Mark Twain: Maxims on battleships and statesmanship

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
American writers on peace and against war
Mark Twain: Selections on war
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Mark Twain

By and when each nation has 20,000 battleships and 1,000,000 soldiers we shall all be safe and the wisdom of statesmanship will stand confirmed.
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If we had less statesmanship we could get along with fewer battleships.
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It is sound statesmanship to add two battleships every time our neighbor adds one and two stories to our skyscrapers every time he piles a new one on top of his to threaten our light. There is no limit to this soundness but the sky.

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