We all have--to put it as nicely as I can--our lower centres and our higher centres. Our lower centres act: they act with terriblepower that sometimes destroys us; but they don't talk.... Since the war the lower centres have become vocal. And the effect is that of an earthquake. For they speak truths that have never been spoken before--truths that the makers of our domestic institutions have tried to ignore.
When I look round to see how we can win the war, I see that there is only one sure path . . . and that is absolutely devastating, exterminating attack by very heavy bombers from this country upon the Nazi homeland.
(On The International Criminal Court) "For the victors of the Cold War to submit to an unelected, unaccountable, and almost certainly hostile body such as that envisaged would be the ultimate irony."
The Nuremberg Trial of the German war criminals was tacitly based on the recognition of the principle: criminal actions cannot be excused if committed on government orders; conscience supersedes the authority of the law of the state.
Never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter.
...I do not want a government that will take care of me, I want a government that will make other men take their hands off me so I can take care of myself.
I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.
If there is not the war, you don't get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don't get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.
In war, as in politics, no evil - even if it is permissible under the rules - is excusable unless it is absolutely necessary. Everything beyond that is a crime.