“War is never economically beneficial except for those in position to profit from war expenditures.”

“Those who start wars never fight them, and those who fight wars never like them.”

Michael Franti (1966) American rapper

“But what does it profit the men who are killed? What does it profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and their sweethearts? What does it profit their children? What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge profits? Yes, and what does it profit the nation?”

Smedley D. Butler book War Is a Racket

“Dying in a a war never stopped wars from happening.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

“They say Mars absolves the warrior from the crimes of war, but those who were not the warriors, those for whom the war was said to be fought, even though they never wanted it to be fought, who absolves them?”

Ursula K. Le Guin book Lavinia

“A war is never undertaken by the ideal state, except in defense of its honor or its safety.”
Nullum bellum suscipi a civitate optima nisi aut pro fide aut pro salute.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

“It is to be feared that Spinoza would not have been enlightened enough to appreciate the beneficient system of the Ph. D. degree, introduced into English universities as a measure of post-war propaganda, whereby the time and energy of those who are qualified to do research are expended in supervising the work of those who never will be.”

C. D. Broad (1887–1971) English philosopher

“War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

“The vanquished know war. They see through the empty jingoism of those who use the abstract words of glory, honor, and patriotism to mask the cries of the wounded, the senseless killing, war profiteering, and chest-pounding grief.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

“[on the Gulf War] I was in the unenviable position of being for the war, but against the troops.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian