War
and Peace Quotations
Focus your essay on one or up to four quotes from the list that follows. You may interpret, defend, attack or update the quotation by adding information gained via research on the Internet.
Include the quotation before discussing it. Devote a paragraph to the author. Use the Internet if you need to do some research.
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“To kill a man will be considered as disgusting [in the
twentieth century] as we in this day consider it disgusting to eat one.”
Andrew Carnegie 1900
“I don’t know what kind of weapons will be used in the
third world war, assuming there will be a third world war. But I can tell you
what the fourth world war will be fought with –– stone clubs.”
Albert Einstein
“To preserve peace, we need weapons of smaller and men of
larger caliber.” Unknown
“People are becoming too intelligent ever to have another big war. Statesmen have not anything like the prestige they had years ago, and what is educating the ordinary people against war is that they are mixing so much. The motor-car, radio and such things are the great ‘mixers’ ... I believe the last war was too much an educator for there ever to be another on a large scale.” Henry Ford 1928 (The American Scrap Book)
“The thing that makes life so cruel is that everyone has
such good reasons.” Unknown
“We must have military power to keep madmen from taking
over the world.” Billy Graham
“The one means that wins the easiest victory over reason:
terror/and force.” Adolf
Hitler
“The greatest waste in the world is the difference
between what we are and what we could become.”
Ben Herbster
“My dynamite will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world conventions. As soon as men will find that in one instant whole armies can be utterly destroyed, they surely will abide by golden peace.” Alfred Bernhard Nobel (1833-1896)
“I prefer the most unjust peace to the justest war that was ever waged.” Cicero (Letter to Atticus)
“History teaches us that when a barbarian race confronts
a sleeping culture, the barbarian always wins.”
Arnold Toynbee
“Quick-firing rifles, monstrous artillery, improved shells, smokeless and noiseless gunpowder –– these are so destructive that a great battle ... could cause the deaths of 300,000 men in a few hours. It is evident that the nations, no matter how unconcerned they may be at times when driven by a false pride, will draw back [in the twentieth century] from this fearful vision.” Charles Robert Richet 1913 (hint: Nobel Prize winner for...)
“The submarine may be the cause of bringing battle to a
stoppage altogether, for fleets will become useless, and as other war materiel
continues to improve, war will become impossible.” Jules Verne 1904
“Peace is rare: Less than 8% of the time since the
beginning of recorded time has the world been entirely at peace. In a total of
3,530 years, 286 have been warless. Eight thousand treaties have been broken in
this time.” Unknown
"The following quote is from the theater piece made into a movie, "Lion In Winter." Even though the queen Eleanor of Acquitane is referring to her own time, which we now call the "Dark Ages," it strikes a cord of relevancy.
She is speaking to her three sons, Richard,
Geoff, and John who are squabbling. John whines as he refers to Richard,
"He has a knife!" Eleanor exclaims, "Of course he has a knife. He
always has a knife. We all have knives. It's 1183 and we're all Barbarians; how
clear we make it. Oh my piglets we ARE the origins of war. Not history's forces
nor the times--not justice nor the lack of it, nor causes, nor religions, nor
ideas, kinds of government--nor any other thing--We are the killers. We breed
wars. We carry it like syphilis inside dead bodies, rotting field and stream.
Because the living ones are rotten. Oh God can't we love one another just a
little. That's how peace begins. We have so much to love each other for. We have
such possibilities. We could change the world."
This is one of those pivotal moments in history when we CAN change the world for
the better as we bring wisdom actively to the for and apply it with diligence
and clarity. Let's not go to reaction, dishing out what we have received, but
act in a new level of global compassion. This is the time, we are the people.
Our ancestors are rooting for us. May we be the ones who step off the wheel of
the never ending action and reaction.
Justine Toms September 12, 2001 (New
Dimensions Radio)