“Religious wars are basically people killing each other over who has the better imaginary friend.”

—  Napoleon I of France

There is no known basis to attribute this saying to Napoleon. It is found (unattributed) in a Usenet post from July 1999 https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=soc.penpals/QIUrpkacWyE/FbCj7pij5WwJ. <br class="br">Misattributed

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Napoleon I of France photo
Napoleon I of France259
French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French 1769–1821

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Richard Jeni (1957–2007) American comedian

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Yasser Arafat (1929–2004) former Palestinian President, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

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Source: http://www.gdargaud.net/Humor/QuotesReligion.html

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“This was what people fought wars over, she thought, and killed each other over, and destroyed their lives for: this nerve-shredding mixture of longing and pleasure.”

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“We are agreed that before we kill each other we should better serve mankind by killing those who order us to kill each other.”

John Brunner book The Stone That Never Came Down

Source: The Stone That Never Came Down (1973), Chapter 23 (p. 180)

We consider the quote as suspicious, we have no evidence supporting authorship
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“War: a massacre of people who don't know each other for the profit of people who know each other but don't massacre each other.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

La guerre, c'est un massacre de gens qui ne se connaissent pas, au profit de gens qui se connaissent, mais ne se massacrent pas.
Bizarre, issues 24-31 (1962), p. 102
This apocryphal quote from Paul Valéry is never precisely sourced: neither on the internet nor in the works we have consulted. See: https://www.guichetdusavoir.org/question/voir/52650

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“People who prefer to believe the worst of others will breed war and religious persecutions while the world lasts.”

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) English crime writer, playwright, essayist and Christian writer

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“The person who has many friends, will be forced by necessity to create some imaginary enemies inside his mind.”

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“In a war of ideas it is people who get killed.”

Stanisław Jerzy Lec book Unkempt Thoughts

Unkempt Thoughts (1957), p. 21, http://books.google.com/books?id=NTtiAAAAMAAJ&amp;q;=%22In+a+war+of+ideas+it+is+people+who+get+killed%22&amp;pg;=PA21#v=onepage

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“In the end, it is ideas for which people kill each other.”

Simon Blackburn (1944) British academic philosopher

Introduction, p. 11
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