“Wars are stupid and they can start stupidly.”

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

Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.

Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed – else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.

Neither a wise nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.

War is mankind’s most tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men.

Those who take the extreme positions in American political and economic life are always wrong.

Get it all on record now – get the films – get the witnesses -because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

We are ready in short, to dedicate our strength to serving the needs, rather than the fears, of the world.

If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking, is freedom.

Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts.

Pull the string and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.

The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.

I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the center.

A word to the wise ain’t necessary, it’s the stupid ones who need advice.

Stupidity has a certain charm – ignorance does not.

There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.

There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.

The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.

What luck, for governments, that the people are stupid.

If you wish the sympathy of the broad masses, you must tell them the crudest and most stupid things.

Humanitarianism is the expression of stupidity and cowardice.