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

• violence

The argument from intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence. Ayn Rand

• argument
• violence

Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived. Abraham Lincoln

• violence

Power exercised with violence has seldom been of long duration, but temper and moderation generally produce permanence in all things. Seneca

• moderation
• power
• violence

There are only two powers in the world - the spirit and the sword; and in the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit. Napoleon Bonaparte

• war
• power
• violence

Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft! Theodore Roosevelt

• violence

Legitimate use of violence can only be that which is required in self-defense. Ron Paul

• violence

The most important element of a free society, where individual rights are held in the highest esteem, is the rejection of the initiation of violence. Ron Paul

• freedom
• violence
• liberty

It is important to remember that government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning. Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom. Ludwig von Mises

• government
• violence

After all, what would life be without fighting, I should like to know? From the cradle to the grave, fighting, rightly understood, is the business, the real, highest, honestest business of every son of man. Every one who is worth his salt has his enemies, who must be beaten, be they evil thoughts and habits in himself or spiritual wickedness in high places, or Russians, or Border-ruffians, or Bill, Tom, or Harry, who will not let him live his life in quiet till he has thrashed them.

It is no good for Quakers, or any other body of men, to uplift their voices against fighting. Human nature is too strong for them, and they don't follow their own precepts. Every soul of them is doing his own piece of fighting, somehow and somewhere. The world might be a better world without fighting, for anything I know, but it wouldn't be our world; and therefore I am dead against crying peace when there is no peace, and isn't meant to be. I’m as sorry as any man to see folk fighting the wrong people and the wrong things, but I’d a deal sooner see them doing that, than that they should have no fight in them. Thomas Hughes

• violence

The way to secure peace is to be prepared for war. They that are on their guard, and appear ready to receive their adversaries, are in much less danger of being attacked, than the supine, secure, and negligent. Benjamin Franklin

• war
• violence

Those who are only or merely compassionate and self-sacrificing (and naïve and exploitable) cannot call forth the genuinely righteous and appropriately self-protective anger necessary to defend themselves. If you can bite, you generally don't have to. When skillfully integrated, the ability to respond with aggression and violence decreases rather than increases the probability that actual aggression will become necessary. Jordan Peterson

• violence
• anger