To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.

It may well be that we shall by a process of sublime irony have reached a state in this story where safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation.

No nation ever had an army large enough to guarantee it against attack in time of peace or insure it victory in time of war.

Be as beneficent as the sun or the sea, but if your rights as a rational being are trenched on, die on the first inch of your territory.

It is not widely known that, ever since the end of the Korean War, the United States has spent essentially the same amount of money on defense, in real terms, every single year.

The guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure. They are necessary symbols. They protect what we cherish. But they are witness to human folly.

Diplomacy and defense are not substitutes for one another. Either alone would fail.

It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.

Stretch a bow to the very full, And you will wish you had stopped in time.

It is not the armed forces which can protect our democracy. It is the moral strength of democracy which alone can give any meaning to the efforts at military security