quotations about war
It is idle to say that we are still able to carry on the war, if we cannot carry it on without renouncing, for the sake of revenue, the means of making war with effect. It is like a soldier selling his arms, to enable him to continue his march.
JAMES STEPHEN
War in Disguise
The War went on far too long.... It was too vast for its meaning, like a giant with the brain of a midge. Its epic proportions were grotesquely out of scale, seeing what it was fought to settle. It was far too indecisive. It settled nothing, as it meant nothing. Indeed, it was impossible to escape the feeling that it was not meant to settle anything -- that could have any meaning, or be of any advantage, to the general run of men.
WYNDHAM LEWIS
Blasting and Bombardiering
I cannot get accustomed to war; my brain refuses to understand and explain a thing that is senseless in its basis. Millions of people gather at one place and, giving their actions order and regularity, kill each other, and it hurts everybody equally, and all are unhappy -- what is it if not madness?
LEONID ANDREYEV
The Red Laugh
War never takes a wicked man by chance, the good man always.
SOPHOCLES
Philoctetes
Of all evils of war the greatest is the purely spiritual evil: the hatred, the injustice, the repudiation of truth, the artificial conflict.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Justice in War-Time
What mother, with long-watching eyes
And white lips cold and dumb,
Waits with appalling patience for
Her darling boy to come?
Her boy! whose mountain grave swells up
But one of many a scar
Cut on the face of our fair land
By gory-handed war.
MARY ASHLEY TOWNSEND
A Georgia Volunteer
When conflicting rights arise between nations, one party must give way, or war must be the issue; a right, therefore, which is essential to the existence of the possessor, ought to prevail over one which is not of such vital importance.
JAMES STEPHEN
War in Disguise
Where are my many promised gifts and spoils of war? Where are my bold and silver cups?
AESCHYLUS
fragment, Perrhaibides
They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for ones country. But in modern war there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
"Notes on the Next War", Esquire, September 1935
Alas for my country, thy evergreen valleys,
Are wet with a tide that is red,
Alas for thy hills for they shudd'ringly cover
War's sacrifice, bloody and dread!
MARY T. LATHRAP
"Man's Work in God's World"
Before a war military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war it seems more like astrology.
REBECCA WEST
attributed, Europe in Arms
War and culture, those are the two poles of Europe, her heaven and hell, her glory and shame, and they cannot be separated from one another. When one comes to an end, the other will end also and one cannot end without the other. The fact that no war has broken out in Europe for fifty years is connected in some mysterious way with the fact that for fifty years no new Picasso has appeared either.
MILAN KUNDERA
Immortality
To beat a retreat with the honors of war has always been the triumph of the ablest generals.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Vicar of Tours
For what can war but endless war still breed?
JOHN MILTON
On the Lord General Fairfax
Let's face it--if mothers ruled the world, there wouldn't be any goddamn wars in the first place.
SALLY FIELD
acceptance speech at 2007 Emmy Awards
War is costly; peace is priceless.
ANONYMOUS
What weak, inglorious fools we mortals are
That war must be, or any need of war.
And yet, the better day is coming when
The teachings of the lowly Nazarene
Shall be the rule of nations--as of men;
The sword and bayonet shall be preserved,
By the fair children of a nobler race,
As relics only, of a barbarous past.
ANDREW DOWNING
"The Bluebird"
I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.
BARACK OBAMA
The New Yorker, May 31, 2004
War both needs and generates certain virtues; not the highest, but what may be called the preliminary virtues, as valour, veracity, the spirit of obedience, the habit of discipline. Any of these, and of others like them, when possessed by a nation, and no matter how generated, will give them a military advantage, and make them more likely to stay in the race of nations.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism--despotism during the campaign--is indispensable.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics