Quotations about:
    aggression


Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.


To sacrifice the principles of manners, which require compassion and respect, and bat people over the head with their ignorance of etiquette rules they cannot be expected to know is both bad manners and poor etiquette. That social climbers and twits have misused etiquette throughout history should not be used as an argument for doing away with it.

Judith Martin (b. 1938) American author, journalist, etiquette expert [a.k.a. Miss Manners]
Miss Manners Rescues Civilization, ch. 1 “The Case Against Etiquette” (1996)
    (Source)
 
Added on 26-Aug-24 | Last updated 26-Aug-24
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Martin, Judith

The Puritan is one who uses the Cross as a hammer to knock in the heads of sinners.

H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
A Little Book in C Major, ch. 4, § 26 (1916)
    (Source)
 
Added on 20-Dec-23 | Last updated 20-Dec-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Mencken, H. L.

The aggressor is always peace-loving (as Bonaparte always claimed to be); he would prefer to take over our country unopposed. To prevent his doing so one must be willing to make war and be prepared for it. In other words it is the weak, those likely to need defense, who should always be armed in order not to be overwhelmed. Thus decrees the art of war.

[Der Eroberer ist immer friedliebend (wie Bonaparte auch stets behauptet hat), er zöge ganz gern ruhig in unseren Staat ein; damit er dies aber nicht könne, darum müssen wir den Krieg wollen und also auch vorbereiten, d. h. mit anderen Worten: es sollen gerade die Schwachen, der Verteidigung Unterworfenen, immer gerüstet sein und nicht überfallen werden; so will es die Kriegskunst.]

Karl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) Prussian soldier, historian, military theorist
On War [Vom Kriege], Book 6, ch. 5 “Character of Strategic Defense [Charakter der strategischen Verteidigung],” (6.5) (1832) [tr. Howard & Paret (1976)]
    (Source)

(Source (German)). Alternate translation:

A conqueror is always a lover of peace (as Buonaparte always asserted of himself); he would like to make his entry into our state unopposed; in order to prevent this, we must choose war, and therefore also make preparations, that is in other words, it is just the weak, or that side which must defend itself, which should be always armed in order not to be taken by surprise; so it is willed by the art of war.
[tr. Graham (1873)]

 
Added on 14-Mar-23 | Last updated 14-Mar-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Von Clausewitz, Karl

The crucial disadvantage of aggression, competitiveness, and skepticism as national characteristics is that these qualities cannot be turned off at five o’clock.

Margaret Halsey
Margaret Halsey (1910-1997) American writer
The Folks at Home, “The Five O’Clock Shadow over the United States” (1952)
    (Source)
 
Added on 31-Mar-22 | Last updated 31-Mar-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Halsey, Margaret

Because we have sought to cover up past evil, though it still persists, we have been powerless to check the new evil of today. Evil unchecked grows, evil tolerated poisons the whole system. And because we have tolerated our past and present evils, international affairs are poisoned and law and justice have disappeared from them.

Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) Indian nationalist leader, politician, statesman, author
“The Bombing of Open Towns,” speech, International Peace Campaign Conference, Paris (24 Jul 1938)
    (Source)

Nehru was comparing rising fascism to colonial imperialism, and the bombings of cities in Spain and China to ongoing British bombing of villages in the North-West Frontier of India. Collected in The Unity of India : Collected Writings, 1937-1940 (1942).
 
Added on 21-Feb-22 | Last updated 21-Feb-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Nehru, Jawaharlal

[Fascism] imagines the masses not as a pluralistic citizenry but as a primal horde whose power can be awakened by playing upon atavistic feelings of hatred and belonging. Its chosen leader must exhibit strength: his refusal to compromise and readiness to attack are seen as signs of tough-mindedness, while any concern for constitutionality or the rule of law are disdained as signs of weakness. The most powerful myth, however, is that of the embattled collective. Critics are branded as traitors, while those who do not fit the criteria for inclusion are vilified as outsiders, terrorists, and criminals.

Peter E Gordon
Peter E, Gordon (b. 1966) American intellectual historian
“Why Historical Analogy Matters,” New York Review of Books (7 Jan 2020)
    (Source)
 
Added on 16-Sep-21 | Last updated 16-Sep-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Gordon, Peter E.

I don’t have much truck with the “religion is the cause of most of our wars” school of thought because that is manifestly done by mad, manipulative and power-hungry men who cloak their ambition in God.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
“I create gods all the time — now I think one might exist,” Daily Mail (21 Jun 2008)
    (Source)
 
Added on 13-Jul-21 | Last updated 13-Jul-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Pratchett, Terry

Indignation is the seducer of thought. No man can think clearly when his fists are clenched.

George Jean Nathan (1892-1958) American editor and critic
“Undeveloped Notes,” The Smart Set (Aug 1922)
    (Source)

Reprinted in The World in Falseface, "Art & Criticism," #64 (1923).
 
Added on 30-Nov-20 | Last updated 30-Nov-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Nathan, George Jean

Compassion is not a popular virtue. Very often when I talk to religious people, and mention how important it is that compassion is the key, that it’s the sine qua non of religion, people look kind of balked, and stubborn sometimes, as much to say, “What’s the point of having religion if you can’t disapprove of other people?”

Karen Armstrong (b. 1944) British author, comparative religion scholar
NOW Interview with Bill Moyers, PBS (1 Mar 2002)
    (Source)
 
Added on 5-Oct-20 | Last updated 5-Oct-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Armstrong, Karen

The chief reason warfare is still with us is neither a secret death-wish of the human species, nor an irrepressible instinct of aggression, nor, finally and more plausibly, the serious economic and social dangers inherent in disarmament, but the simple fact that no substitute for this final arbiter in international affairs has yet appeared on the political scene.

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
“On Violence,” Crises of the Republic (1972)
    (Source)
 
Added on 25-Aug-20 | Last updated 25-Aug-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Arendt, Hannah

To believe that man’s aggressiveness or territoriality is in the nature of the beast is to mistake some men for all men, contemporary society for all possible societies, and, by a remarkable transformation, to justify what is as what needs must be; social repression becomes a response to, rather than a cause of, human violence.

Leon Eisenberg (1922-2009) American psychiatrist and medical educator
“The Human Nature of Human Nature,” Science (14 Apr 1972)
    (Source)

Based on an address at Faculty of Medicine Day, McGill University Sesquicentennial Celebration, Montreal, Canada (1 Oct 1971).
 
Added on 4-Aug-20 | Last updated 4-Aug-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Eisenberg, Leon

Some people idealize force and pull it into the foreground and worship it, instead of keeping it in the background as long as possible. I think they make a mistake, and I think that their opposites, the mystics, err even more when they declare that force does not exist. I believe that it exists, and that one of our jobs is to prevent it from getting out of its box. It gets out sooner or later, and then it destroys us and all the lovely things which we have made. But it is not out all the time, for the fortunate reason that the strong are so stupid.

E. M. Forster (1879-1970) English novelist, essayist, critic, librettist [Edward Morgan Forster]
“What I Believe,” The Nation (16 Jul 1938)
 
Added on 4-Sep-19 | Last updated 4-Sep-19
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Forster, E. M.

The experience of the past two years has proven beyond doubt that no nation can appease the Nazis. No man can tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it. There can be no appeasement with ruthlessness. There can be no reasoning with an incendiary bomb. We know now that a nation can have peace with the Nazis only at the price of total surrender.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933-1945)
Radio Broadcast (1940-12-29), “Fireside Chat: Arsenal of Democracy”
    (Source)
 
Added on 6-Mar-19 | Last updated 4-Sep-24
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Roosevelt, Franklin Delano

In case signals can neither be seen nor perfectly understood, no captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of an enemy.

Horatio Nelson (1758-1805) British admiral
Memorandum before the Battle of Trafalgar (9 Oct 1805)
    (Source)
 
Added on 2-Feb-19 | Last updated 2-Feb-19
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Nelson, Horatio

HENRY: Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace, there’s nothing so becomes a man,
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage ….

Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry V, Act 3, sc. 1, l. 1ff (3.1.1-8) (1599)
    (Source)
 
Added on 12-Feb-18 | Last updated 29-Jan-24
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Shakespeare, William

Nor would surrender in Viet-Nam bring peace, because we learned from Hitler at Munich that success only feeds the appetite of aggression. The battle would be renewed in one country and then another country, bringing with it perhaps even larger and crueler conflict, as we have learned from the lessons of history.

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Speech (1965-07-28), News Conference, White House, Washington, D. C.
    (Source)

The pre-conference prepared remarks were the first definitive set of national policy statements as to America's growing military presence in Viet Nam. The idea that a Communist victory in Viet Nam would lead to similar wars in other nations was called the "Domino Theory."
 
Added on 15-Jun-17 | Last updated 3-May-24
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Johnson, Lyndon

[T]here are historic situations in which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilization, however imperfect, against tyranny and aggression may result in consequences even worse than war.

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) American theologian and clergyman
“Christian Faith and the World Crisis,” Christianity and Crisis (10 Feb 1941)
 
Added on 12-Jun-17 | Last updated 12-Jun-17
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Niebuhr, Reinhold

But all history has taught us the grim lesson that no nation has ever been successful in avoiding the terrors of war by refusing to defend its rights — by attempting to placate aggression.

Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
“Security in the Free World,” broadcast speech (15 Mar 1959)
 
Added on 3-May-16 | Last updated 3-May-16
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Eisenhower, Dwight David

There is — in world affairs — a steady course to be followed between an assertion of strength that is truculent and a confession of helplessness that is cowardly.

Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
State of the Union Address (2 Feb 1953)
 
Added on 7-May-15 | Last updated 7-May-15
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Eisenhower, Dwight David

So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly rise and make them miserable.

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) English novelist, essayist and critic
Ends and Means (1937)
 
Added on 31-Dec-14 | Last updated 31-Dec-14
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Huxley, Aldous

It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
(Attributed)
 
Added on 12-Nov-13 | Last updated 26-Jan-19
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Twain, Mark

Is it worthwhile that we jostle a brother,
Bearing his load on the rough road of life?
Is it worthwhile that we jeer at each other,
In blackness of heart? — that we war to the knife?
God pity us all in our pitiful strife.

Joaquin Milller
Joaquin Miller (1837-1913) American poet [pen name of Cincinnatus Heine (or Hiner) Miller]
“Is it Worthwhile?” st. 1 (1866)
    (Source)
 
Added on 13-Jun-13 | Last updated 22-Dec-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Miller, Joaquin

Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By “patriotism” I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force upon other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.

George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
“Notes on Nationalism” (May 1945)
    (Source)
 
Added on 6-Feb-12 | Last updated 16-Feb-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Orwell, George

The chief reason warfare is still with us is neither a secret death wish of the human species, nor an irrepressible instinct of aggression, nor, finally and more plausibly, the serious economic and social dangers inherent in disarmament, but the simple fact that no substitute for this final arbiter in international affairs has yet appeared on the political scene.

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
“Reflections on Violence,” New York Review of Books (27 Feb 1969)
    (Source)

Reprinted as "On Violence," Crises of the Republic (1969)
 
Added on 25-Mar-11 | Last updated 15-Jun-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Arendt, Hannah

Aggression unopposed becomes a contagious disease.

Jimmy Carter (b. 1924) American politician, US President (1977-1981), Nobel laureate [James Earl Carter, Jr.]
Address to the Nation (4 Jan 1980)

On Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.
 
Added on 4-Jun-08 | Last updated 14-Jun-16
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Carter, Jimmy

“It needs but one foe to breed a war, not two, Master Warden,” answered Éowyn. “And those who have not swords can still die upon them.”

J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 3: The Return of the King, Book 6, ch. 5 “The Steward and the King” (1955)
    (Source)
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 18-Aug-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Tolkien, J.R.R.

But it must be remembered that, in spite of the proverb, it takes in reality only one to make a quarrel. It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion.

William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“Patriotism,” Outspoken Essays: First Series (1915)

Sometimes quoted as "while wolves remain of a different opinion."
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 4-Jan-16
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Inge, William Ralph