War & Violence Sayings

No living beings are to be slaughtered or offered in sacrifice. Nor are gatherings to be held where many animals are killed. For King Priyadarsin, Beloved of the Gods, sees much evil in such gatherings.

Therefore, it is my wish that there should be uniformity in judicial procedure and punishment. For many people are imprisoned, tortured, and killed unjustly. This is not good.

All men are my children. What I desire for my own children, and I desire that they may obtain welfare and happiness both in this world and the next, that I desire for all men. You do not understand to what extent I desire this, and if some of you mig…

Formerly, in the kitchens of King Priyadarsin, Beloved of the Gods, many hundreds of thousands of animals were killed daily for curry. But now, with the writing of this Dhamma edict, only three animals are killed daily for curry: two peacocks and one…

My agents, appointed over many people, are also often attached to certain individuals. One person is imprisoned, another is released. One is tortured, another is not. One is killed, another is not. This is not good. Therefore, it is my wish that ther…

This Dhamma edict was written by me after I had been consecrated twenty-six years. I have caused this Dhamma edict to be inscribed for the following purpose: that it may endure for a long time, and that my sons and grandsons and great-grandsons may f…

The Nile flows with my blood.

The flesh receives as unlimited the limits of pleasure; and to provide it requires unlimited time. But the mind, intellectually grasping what the end and limit of the flesh is, and banishing the terrors of futurity, procures a complete and perfect li…

If a man destroy the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye.

If a physician operates on a man for a severe wound with a bronze lancet and causes the man's death, or opens an abscess in the eye for a man with a bronze lancet and destroys the man's eye, they shall cut off his hands.

There will be killing 'till the score is paid. You forced yourselves upon his house.

For the winner a large tripod made to stride a fire / and worth a dozen oxen, so the soldiers reckoned. / For the loser he led a woman through their midst, / worth four, they thought, and skilled in many crafts.

Achilles…slit open [Tros'] liver, the liver spurted loose, gushing with dark blood, drenched his lap and the night swirled down his eyes as his life breath slipped away.

You, why are you so afraid of war and slaughter? Even if all the rest of us drop and die around you, grappling for the ships, you'd run no risk of death: you lack the heart to last it out in combat—coward!

The only way to keep power is to destroy your enemies.

The mob is a beast that must be destroyed.

The Germans are a people who live by war and plunder.

When the world has the Tao, the swift horses are used for hauling manure. When the world is without the Tao, war horses are bred in the suburbs.

He who acts destroys; he who grasps loses.

Kill no living thing.