A Quote by Terry Jones

Ludicrous concepts…like the whole idea of a 'war on terrorism'. You can wage war against another country, or on a national group within your own country, but you can't wage war on an abstract noun. How do you know when you've won? When you've got it removed from the Oxford English Dictionary?

Terry Jones

Quote Topics

Abstract Against Another Concepts Country Dictionary Do You Know English Got Group How Idea Know Like Ludicrous National Noun Own Oxford Terrorism Wage War War On Terror War On Terrorism Whole Within Within You Your

Quote Author

Terry Jones
British - Comedian
February 1, 1942 - January 21, 2020

What really alarms me about President Bush's 'War on Terrorism' is the grammar. How do you wage war on an abstract noun? How is 'Terrorism' going to surrender? It's well known, in philological circles, that it's very hard for abstract nouns to surrender.

Terry Jones

The catch-all phrase "the war on terrorism", in all honesty, has no more meaning than if one wants to wage a war against "criminal gangsterism". Terrorism is a tactic. You can't have a war against a tactic. It's deliberately vague and non-definable in order to justify and permit perpetual war anywhere and under any circumstance.

Ron Paul

Though we talk peace, we wage war. Sometimes we even wage war in the name of peace. Does that seem paradoxical? Well, war is not afraid of paradoxes.

Elie Wiesel

I consider the war of America against Britain as the country's war, the public's war, or the war of the people in their own behalf, for the security of their natural rights, and the protection of their own property.

Thomas Paine

My home policy: I wage war; my foreign policy: I wage war. All the time I wage war.

Georges Clemenceau

A holy war is a contradiction in terms. War dehumanizes, war diminishes, war debases all those who wage it.

Elie Wiesel

From time immemorial, people have talked about peace without achieving it. Do we simply lack enough experience? Though we talk peace, we wage war. Sometimes we even wage war in the name of peace. . . . War may be too much a part of history to be eliminated?ever.

Elie Wiesel

I'm a warrior at heart; I'm an ex-Navy Seal. I'm too old to wage war anymore, and so now I wage it mentally. And so I find politics very stimulating; it's war without guns.

Jesse Ventura

I would like to see the U.S. fighting another war, perhaps in addition to that against terror: a war on poverty, illiteracy, disease and environmental degradation. It is certainly within the power of your country to act on all of these fronts, but, unfortunately, your leaders have become obsessed with a single issue.

Oscar Arias

You can only have a war with another country. You can't have a war with bad temper or a war against paranoids.

Gore Vidal

The war we are fighting today against terrorism is a multifaceted fight. We have to use every tool in our toolkit to wage this war - diplomacy, finance, intelligence, law enforcement, and of course, military power - and we are developing new tools as we go along.

Richard Armitage

One group of people that get a lot of PTSD are soldiers who have been in combat. You know who gets more PTSD, has higher rates of PTSD? Women who have escaped prostitution. That tells me that the war that men wage against women is actually worse than the wars they wage against each other.

Lierre Keith

It seems to me an utterly futile task to prescribe rules and limitations for the conduct of war. War is not a game; hence one cannot wage war by rules as one would in playing games. Our fight must be against war itself. The masses of people can most effectively fight the institution of war by establishing an organization for the absolute refusal of military service.