"War is at best barbarism . . . . Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell" [General William Tecumseh Sherman]
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron." [ Dwight Eisenhower ]
"Naturally, the common people don't want war ... but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country." [Hermann Göering]
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." [ Theodore Roosevelt ]
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." [ Benjamin Franklin ]
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." [James Madison]
"The last time we mixed government and religion in America, we ended up burning people at the stake - for the offense of ‘witchcraft.’ The Middle-East is a current example of government being mixed with religion." [Joe Collina]
