Politics & Power Quote by John Fisher

Peace is the most reusable slogan in politics because it sounds like a moral endpoint while leaving room for endless bargaining over whose terms count as “peace.” John Fisher, a Tudor-era clergyman who would become a martyr under Henry VIII, knew that piety and power rarely travel separately. His line punctures the holy sheen of peacemaking by treating it as a preference, not a principle: every nation wants quiet, stability, and legitimacy, but only in a configuration that protects its interests, its pride, and its hierarchy.

The intent is almost prosecutorial. Fisher isn’t denying that leaders desire an end to conflict; he’s exposing the hidden clause that always trails behind diplomatic language: peace, yes, but not at the cost of advantage. “That suits them” is the knife twist. It reframes peace as a tailored garment - comfortable, self-flattering, and often sewn from someone else’s concessions. The subtext is theological in its suspicion of self-justification: people (and by extension states) can bless their own appetites with righteous vocabulary.

Context matters. Fisher lived at a moment when “peace” could mean dynastic security, papal authority, or the avoidance of civil fracture, depending on who spoke it. As England moved toward the Reformation, the crown’s version of peace demanded obedience; Rome’s version demanded continuity; reformers’ version demanded rupture. Fisher’s sentence anticipates the modern choreography of international relations: everyone invokes peace, but the argument is always about whose peace becomes the world’s normal.