“For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.”

— Smedley D. Butler, book War Is a Racket

War is a racket (1935)

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Smedley D. Butler18

United States Marine Corps General, 2 time Medal of Honor r… 1881–1940

Louis Simpson (1923–2012) Jamaican poet

The Poetry of War ed. Ian Hamilton , London 1945
Other

“I want peace, and I will live and let live. I'm like any other man. I've been in this racket long enough to realize that a man in my game must take the breaks, the fortunes of war. I haven't had any peace of mind in years. Every minute I'm in danger of death.”

Al Capone (1899–1947) American gangster

“I can assure you that no kingdom has ever had as many civil wars as the kingdom of Christ.”

Montesquieu (1689–1755) French social commentator and political thinker

No. 29. (Rica writing to Ibben)
Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters, 1721)

“As a soldier who has spent a quarter of his life in the study of the science of arms, let me tell you I went into the British Army believing that if you want peace you must prepare for war. I believe now that if you prepare thoroughly and efficiently for war, you get war.”

Frederick B. Maurice (1871–1951) British Army general and historian

Speaking in Carnegie Hall, New York City, on 4 April 1919.
[New York Times, 5 April 1919, 13, Maurice Criticises Peace Conferees, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B00E6DC1E3BEE3ABC4D53DFB2668382609EDE]

“Let me say finally that I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America. I speak out against this war, not in anger, but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and, above all, with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as the moral example of the world. I speak out against this war because I am disappointed with America. And there can be no great disappointment where there is not great love. I am disappointed with our failure to deal positively and forthrightly with the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam (1967)

“Lest I keep my complacent way I must remember somewhere out there a person died for me today. As long as there must be war, I ask and I must answer was I worth dying for?”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

“I see a future for us only in a Great War in which we lastingly cripple an opponent, France or Russia. Unless there should be a great war, the only way out of our dilemma will be through internal commotion, preferably revolutions in France or Russia.”

Alfred von Waldersee (1832–1904) Prussian Field Marshal

Waldersee in his diary, 15 October 1885, quoted in Scott A. Silverstone, From Hitler's Germany to Saddam's Iraq

“You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices today than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling.”

William T. Sherman (1820–1891) American General, businessman, educator, and author.

1860s, 1864, Letter to the City of Atlanta (September 1864)

“I stared at the water and saw the clouds reflected in it, saw them break to reveal the moon. It was the same moon I had known as John Daker. The same bland face could be made out staring down in contentment at the antics of the creatures of the planet it circled. How many disasters had that moon witnessed? How many foolish crusades? How many wars and battles and murders?”

Michael Moorcock book The Eternal Champion

Source: The Eternal Champion (1970), Chapter 9 “At Noonos” (p. 50)

“I had never dreamed of being a soldier; I had never fired a gun. I was not, nor ever had been, a fighter of any sort, but even so, I loved my country, and I spent much of that year trying to imagine a future distorted by war.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Ira Levinson, Chapter 5 Ira, p. 74
2009, The Longest Ride (2013)

“For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.”

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Smedley D. Butler18

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