When the peoples of all the nations are capable of governing themselves through an International Parliament then and not till then, will war cease to burden man and universal peace become a thing accomplished.

William Sulzer, U.S. Congressman and Chairman of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 1912

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, / Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; …Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d / In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, / And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, British poet, quote from the poem Locksley Hall, 1842