- All Wars are Follies, very expensive, and very mischievous ones. When will Mankind be convinced of this, and agree to settle their Differences by Arbitration? Were they to do it, even by the Cast of a Dye, it would be better than by Fighting and destroying each other.
- Letter to Mary Hewson[6], Jan. 27. 1783
- There never was a good war or a bad peace.
- Letter to Josiah Quincy (11 September 1783)
See http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin for more.