What is War?

Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace. They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations. All the arms we need are for hugging.

A great war leaves the country with three armies - an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves. Only the dead have seen the end of the war. Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.

The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living. There is nothing that war has ever achieved that we could not better achieve without it. All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers. Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace. The first casualty when war comes is truth.

Why do we kill people who are killing people to show that killing people is wrong? Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.

Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(All of the above were quotes by different people)