“To call the Germans a 'nation of thinkers' is bitter irony; a nation of soldiers and shopkeepers would certainly be more correct…”

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter VII, Part Third, p. 667.

Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), The Power of Words (1937), p. 224
Context: What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war; petrol is much more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict. Thus when war is waged it is for the purpose of safeguarding or increasing one's capacity to make war. International politics are wholly involved in this vicious cycle. What is called national prestige consists in behaving always in such a way as to demoralize other nations by giving them the impression that, if it comes to war, one would certainly defeat them. What is called national security is an imaginary state of affairs in which one would retain the capacity to make war while depriving all other countries of it. It amounts to this, that a self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war. But why is it so essential to be able to make war? No one knows, any more than the Trojans knew why it was necessary for them to keep Helen. That is why the good intentions of peace-loving statesman are so ineffectual. If the countries were divided by a real opposition of interests, it would be possible to arrive at a satisfactory compromise. But when economic and political interests have no meaning apart from war, how can they be peacefully reconciled?

Attributed by Jim Marrs in the William Lewis film One Nation Under Siege (2008); no published occurrence of this has been located prior to The Trillion-Dollar Conspiracy : How the New World Order, Man-Made Diseases, and Zombie Banks Are Destroying America (2010) by Jim Marrs
Disputed

Strictly Personal, ch. 31 (1941)

Source: "Let the Record Speak" 1939, p. 295 (newspaper column: “Pius XII—the former Diplomat,” March, 6, 1939)

Speech, "The War and the Future" (1940); published in Order of the Day (1942)

“Those Damn Nazis: Why Are We Socialists?” https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/haken32.htm written by Joseph Goebbels and Mjölnir, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken, Nazi propaganda pamphlet (Munich: Verlag Frz. Eher, 1932)<br><br> / 1930s

1930s, From the film Triumph of the Will (1935)

Last words, 10/16/46, quoted in "The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness World War II" by Jon E. Lewis - History - 2002