Thursday, October 14, 2004

Ike on War and the World's True Pacifists

Insofar that European do-gooders are always giving lessons on peace to the war-mongering Americans, it is probably not unhelpful to remember that Dwight D. Eisenhower (whose birthday it is today) once said:
I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
Hating war "as only a soldier who has lived it can"…
Other quotes by the US general and 34th President of the US (1890-1969) include:
A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.

An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.

Don't join the book burners. Don't think you're going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book...

I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.

There is nothing wrong with America that the faith, love of freedom, intelligence and energy of her citizens cannot cure.

We succeed only as we identify in life, or in war, or in anything else, a single overriding objective, and make all other considerations bend to that one objective.

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