Historical Quotes: Freedom Related

War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.
~General Smedley Butler

Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.
~George Washington

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official... ~Theodore Roosevelt

The worst crimes were dared by a few, willed by more and tolerated by all.
~Tacitus

Military glory--that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood--that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy...
~Abraham Lincoln

Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
~Benjamin Franklin

Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.
~James Madison

The dangerous patriot...drifts into chauvinism and exhibits blind enthusiasm for military actions.
~Colonel James A. Donovan, Marine Corps

It is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.
~Theodore Roosevelt

Our country is now geared to an arms economy bred in an artificually induced psychosis of war hysteria and an incessant propaganda of fear.
~General Douglas MacArthur

In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.
~George Orwell

What an immense mass of evil must result...from allowing men to assume the right of anticipating what may happen.
~Leo Tolstoy

It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood...War is hell.
~General William Tecumseh Sherman

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
~James Madison

Look at you in war...There has never been a just one, never an honorable one, on the part of the instigator of the war.
~Mark Twain

The power to declare war, including the power of judging the causes of war, is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature.
~James Madison

The dangerous patriot...is a defender of militarism and its ideals of war and glory.
~Colonel James A. Donovan, Marine Corps

We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.
~Dwight D. Eisenhower

That we are to stand by the president, right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
~Theodore Roosevelt

War is a racket. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
~General Smedley Butler

We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom.
~Stephen Vincent Benét

Chauvinism is a proud and bellicose form of patriotism...which identifies numerous enemies who can only be dealt with through military power...
~Colonel James A. Donovan, Marine Corps

Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.
~James Madison

There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights.
~General Smedley Butler

May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
~Dwight D. Eisenhower

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president...is morally treasonable to the American public.
~Theodore Roosevelt

To declare that the end justifies the means, to declare that the government may commit crimes, would bring terrible retribution.
~Justice Louis D. Brandeis

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
~Thomas Jefferson

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
~James Madison

Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
~George Orwell

Our enemies...never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.
~George W. Bush

Together we must learn how to compose difference, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose...
~Dwight D. Eisenhower

There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.
~Dwight D. Eisenhower

Old men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.
~Herbert C. Hoover

The greater the state, the more wrong and cruel its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power is founded.
~Leo Tolstoy

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.
~James Madison

All men having power ought to be mistrusted.
~James Madison

All war is based on deception.
~Sun Tzu

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world.
~Benjamin Harrison

The loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad.
~James Madison

Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose—and you allow him to make war at pleasure.
~Abraham Lincoln

Our nation is somewhat sad, but we’re angry. There’s a certain level of blood lust, but we won’t let it drive our reaction. We’re steady, clear-eyed and patient, but pretty soon we’ll have to start displaying scalps.
~George W. Bush

Force always attracts men of low morality.
~Albert Einstein

War is just a racket...I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else.
~General Smedley Butler

There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.
~General Smedley Butler

If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator.
~George W. Bush

We will not learn to live together in peace by killing each other's children.
~Jimmy Carter

Violence and arms can never resolve the problems of men.
~Pope John Paul II

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.
~George Washington

We must recognize the chief characteristic of the modern era--a permanent state of what I call violent peace.
~Admiral James D. Watkins

The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force.
~Thomas Jefferson

No nation ever had an army large enough to guarantee it against attack in time of peace, or ensure it of victory in time of war.
~Calvin Coolidge

Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man has a right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the water, and because his ruler has quarrel with mine, although I have none with him?
~Blaise Pascal

An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.
~Montesquieu

It is the youth who must inherit the tribulation, the sorrow...that are the aftermath of war.
~Herbert C. Hoover

There's no difference between one's killing and making decisions that will send others to kill. It's exactly the same thing, or even worse.
~Golda Meir

In war, truth is the first casualty.
~Aeschylus

At least we're getting the kind of experience we need for the next war.
~Allen Dulles

War is the greatest plague that can affect humanity; it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys families. Any scourge is preferable to it.
~Martin Luther

How vile and despicable war seems to me! I would rather be hacked to pieces than take part in such an abominable business.
~Albert Einstein

War is the Health of the State.
~Randolph Bourne

You can't have this kind of war. There just aren't enough bulldozers to scrape the bodies off the streets.
~Dwight D. Eisenhower

One more such victory and we are undone.
~Pyrrhus of Epirus

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force...Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.
~George Washington

It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any portion of the foreign world.
~George Washington

I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.
~H. L. Mencken

America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.
~John Quincy Adams

...patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind.
~Julius Caesar

A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.
~Thomas Jefferson

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
~Thomas Jefferson

There never was a good war or a bad peace.
~Benjamin Franklin

Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.
~James Madison

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.
~Thomas Jefferson

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
~H.L. Mencken

America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.
~John Quincy Adams

When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.
~Plato

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.
~Leo Tolstoy

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
~James Madison

The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure.
~George Washington

I think war is a dangerous place.
~George W. Bush

When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.
~Dwight D. Eisenhower

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

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.
~George Orwell

War has become a spectator sport for Americans.
~Rear Admiral Gene R. LaRocque

We all have to be concerned about terrorism, but you will never end terrorism by terrorizing others.
~Martin Luther King III

Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.
~General Douglas MacArthur

Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.
~James Madison

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
~James Madison

The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.
~James Madison

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
~James Madison

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.
~James Madison

I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace.
~George W. Bush

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
~Dwight D. Eisenhower

...the role of the military is to fight and win war and, therefore, prevent war from happening in the first place.
~George W. Bush

If we don’t stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, we’re going to have a serious problem coming down the road.
~George W. Bush

The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.
~James Madison

There are a lot of people who lie and get away with it, and that's just a fact.
~Donald Rumsfeld

Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak...
~John Adams

Power always thinks...that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws.
~John Adams

Anyone who has proclaimed violence his method inexorably must choose lying as his principle.
~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

War is a way of shattering to pieces...materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses... too intelligent.
~George Orwell

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie: deliberate, continued, and dishonest; but the myth: persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
~John F. Kennedy

My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military.
~General Smedley Butler (USMC, Ret.)

Political language. . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
~George Orwell

Free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction.
~George W. Bush

These people are trying to shake the will of the Iraqi citizens, and they want us to leave...I think the world would be better off if we did leave...
~George W. Bush (on Iraqi Insurgency)

War is a defeat for humanity.
~Pope John Paul II

Wars generally do not resolve the problems for which they are fought and therefore...prove ultimately futile.
~Pope John Paul II

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
~James Madison

The right to revolt has sources deep in our history.
~William O. Douglas

We may never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
~Dwight D. Eisenhower

All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.
~George Orwell

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
~Abraham Lincoln