Elihu Root quotes

Elihu Root was an American lawyer, statesman, and diplomat, highly influential in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His work included serving as U.S. Secretary of War and Secretary of State, where he implemented major reforms. He earned the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in promoting international arbitration and diplomacy. Here are 32 of his quotes:

Honest people, mistakenly believing in the justice of their cause, are led to support injustice.

Elihu Root

To deal with the true causes of war one must begin by recognizing as of prime relevancy to the solution of the problem the familiar fact that civilization is a partial, incomplete, and, to a great extent, superficial modification of barbarism.

Elihu Root

The line of least resistance in the progress of civilization is to make that theoretical postulate real by the continually increasing force of the world's public opinion.

Elihu Root

The growth of modern constitutional government compels for its successful practice the exercise of reason and considerate judgment by the individual citizens who constitute the electorate.

Elihu Root

The limitation upon this mode of promoting peace lies in the fact that it consists in an appeal to the civilized side of man, while war is the product of forces proceeding from man's original savage nature.

Elihu Root

Cruelty to men and to the lower animals as well, which would have passed unnoticed a century ago, now shocks the sensibilities and is regarded as wicked and degrading.

Elihu Root

The wolf always charges the lamb with muddying the stream.

Elihu Root

Nothing is more important in the preservation of peace than to secure among the great mass of the people living under constitutional government a just conception of the rights which their nation has against others and of the duties their nation owes to others.

Elihu Root

It is to be observed that every case of war averted is a gain in general, for it helps to form a habit of peace, and community habits long continued become standards of conduct.

Elihu Root

There is so much of good in human nature that men grow to like each other upon better acquaintance, and this points to another way in which we may strive to promote the peace of the world.

Elihu Root

Claims of right and insistence upon obligations may depend upon treaty stipulations, or upon the rules of international law, or upon the sense of natural justice applied to the circumstances of a particular case, or upon disputed facts.

Elihu Root

War was forced upon mankind in his original civil and social condition.

Elihu Root

The point of departure of the process to which we wish to contribute is the fact that war is the natural reaction of human nature in the savage state, while peace is the result of acquired characteristics.

Elihu Root

In the first place, when there is a policy of intentional aggression, inspired by a desire to get possession of the territory or the trade of another country, right or wrong, a pretext is always sought.

Elihu Root

The theoretical postulate of all diplomatic discussion between nations is the assumed willingness of every nation to do justice.

Elihu Root

Human life is held in much higher esteem, and the taking of it, whether in private quarrel or by judicial procedure, is looked upon much more seriously than it was formerly.

Elihu Root

The methods of peace propaganda which aim at establishing peace doctrine by argument and by creating a feeling favorable to peace in general seem to fall short of reaching the springs of human action and of dealing with the causes of the conduct which they seek to modify.

Elihu Root

The attractive idea that we can now have a parliament of man with authority to control the conduct of nations by legislation or an international police force with power to enforce national conformity to rules of right conduct is a counsel of perfection.

Elihu Root

Nobody knows through how many thousands of years fighting men have made a place for themselves while the weak and peaceable have gone to the wall.

Elihu Root

Human nature must have come much nearer perfection than it is now, or will be in many generations, to exclude from such a control prejudice, selfishness, ambition, and injustice.

Elihu Root

Gradually, everything that happens in the world is coming to be of interest everywhere in the world, and, gradually, thoughtful men and women everywhere are sitting in judgment upon the conduct of all nations.

Elihu Root

No nation now sets forth to despoil another upon the avowed ground that it desires the spoils.

Elihu Root