War Profit Quotes & Sayings

To summarize: Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket. 1. We must take the profit out of war. 2. We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war. 3. We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes. — Smedley D. Butler

In the days of peace every precaution should be taken to insure that there are no forces making for war. Just as we now forbid the trafficking in certain drugs, in the sale of poisons, just as we forbid the making of any imprint that suggests a coin or currency, just as experience has demonstrated that men may not make profit out of certain things because of the danger of abuse, so in the gravest of all dangers laws should be passed taking from those who might gain from war or preparations for war every hope that advantage could come to them by such a calamity. — Frederic C. Howe

War is a profession by which a man cannot live honorably; an employment by which the soldier, if he would reap any profit, is obliged to be false, rapacious, and cruel. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics. — Theodore Roosevelt

War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it. — George Orwell

The only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war. — Richard M. Nixon

The parties with the most gain never show up on the battlefield. — Naomi Klein

Most of Marx's predictions have failed to materialize, and his labor theory of value and other ideas have been proven wrong. Marx failed to recognize the incentive system built into the capitalist model - consumer choice and the profit motive of the entrepreneur. The irony is that capitalism, not socialism or Marxism, that has liberated the worker from the chains of poverty, monopoly, war, and oppression, and has better achieved Marx's vision of a millennium of hope, peace, abundance, leisure, and aesthetic expression for the 'full' human being. — Mark Skousen

Only three routes of upward mobility were available to socially ambitious upstarts such as Columbus: war, the Church, and the sea. Columbus probably contemplated all three: he wanted a clerical career for one of his brothers, and fancied himself as "a captain of cavaliers and conquests." But seafaring was a natural choice, especially for a boy from a maritime community as single-minded as that of Genoa. Opportunities for employment and profit abounded. — Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

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

It is not with earth, though I must till it, I feel at war..but I may not profit of what it bears of beauty,untoiling, Nor gratify my thousands swelling thoughts with knowledge, Nor allay my thousand fears of death and life. — George Gordon Byron

Much earlier than Richardson, before World War I, in fact, Norman Angell had shown that the idea of fighting a war for profit was obsolete. The victors would pay a heavier cost than the losers. He was right, and that First World War proved the fact. The second one hammered it home with everything up to and including nuclear weapons. In an individual one would regard it as evidence of insanity to see someone repeatedly undertaking enterprises that resulted in his losing precisely what he claimed he was trying to achieve; it is not less lunatic to do it on the international scale, but if you've been catching the news lately you'll have noticed it's being done more than ever. — John Brunner

Ignorance is king. Many would not profit by his abdication. Many enrich themselves by means of his dark monarchy. They are his Court, and in his name they defraud and govern, enrich themselves and perpetuate their power. Even literacy they fear, for the written word is another channel of communication that might cause their enemies to become united. Their weapons are keen-honed, and they use them with skill. They will press the battle upon the world when their interests are threatened, and the violence which follows will last until the structure of society as it now exists is leveled to rubble, and a new society emerges. I am sorry. But that is how I see it. — Walter M. Miller Jr.

In the various states of society, armies are recruited from very different motives. Barbarians are urged by the love of war; the citizens of a free republic may be prompted by a principle of duty; the subjects, or at least the nobles, of a monarchy, are animated by a sentiment of honor; but the timid and luxurious inhabitants of a declining empire must be allured into the service by the hopes of profit, or compelled by the dread of punishment. — Edward Gibbon

The term railway was to Victorian England what atomic or aerodynamic were to be after World War II, and network and virtual are today. When it came to investments, the romantic appeal of being a party to this technological revolution often dominated profit considerations. — Richard Bookstaber

We go to gain a little patch of ground that hath in it no profit but the name. — William Shakespeare

It can even be thought that radium could become very dangerous in criminal hands, and here the question can be raised whether mankind benefits from knowing the secrets of Nature, whether it is ready to profit from it or whether this knowledge will not be harmful for it. The example of the discoveries of Nobel is characteristic, as powerful explosives have enabled man to do wonderful work. They are also a terrible means of destruction in the hands of great criminals who lead the peoples towards war. I am one of those who believe with Nobel that mankind will derive more good than harm from the new discoveries. — Pierre Curie

War traumatizes soldier and civilian alike; warfare is a profit-making racket; warfare resolves nothing that negotiations can't resolve better; the weapons we have now make non-violence the only option to planetary annihilation. — Madeline Taylor

It is a commonplace that men like war. For peace, in our society, with the feeling we have then that it is feeble-minded to strive except for one's own private profit, is a lonely thing and a hazardous business. Over and over men have proved that they prefer the hazards of war with all its suffering. It has its compensations. — Ruth Benedict

First, our enemies were the natives, then they were the Nazis, then after a while it was the communists. Finally, at the pinnacle of what we're calling civilization, our enemies are the Islamic terrorists. Our enemies seem to change over the course of history along with our ways of fighting them. But what hasn't changed is government profit; politicians and leaders seem to always be getting richer by the blood of our soldiers. Makes you wonder who the real enemy has been all this time. — Bruce Crown

There can be no profit in the making or selling of things to be destroyed in war. Men may think that they have such profit, but in the end the profit will turn out to be a loss. — Alexander Hamilton

It is imperative to contest all factions for complete victory, so the army is not garrisoned and the profit can be total. This is the law of strategic siege. — Sun Tzu

War is a racket. The few profit, the many pay. — Noam Chomsky

Show me who makes a profit from war, and I'll show you how to stop the war. — Henry Ford

Second is the way of the merchant. The wine maker obtains his ingredients and puts them to use to make his living. The way of the merchant is always to live by taking profit. — Miyamoto Musashi

But that is who we are, that is where we come from. We are the offspring of metropolitan annihilation and destruction, of the war of all against all, of the conflict of each individual with every other individual, of a system governed by fear, of the compulsion to produce, of the profit of one to the detriment of others, of the division of people into men and women, young and old, sick and healthy, foreigners and Germans, and of the struggle for prestige. Where do we come from? From isolation in individual row-houses, from the suburban concrete cities, from prison cells, from the asylums and special units, from media brainwashing, from consumerism, from corporal punishment, from the ideology of nonviolence, from depression, from illness, from degradation, from humiliation, from the debasement of human beings, from all the people exploited by imperialism. — Ulrike Marie Meinhof

Our resistance to this war should be our resistance to profit at the cost of human life. Because that is what these drums beating over Iraq are really about. This is about business. — Tim Robbins

They're out there, this appalling idea that there are companies that profit - not just profit but profit enormously - through war. — Jonathan Demme

The corporations that profit from permanent war need us to be afraid. Fear stops us from objecting to government spending on a bloated military. Fear means we will not ask unpleasant questions of those in power. Fear permits the government to operate in secret. Fear means we are willing to give up our rights and liberties for promises of security. The imposition of fear ensures that the corporations that wrecked the country cannot be challenged. Fear keeps us penned in like livestock. — Chris Hedges

War: a massacre of people who don't know each other for the profit of people who know each other but don't massacre each other. — Paul Valery

it is the considered belief of the writer of this book that wars are fought by the finest people that there are, or just say people, although, the closer you are to where they are fighting, the finer people you meet; but they are made, provoked and initiated by straight economic rivalries and by swine that stand to profit from them. I believe that all the people who stand to profit by a war and who help provoke it should be shot on the first day it starts by accredited representatives of the loyal citizens of their country who will fight — Ernest Hemingway,

On January 17, 1991 and for the 43 days that followed, I watched CNN's live coverage of SCUD missiles and bombs fall over Baghdad like rain; then the 12 ½ years of unjust sanctions that killed approximately a million Iraqis, half of which were children under the age of five; then an unjust attack in 2003 that opened the borders to terrorists from all over the world and reduced the cradle of civilization to piles of rubble. The gov. asked us to support their plan or else be considered anti-American and undemocratic and they ask of us the same today, 25 years later, even though history proved they were pro-profit not pro-life. — Weam Namou

War like any other racket, pays high dividends to the very few. The cost of operations is always transferred to the people who do not profit. — Smedley Butler

War is a marvellous stimulus for the economy of a failing country. It takes young men out of unemployment and creates wealth for Arms dealers, construction companies and medical and drugs corporations. Said country can rape thieve and pillage with complete justification. World War III - coming to a TV screen near you soon. — Ken Scott

Religion robs the soul of its independence; patriotism is the stupid worship of the world for which the well-being and the peace of the inhabitants were sacrificed by those who profit by it, while the laws of the land, in restraining natural desires, were waging war on the manifest spirit of the law of our beings. Compared with this," he concluded, "thieving is an honorable pursuit."[5] — Emma Goldman

I guess if people couldn't profit from war I don't think there would be war. — Lily Tomlin

The Greatest Generation?
They tell me I am a member of the greatest generation. That's because I saw combat duty as a bombardier in World War 11. But I refuse to celebrate "the greatest generation" because in so doing we are celebrating courage and sacrifice in the cause of war. And we are miseducating the young to believe that military heroism is the noblest form of heroism, when it should be remembered only as the tragic accompaniment of horrendous policies driven by power and profit. The current infatuation with World War 11 prepares us
innocently on the part of some, deliberately on the part of others
for more war, more military adventures, more attempts to emulate the military heroes of the past. — Howard Zinn

War is never economically beneficial except for those in position to profit from war expenditures. — Ron Paul

In a general view, there are few conquests that repay the charge of making them, and mankind are pretty well convinced that it can never be worth their while to go to war for profit's sake. If they are made war upon, their country invaded, or their existence at stake, it is their duty to defend and preserve themselves, but in every other light, and from every other cause, is war inglorious and detestable. — Thomas Paine

We must take the profit out of war. — Smedley Butler

Wars are popular. Contractors make profits; the aristocracy glean honour. — Ramsay MacDonald

I believe that all the people who stand to profit by a war and who help provoke it should be shot on the first day it starts by accredited representatives of the loyal citizens of their country who will fight it. — Ernest Hemingway,

The military-industrial complex corporations never complain of higher prices for bombs, planes, drones, and missiles. They benefit when prices rise and when cost overruns are covered with more money from the US Treasury. Those who profit are the greatest champions of the military readiness and armed conflict. They are represented by lobbyists who greatly influence both political parties. Corporate war profits and high union wages bring about remarkable cooperation between the two parties despite the political rhetoric suggesting passionate disagreement. And these militaristic policies are defended with patriotic zeal, and in appeals regarding our moral obligation to take care of all the world's needs and to meet our obligation to spread our "goodness" around the world. — Ron Paul

I'm not pro-war. But I think war has been the dominant condition of humankind, and peace has been the anomaly - certainly sustained periods of peace that profit great masses of people - and I think war has worked, even awful hellish wars: worked to staunch fascist aggression in Europe, worked to preserve the Union after secession in the United States, etc. Not always, maybe not often, but to say never is to reject history in favor of a wishful unreality. — Philip Gourevitch

Though some men did not make war as others did, if they sold their goods for profit to the war-makers, did it make them better because the weapon was not in their own hands, if they had made the weapon and sold it and so put it into the hands of those used it upon the innocent? — Pearl S. Buck

Love is Compassion, Endurance, Equanimity, Impartiality, Magnetic, Patient and Just (and Where Justice Is Not, Hate-Traders Profit) — Elizabeth Lucye Robillard

The war mentality represents an unfortunate confluence of ignorance, fear, prejudice, and profit ... The ignorance exists in its own right and is further perpetuated by government propaganda. The fear is that of ordinary people scared by misinformation but also that of leaders who may know better but are intimidated by the political costs of speaking out on such a heavily moralized and charged issue. The prejudice is evident in the contradiction that some harmful substances (alcohol, tobacco) are legal while others, less harmful in some ways, are contraband. This has less to do with the innate danger of the drugs than with which populations are publicly identified with using the drugs. The white and wealthier the population, the more acceptable is the substance. And profit. If you have fear, prejudice, and ignorance, there will be profit. — Gabor Mate

In my experience, those for whom war is lucrative are rarely satisfied. For them, war is opportunity, not hardship or sorrow. After all, it is rarely their sons who lie in unmarked graves on foreign soil. — C.S. Harris

But if men are, on the one hand, irresistibly impelled towards what is for their profit, and if, on the other, they resist instinctively what is hurtful, we are forced to conclude that each nation carries in its bosom a natural force of expansion, and a not less natural force of resistance, which forces are equally injurious to all other nations; or, in other words, that antagonism and war are the natural state of human society. — Frederic Bastiat

Once you have opened up prisoner interrogation, wiretapping, border patrol, jailing and the services of the military, when this has been turned into a for-profit business in this endless war, then we're in deep trouble. — John Cusack

In revolution there are only two sorts of men, those who cause them and those who profit by them. — Napoleon Bonaparte

When old men decided to barter young men for pride and profit, the transaction was called war. — Len Deighton

Racism - if you look closely - is about profit. The whole system was built on it. War - if you look closely - is about profit. Poverty, which is not, and never has been, an accident - if you look closely - is about profit. — Stan Goff

Protected businesses never, never become competitive ... Halliburton, Bechtel, Parsons, KPMG, RTI, Blackwater and all other U.S. corporations that were in Iraq to take advantage of the reconstruction were part of a vast protectionist racket whereby the U.S. government had created their markets with war, barred their competitors from even entering the race, then paid them to do the work, while guaranteeing them a profit to boot - all at taxpayer expense. — Naomi Klein

If you took the profit out of war, there would be no war. What the hell do you think war is? You think we go to another country to bring democracy? We go there 'cause there's oil, resources or something we need. — Jacque Fresco

The natural mates of men were the Meliads[Ash Nymphs], who were Demi-Goddesses, & the Goddesses.Whilst it was believed that women could mate with animals & produce offspring, as Pasiphae did with a bull & begot the Minotaur & Theophane did with Poseidon in the form of a ram, & begot the Ram with the Golden Fleece. And thus, women were part-animals,further proven by the fact that Helen, considered the most beautiful of them all,was hatched from an egg.
And since women were playthings,daughters were given away as gifts, prizes & bribes. And it was considered good form to take women by force, as plunder or booty, or as spoils of war & to sell them as slaves for profit.[INTRO] — Nicholas Chong

You do not comprehend. It is not the victim who concerns me so much. It is the effect on the character of the slayer."
"What about war?"
"In war you do not exercise the right of private judgement. That is what is so dangerous. Once a man is imbued with the idea that he knows who ought to be allowed to live and who ought not - then he is halfway to becoming the most dangerous killer there is - the arrogant killer who kills not for profit - but for an idea. He has usurped the functions of le bon Dieu. — Agatha Christie

War is a racket. It always has been ... A few profit - and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war. — Smedley Butler

When war makes commerce and commerce is law, profit rules prudence and justice is flawed. — Christopher Moore