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 criminal who kills not for profit – but for an idea. He has usurped the functions of le bon Dieu.
If the war didn’t happen to kill you it was bound to start you thinking.
I only take a half share in the civil war; I am willing to die, I am not willing to kill.[Je n’entra qu’à moitié dans la guerre civile. Je veux bien y mourir, je ne veux pas y tuer.]
I look upon the whole world as my fatherland, and every war has to me a horror of a family feud.
I hope we shall abolish war and settle all differences at the conference table.
I have never believed that war settled anything satisfactorily, but I am not entirely sure that some times there are certain situations in the world such as we have in actuality when a country is worse off when it does not go to war for its principles than if it went to war.
I grow more and more suspicious of the political powers that take men away from their work and set them shooting one another.
I can not believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.
I beheve war is the inevitable fruit of our economic system, but even if I am wrong I believe that truth can lose nothing by agitation but may gain all.
Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism – how I hate them! War seems to me a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business.
Fortunately, just when things were blackest, the war broke out.
Every man should lose a battle in his youth, so he does not lose a war when he is old.
