Best quotes by Smedley Butler on War

Checkout quotes by Smedley Butler on War

  • War is a racket. It always has been... A few profit - and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war.
    - Smedley Butler
  • War is a racket. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
    - Smedley Butler
  • Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few - the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.
    - Smedley Butler
  • War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.
    - Smedley Butler
  • War is just a racket... I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else.
    - Smedley Butler
  • For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it.
    - Smedley Butler
  • We must take the profit out of war.
    - Smedley Butler
  • We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war.
    - Smedley Butler