankind? Alternatively, will we turn our backs on faith, concluding that science has rendered the spiritual life no longer necessary, and that traditional religious symbols can now be replaced by engravings of the double helix on our alters?
Both of these choices are profoundly dangerous. Both deny truth. Both will diminish the nobility of humankind. Both will be devastating to our future. And both are unnecessary. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate and beautiful - and it cannot be at war with itself. Only we imperfect humans can start such battles. And only we can end them. — Francis S. Collins

This war is not necessary. We are truly sleepwalking through history. — Robert Byrd

The starkest reality of war is that the enemy is never really a monster, never inhuman ... Every soldier is the same fallible breed of human that we are. The making of war, even the most necessary and 'just' war, hardens human hearts. — Stan Goff

For us, the idea was not to get involved more than necessary in the fight against the Russians, which was the business of the Americans, but rather to show our solidarity with our Islamist brothers. I discovered that it was not enough to fight in Afghanistan, but that we had to fight on all fronts against communist or Western oppression. The urgent thing was communism, but the next target was America ... This is an open war up to the end, until victory. — Osama Bin Laden

The vast majority of the peoples of the world are against war and against aggression. If they make their wishes known and effective, war can be stopped. It all depends on whether they are willing to make the effort necessary for the purpose. For, that it will require an effort, no one who considers the history of the world on these subjects can doubt. — Robert Cecil, 1st Earl Of Salisbury

War is just to those for whom it is necessary, and arms are clear of impiety for those who have no hope left but in arms. — Livy

Franklin says, "war is robbery, commerce is generally cheating."[164] If the transformation of merchants' money into capital is to be explained otherwise than by the producers being simply cheated, a long series of intermediate steps would be necessary, which, at present, when the simple circulation of commodities forms our only assumption, are entirely wanting. — Karl Marx

Sometimes violence is necessary to prevent even more violence, I concluded, almost as if it were an epiphany. — Zack Love

The cruel man is of misanthropic temperament, and is a man of moods, oscillating from quiet brooding to sudden explosions. If a man like this does not fight this unhappy provision of his soul during his youth, under no circumstances could he a void becoming furious - and foolish. There are those who would leave it up to God, but to ensure justice on the earth, and not fob it off to the Divinity, it is mandatory that people know both virtue and its benefits, since the virtues lead to unity among them, not the war of all against all. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to conserve them, and show that crime can only return misfortunes and destruction, including of the criminal himself. Who is the last victim of his crimes. — Frederick The Great

ISIS and Iran have declared war on America, and we need a commander in chief who will do everything necessary to keep our children safe. — Ted Cruz

McChrystal had organized a jaw-dropping counterterrorism campaign inside Iraq, but the tactical successes did not translate into a strategic victory. This was why counterinsurgency - blanketing the population in safety and winning them over - was necessary. — Bob Woodward

Either Christ is a liar or war is never necessary, and very properly assuming that Christ told the truth, it follows that the State is without [in the words of Father Macksey] 'judicial authority to determine when war is necessary,' because it is never necessary. — Ben Salmon

For realists, war is like surgery-a painful and dangerous activity that is sometimes necessary ... A pacifist is like a Christian Scientist who is against surgery even when the alternative is the crippling or death of the patient. — Michael Lind

So far as I am concerned I have no doctrinaire belief in free speech. In the interest of the war it is necessary to sacrifice some of it. — Walter Lippmann

decision-making. Far from placing the nation and the world at risk to protect his own reputation for toughness, he probably would have backed down, in public if necessary, whatever the domestic political damage might have been. There may be, in short, room here for a new profile in courage - but it would be courage of a different kind from what many people presumed that term to mean throughout much of the Cold War.7 — Robert F. Kennedy

To maintain peace in the future it is necessary to be prepared for war. — Ulysses S. Grant

Americans are not going to tolerate intimidation, terror and outright acts of war against this nation and its people. And we are especially not going to tolerate these attacks from outlaw states run by the strangest collection of misfits, Looney Tunes and squalid criminals since the advent of the Third Reich ... There can be no place on earth where it is safe for these monsters to rest,or train or practice their cruel and deadly. We must act together - or unilateraly, if necessary - to ensue that these terrorists have no sanctuary, anywhere. — Ronald Reagan

The war has jerked us pretty sharply into consciousness about this slug-a-bed sin of Sloth, and perhaps we need not say too much about it. But two warnings are rather necessary. — Dorothy L. Sayers

The Iraq war was not necessary. — Scott McClellan

Once the war began, the government could do anything 'necessary' to win it; so it was with the 'final solution of the Jewish problem,' which the Nazis always talked about but never dared undertake, not even the Nazis, until war and its 'necessities' gave them the knowledge that they could get away with it. The people abroad who thought that war against Hitler would help the Jews were wrong. And the people in Germany who, once the war had begun, still thought of complaining, protesting, resisting, were betting on Germany's losing the war. It was a long bet. Not many made it. — Milton Mayer

War is just when it is necessary; arms are permissible when there is no hope except in arms. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Even if it were within her legal right and authority, it would harm more than help. It might be argued that it is like capital punishment today: the state has the right to use it if necessary, but since it is no longer necessary, it would do more public harm than good in the current war against the culture of death. — Peter Kreeft

In the spring of 1990 I flew to Aspen, Colorado, to cover a summit meeting between Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President George Herbert Walker Bush. This fairly routine political event took on sudden significance when, on the evening before the talks were scheduled to begin, Saddam Hussein announced that the independent state of Kuwait had, by virtue of a massive deployment of military force, become a part of Iraq. We were not to know that this act - and the name Saddam Hussein - would dominate international politics for the next decade and more, but it was still possible to witness something extraordinary: the sight of Mrs. Thatcher publicly inserting quantities of lead into George Bush's pencil. The spattering quill of a Ralph Steadman would be necessary to do justice to such a macabre yet impressive scene. — Christopher Hitchens

We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not enough to say we will not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace — Martin Luther King Jr.

A natural order is a stable order. There is no chance that gravity will cease to function tomorrow, even if people stop believing in it. In contrast, an imagined order is always in danger of collapse, because it depends upon myths, and myths vanish once people stop believing in them. In order to safeguard an imagined order, continuous and strenuous efforts are imperative. Some of these efforts take the shape of violence and coercion. Armies, police forces, courts and prisons are ceaselessly at work forcing people to act in accordance with the imagined order. If an ancient Babylonian blinded his neighbour, some violence was usually necessary in order to enforce the law of 'an eye for an eye'. When, in 1860, a majority of American citizens concluded that African slaves are human beings and must therefore enjoy the right of liberty, it took a bloody civil war to make the southern states acquiesce. However, — Yuval Noah Harari

A warrior of light respects the main teaching of the I Ching: 'To persevere is favourable.'
He knows that perseverance is not the same thing as insistence. There are
times when battles go on longer than necessary, draining him of strength and
enthusiasm.
At such moments, the warrior thinks: 'A prolonged war finally destroys the
victors too.'
Then he withdraws his forces from the battlefield and allows himself a
respite. He perseveres in his desire, but knows he must wait for the best moment to attack.
A warrior always returns to the fray. He never does so out of stubbornness,
but because he has noticed a change in the weather. — Paulo Coelho

The punishment of death is the war of a nation against a citizen whose destruction it judges to be necessary or useful. — Cesare Beccaria

I'm not anti-war. I served in a war, and I served proudly. But just or not, necessary or not, war is the industrial-scale slaughter of other humans. — Phil Klay

There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor
both black and white
through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Of the tyrant, spies and informers are the principal instruments. War is his favorite occupation, for the sake of engrossing the attention of the people, and making himself necessary to them as their leader. — Aristotle.

Have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 4 June 1940 — Andrew Roberts

It was necessary that millions of men in whose hands lay the real power
the soldiers who fired, or transported provisions and guns
should consent to carry out the will of these weak individuals ... — Leo Tolstoy

Muslim moderates, wherever they are, must be given every tool necessary to win a war of ideas with their co-religionists. Otherwise, we will have to win some very terrible wars in the future. — Sam Harris

Darwinism by itself did not produce the Holocaust, but without Darwinism ... neither Hitler nor his Nazi followers would have had the necessary scientific underpinnings to convince themselves and their collaborators that one of the worlds greatest atrocities was really morally praiseworthy. — Richard Weikart

But before we could continue the war, it was necessary to analyze it to determine what its purpose was. We did this, and we found that it had no purpose, except, perhaps, in terms of human needs. Even this was questionable. — Philip K. Dick

It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. — Martin Luther King Jr.

To avoid a future of war, crime, and bankruptcy, the individual must begin to plan his own destiny, and the best source for the necessary information comes down to us through the writings of the ancients. The greatest knowledge of all time should be available ... in a book that would be a monument, not merely a coffin. — Manly Hall

Then as to churches, they are good, I suppose, else wouldn't good men uphold' em. But they are not altogether necessary. They call 'em the temples of the Lord; but, Judith, the whole 'arth is a temple of the Lord to such as have the right mind. Neither forts nor churches make people happier of themselves. Moreover, all is contradiction in the settlements, while all is concord in the woods. Forts and churches almost always go together, and yet they're downright contradictions; churches being for peace, and forts for war. No, no
give me the strong places of the wilderness, which is the trees, and the churches, too, which are arbors raised by the hand of nature. — James Fenimore Cooper

No matter what the cause, even though it be to conquer with tanks and planes and modern artillery some defenseless black population, there will be no lack of poets and preachers and essayists and philosophers to invent the necessary reasons and gild the infamy with righteousness. To this righteousness there is, of course, never an adequate reply. Thus a war to end poverty becomes an unanswerable enterprise. For who can decently be for poverty? To even debate whether the war will end poverty becomes an exhibition of ugly pragmatism and the sign of an ignoble mind. — John T. Flynn

War, in our country, ought never to be resorted to but when it is clearly justifiable and necessary; so much so as not to require the aid of logic to convince our understanding nor the ardour of eloquence to inflame our passions. There are many reasons why this country should never resort to it but for causes the most urgent and necessary. — John C. Calhoun

As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time. Since the Iraq conflict began, the Army has been pressing ahead to produce the armor necessary at a rate that they believe
it's a greatly expanded rate from what existed previously, but a rate that they believe is the rate that is all that can be accomplished at this moment. — Donald Rumsfeld

The expenses required to prevent a war are much lighter than those that will, if not prevented, be absolutely necessary to maintain it. — Benjamin Franklin

Gandhi was such an important figure to the pacifists of the '30s, and he was such an extraordinary embodiment of nonviolence, that I thought it was necessary to have him in there. When he would say something about the war, it was to some extent news - and he was sure to have a response that was different from that of other world leaders. — Nicholson Baker

There is an inability to sustain the tragic mood, a phoenix quality of the mind. It may be helpful or harmful, it is just a part of the will to survive - yet, also, it has made it possible for us to engage in one weakening war after another. But it is a necessary part of our mechanism that we should be able to cry only for a time over even an ocean of spilt milk - the spectacular must soon become the commonplace if life is to be supportable. — John Wyndham

They can see everything they want to, but never forget that they cannot see beyond the distortion of their imagination where there is no color and everything exists in black and white. And that is why we will survive, because they do not have what is necessary to defeat us. The real war is between our imagination and theirs, what we can see and what they are blinded to. Do not despair. None of them can see far enough, and so long as we do not let them violate our imagination we will survive. — Lawrence Thornton

I do not think that war is always wrong: sometimes it is necessary to stop a dictator, prevent massive human-rights abuses, or expel an invader. But I have also seen that in the modern world, civil wars are the greatest threat to humanitarian security. — Jonathan Powell

It is exceptional and difficult to find in one man all the qualities necessary for a great general. — Napoleon Bonaparte

I just want to stop the cycle of killing," Freddy said. "It isn't necessary. It isn't even necessary that people eat meat. And it certainly isn't necessary that people make war on people. I'm doing my small part to change the species." "Umm," said Howard. — Ernest Hebert

After 9-11, the President had a historic opportunity to unite Americans and the world in common cause. Instead, by exploiting the politics of fear, instigating an optional war in Iraq before finishing a necessary war in Afghanistan and instituting policies on torture, detainees and domestic surveillance that fly in the face of our values and interests, President Bush divided Americans from each other and from the world. — Joe Biden

She remembered reading how the American South had often compared itself to Rome back before the Civil War. In the old days their society had been all about impressive architecture, honor, and codes of chivalry. And on the evil side, it had also been about slavery. Rome had slaves, some Southerners had argued, so why shouldn't we?
Annabeth shivered. She loved the architecture here. The houses and the gardens were very beautiful, very Roman. But she wondered why beautiful things had to be wrapped up with evil history. Or was it the other way around? Maybe the evil history made it necessary to build beautiful things, to mask the darker aspects. — Rick Riordan

[I]t's impossible to evade the fact that Endless War will inevitably degrade the citizenry of the country that engages in it. A country which venerates its military above all other institutions, which demands that its soldiers be spoken of only with religious-like worship, and which continuously indoctrinates its population to believe that endless violence against numerous countries is necessary and just - all by instilling intense fear of the minorities who are the target of that endless violence - will be a country filled with citizens convinced of the virtues and nobility of aggression. — Glenn Greenwald

I think that winning the battle in Hollywood is a necessary condition to winning the culture war. — Jason Jones

Sometimes war is necessary to teach us the value of peace. Sometimes you need to learn the real value of diplomacy in avoiding war. And I'd rather my students learned those lessons on the playground than on the battlefield. — Neil Gaiman

War can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun. — Mao Tse-tung

While war is never anyone first choice, sometimes it is a necessary choice. — Gresham Barrett

But I felt it necessary to be part of the war effort and I enlisted in the Navy to be a flyer. — Paul Berg

Listen to the speeches, one after another telling the audience what it already knows, evoking applause with necessary cliches, no longer shocking anybody with the shocking facts of the war because you can become so jaded with horror that you develop an emotional callous. — Paul Krassner

'The Underland Chronicles' is an unnecessary war for a very long time until it becomes a necessary war, because there have been all these points where people could have gotten off the train but they didn't; they just kept moving the violence forward until it's gone out of control. — Suzanne Collins

Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugationthe last arguments to which kings resort. — Patrick Henry

The love and war in the previous injunctions are of the nature of sport, where one respects, and learns from the opponent, but never interferes with him, outside the actual game. To seek to dominate or influence another is to seek to deform or destroy him; and he is a necessary part of one's own Universe, that is, of one's self. — Aleister Crowley

You needn't worry about me. I know enough to do what every man ought to do in wartime when he's watched and threatened by bullies. I conceal my feelings; lie whenever necessary; pretend to admire the rascals who've ruined our city and our country; cheer dolts, bullies and knaves and damn all wise temperate men! — Kenneth Roberts

As all those have shown who have discussed civil institutions, and as every history is full of examples, it is necessary to whoever arranges to found a Republic and establish laws in it, to presuppose that all men are bad and that they will use their malignity of mind every time they have the opportunity. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Politics are not unlike war. Sometimes it is necessary to shoot from the hip. — Jesse H. Jones

That doctrine of peace at any price has done more mischief than any I can well recall that have been afloat in this country. It has occasioned more wars than any of the most ruthless conquerors. It has disturbed and nearly destroyed that political equilibrium so necessary to the liberties and the welfare of the world. — Benjamin Disraeli

During the war, the holders of power in all countries found it necessary to bribe the populations into cooperation by unusual concessions. Wage-earners were allowed a living wage, Hindus were told they were men and brothers, women were given the vote, and young people were allowed to enjoy those innocent pleasures of which the old, in the name of morality, always wish to rob them. The war being won, the victors set to work to deprive their tools of advantages temporarily conceded. — Bertrand Russell

War is like art. It paints a picture mixed with lies and truths in order to help one find something absolute. It brings out imagination. It brings out intelligence. It brings out illumination. The art is worth dying for. The struggle is worth the reward, because even if cause looks futile now, the idea behind it has the power to bring liberation. Although it can be considered a necessary evil, it is a remissible good. War is like art, for it paints a picture of truth. — Lionel Suggs

We must be strong at home if we are going to be strong abroad. We understand that. So we want to be strong at home in our morale or in our spirit, we want to be strong intellectually, in our education, in our economy and, where necessary, militarily. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

As a very young man I signed a declaration - 'I renounce war and will never support another'. That was in 1939 and I have maintained this stand throughout the whole period, including WW2, as a Conscientious Objector.Worked to achieve Peace since. It is necessary for individuals to take this stand and maintain it. War never solves anything - it accentuates any problem, whatever it is, and makes matters worse. There is no moral or humanitarian justification for it. — Donald Saunders

Both deaths were equally vain, neither of them shortened the war by so much as a second; but in both cases, the man or men who killed them believed it was just and necessary; and if they were wrong, who's to blame? What — Jonathan Littell

The goddess smiled. "You are a good hero, Percy Jackson. Not too proud. I like that. But you have much to learn. When Dionysus was made a god, I gave up my throne for him. It was the only way to avoid a civil war among the gods."
"It unbalanced the Council," I remembered. "Suddenly there were seven guys and five girls."
Hestia shrugged. "It was the best solution, not a perfect one. Now I tend the fire. I fade slowly into the background. No one will ever write epic poems about the deeds of Hestia. Most demigods don't even stop to talk to me. But that is no matter. I keep the peace. I yield when necessary. Can you do this? — Rick Riordan

In 'The Hunger Games,' in most people's idea, in terms of rebellion or a civil-war situation, that would meet the criteria for a necessary war. These people are oppressed, their children are being taken off and put in gladiator games. They're impoverished, they're starving, they're brutalized. — Suzanne Collins

It is ... necessary to whip up the population in support of foreign adventures. Usually the population is pacifist, just like they were during the First World War. The public sees no reason to get involved in foreign adventures, killing, and torture. So you have to whip them up. And to whip them up you have to frighten them. — Noam Chomsky

Turgot turned out to be correct regarding this chilling prophecy: "War we ought to shun as the greatest of evils, since it will render impossible for a very long time, and perhaps forever, the reform which is absolutely necessary for the prosperity of the State and for the relief of the people." In other words, every cent the French government spent on guns for the Americans was another centime it would not have to spend on butter for the starving peasants who would one day storm Versailles. The — Sarah Vowell

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. — Ernest Hemingway,

If it is necessary we will find a quick answer and it will not be the way the United States expects it. It will be an answer that devalues the 'Star Wars' program. — Sergey Akhromeyev

Those of us who finally saw through the Vietnam war saw through this war, and all the actions that were necessary to end the Vietnam war will be necessary here. I think the American people will get us out of this war. — Daniel Ellsberg

There are some who feel like - that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on! We've got the force necessary ... — George W. Bush

The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art. If you try to run away from it, if you are scared to go to the brink, you are lost. — John Foster Dulles

A war without a strategy cannot be won. Then it is merely a battle where more lives are lost than necessary. — Jennifer Megan Varnadore

We must carry the war into every corner the enemy happens to carry it, to his home, to his centers of entertainment: a total war. It is necessary to prevent him from having a moment of peace, a quiet moment outside his barracks or even inside; we must attack him wherever he may be, make him feel like a cornered beast wherever he may move. Then his moral fiber shall begin to decline, but we shall notice how the signs of decadence begin to disappear. — Che Guevara

Men must be able to engage in business and go to war, but leisure and peace are better; they must do what is necessary and indeed what is useful, but what is honorable is better. On such principles children and persons of every age which requires education should be trained. — Aristotle.

There are times for war - many times. But sometimes it's necessary to risk speaking the truth of our own vulnerabilities. — Andrea Cremer

In order to bring a nation to support the burdens of maintaining great military establishments, it is necessary to create an emotional state akin to war psychology. There must be the portrayal of an external menace. This involves the development to a high degree of the nation-hero, nation-villain ideology and the arousing of the population to a sense of sacrifice. Once these exist, we have gone a long way on the path to war. — John Foster Dulles

After the war, Germany fully confessed to all its dirty tricks. It's necessary to is draw a line under the past, even if people did something evil. Until we do, wounds won't heal. — Lech Walesa

For Americans war is almost all of the time a nuisance, and military skill is a luxury like Mah-Jongg. But when the issue is brought home to them, war becomes as important, for the necessary period, as business or sport. And it is hard to decide which is likely to be the more ominous for the Axis
an American decision that this is sport, or that it is business. — D. W Brogan

They do not know what they say. If it came to a conflict of arms, the war will last at least four years. Northern politicians will not appreciate the determination and pluck of the South, and Southern politicians do not appreciate the numbers, resources, and patient perseverance of the North. Both sides forget that we are all Americans. I foresee that our country will pass through a terrible ordeal, a necessary expiation, perhaps, for our national sins. — Robert E.Lee

When the war (WWI) finally ended it was necessary for both sides to maintain, indeed even to inflate, the myth of sacrifice so that the whole affair would not be seen for what it was: a meaningless waste of millions of lives. Logically, if the flower of youth had been cut down in Flanders, the survivors were not the flower: the dead were superior to the traumatized living. In this way, the virtual destruction of a generation further increased the distance between the old and the young, between the official and the unofficial. — Robert Hughes

I was deeply disturbed by the meeting. If I couldn't do what I thought was necessary to take care of the troops, I didn't see how I could remain as secretary. I was in a quandary. I shared Obama's concerns about an open-ended conflict, and while I wanted to fulfill the troop requests of the commanders, I knew they always would want more - just like all their predecessors throughout history. How did you scale the size of the commitment to the goal? How did you measure risk? But I was deeply uneasy with the Obama White House's lack of appreciation - from the top down - of the uncertainties and inherent unpredictability of war. "They all seem to think it's a science," I wrote in a note to myself. I came closer to resigning that day than at any other time in my tenure, though no one knew it. During — Robert M. Gates

It was probably not an appropriate term, but we support the war effort and believe we should be supporting our troops and our allies and be there with them doing everything necessary to win. — Stephen Harper

P R E S I D E N T Y O S H I D A'S T E N S P A R T A N R UlE S Hideo Yoshida's quest for management excellence was no doubt driven by his visions for Japanese marketing and media, but also by an overall worry about Japan's economic prospects after World War II. As a result, he developed a set of business and work principles, or rules, which he called the "Ten Spartan Rules": difficult work.5. Once you begin a task, complete it. Never give up.6. Lead and set an example for your fellow workers.7. Set goals for yourself to ensure a constant sense of purpose.8. Move with confidence. It gives your work force and substance.9. At all times, challenge yourself to think creatively and find new solutions.10. When confrontation is necessary, don't shy away from it. Confrontation is often necessary to achieve progress. These traditional work rules still guide Dentsu's employees, and are carried around in their notebooks — Anonymous

As for the problem of overproduction, which has been latent in our society since the development of the machine technique, it is solved by the device of continuous warfare, which is also useful in keying up public morale to the necessary pitch.
...
The problem, that is to say, is educational. It is a problem of continuously molding the consciousness both of the directing group and of the larger executive group that lies immediately below it. The consciousness of the masses needs only to be influenced in a negative way. — George Orwell

Never think that war is a good thing, grandchildren. Though it may be necessary at times to defend our people, war is a sickness that must be cured. War is a time out of balance. When it is truly over, we must work to restore peace and sacred harmony once again. — Joseph Bruchac

I hope I am not for the killing, Anselmo was thinking. I think that after the war there will have to be some great penance done for the killing. If we no longer have religion after the war then I think there must be some form of civic penance organized that all may be cleansed from the killing or else we will never have a true and human basis for living. The killing is necessary, I know, but still the doing of it is very bad for a man and I think that, after all this is over and we have won the war, there must be a penance of some kind for the cleansing of us all. — Ernest Hemingway,

When I was a teenager I took freedom for granted until I got through the army and saw what the Nazis had done in Germany. Then I realized that freedom isn't automatic; it has a price.

World War II was a justified and necessary war. Last year I met five survivors of Auschwitz concentration camp. The things that happened to those people should never have happened to any human being.

- Ed Tipper — Marcus Brotherton

To carry on war, three things are necessary: money, money, and yet more money. — Gian Giacomo Trivulzio

As a moral and social institution, a weekly rest is invaluable. It is a quiet domestic reunion for the bustling sons of toil. It ensures the necessary vacation in those earthly and turbulent anxieties and affections, which would otherwise become inordinate and morbid. It brings around a season of periodical neatness and decency, when the soil of weekly labour is laid aside, and men meet each other amidst the decencies of the sanctuary, and renew their social affections. But above all, a Sabbath (one day of rest in seven) is necessary for man's moral and religious interests. — Robert Dabney