Quotes about Force

“Force is not a remedy.”

“Force works on servile natures, not the free.”

“Force is legitimate where gentleness avails not.”

“Be careful: they have arms, and no alternatives.”

“Whatever needs to be maintained through force is doomed.”

“Force is that which rules the actions without regulating the will.”

“Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravitation.”

“Civilization is nothing more than the effort to reduce the use of force to the last resort.”

“Why slap them on the wrist with feather when you can belt them over the head with a sledgehammer.”

“The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.”

“The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.”

“Who were the fools who spread the story that brute force cannot kill ideas? Nothing is easier. And once they are dead they are no more than corpses.”

“Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates. The truth is, nobody really possesses it.”

“The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.”

“Coercion may prevent many transgressions; but it robs even actions which are legal of a part of their beauty. Freedom may lead to many transgressions, but it lends even to vices a less ignoble form.”

“Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a maneuver, a blow with an agreement.”

“Some people draw a comforting distinction between ''force'' and ''violence.'' I refuse to cloud the issue by such word-play. The power which establishes a state is violence; the power which maintains it is violence; the power which eventually overthrows it is violence. Call an elephant a rabbit only if it gives you comfort to feel that you are about to be trampled to death by a rabbit.”