"On War: There never was a just one, never an honorable one - on the part of
the instigator of the war.  I can see a million years ahead, and this rule
will never change in so many as half a dozen instances.  The loud little
handful - as usual - will shout for the war.  The pulpit will object at
first; the great dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to
make out why there should be a war and will say earnestly and indignantly,
"It is unjust and dishonorable and there is no necessity for it."  Then the
handfull will shout louder.  A few fair men on the other side will argue and
reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing
and be applauded; but it wil not last long; those others will outshout them,
and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity.
Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the
platform and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their
secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers...but do not dare
to say so.  And now the whole nation - pulpit and all - will take up the
war-cry and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open
his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open.  Next the statesmen
will invent cheap lies putting the blame upone the nation that is attacked;
and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will
diligently study them and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and
thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just and will thank
God for thebetter sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque
self-deception." - Mark Twain

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