Thomas Jefferson Quotes About War
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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
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We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.
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You have not been mistaken in supposing my views and feeling to be in favor of the abolition of war. Of my dispos[i]tion to maintain peace until its condition shall be made less tolerable than that of war itself, the world has had proofs, and more, perhaps, than it has approved. I hope it is practicable, by improving the mind and morals of society, to lessen the dispos[i]tion to war; but of its abolition I despair.
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It is my disposition to maintain peace until its condition shall be made less tolerable than that of war itself.
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I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.
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We abhor the follies of war, and are not untried in its distresses and calamities. Unmeddling with the affairs of other nations, we had hoped that our distance and our dispositions would have left us free, in the example and indulgence of peace with all the world.
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Having seen the people of all other nations bowed down to the earth under the wars and prodigalities of their rulers, I have cherished their opposites, peace, economy, and riddance of public debt, believing that these were the high road to public as well as private prosperity and happiness.
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The power of declaring war being with the Legislature, the Executive should do nothing necessarily committing them to decide for war in preference of non-intercourse, which will be preferred by a great many.
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I am for relying for internal defense on our militia solely till actual invasion, and for such a naval force only as may protect our coasts and harbors from such depredations as we have experienced; and not for a standing army in time of peace which may overawe the public sentiment; nor for a navy which, by its own expenses and the eternal wars in which it will implicate us, will grind us with public burthens and sink us under them.
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I know of no safe depository of the ultimate power of the society but the people themselves.
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A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.
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Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
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The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force.
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Governments constantly choose between telling lies and fighting wars, with the end result always being the same. One will always lead to the other.
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We are firmly convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations as with individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties, and history bears witness to the fact that a just nation is trusted on its word when recourse is had to armaments and wars to bridle others.
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The spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless... From the conclusion of this war we shall be going downhill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to affect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.
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Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
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I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe.... They are nations of eternal war.
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[I]t seems that the Cannibals of Europe are going to eat one another again. A war between Russia and Turkey is like the battle of the kite and snake; whichever destroys the other, leaves a destroyer the less for the world.
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It is reasonable that everyone who asks justice should do justice
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It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
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I love peace, and am anxious that we should give the world still another useful lesson, by showing to them other modes of punishing injuries than by war, which is as much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer.
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We have already given in example one effectual check to the dog of war by transferring the power of letting him loose from the Executive to the Legislative body
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Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.
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Up until the late unpleasantness of the Civil war, then, the right of secession was more or less taken for granted in many quarters, and there has never been any amendment or even a Supreme Court decision saying it's improper. - Samual Francis, Secession May Be Legal But Not Expedient, Conservative Chronicles If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
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He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the christian king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce...
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We must endeavor to forget our former love for them [the British] and to hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
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The evils which of necessity encompass the life of man are sufficiently numerous. Why should we add to them by voluntarily distressing and destroying one another? Peace, brothers, is better than war. In a long and bloody war, we lose many friends, and gain nothing. Let us then live in peace and friendship together, doing to each other all the good we can.
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The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.
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I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.
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