quotations about war
War is no strife
To the dark house and the detested wife.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
All's Well That Ends Well
Wars do not end wars any more than an extraordinarily large conflagration does away with the fire hazard.
HENRY FORD
My Life and Work
For not even lions or dragons have ever waged with their kind such wars as men have waged with one another.
ST. AUGUSTINE
The City of God
War is not pretty from any angle, and the most vulnerable organ in the body is the brain.
FRANK LAWLIS
PTSD Breakthrough: The Revolutionary, Science-Based Compass RESET Program
A true warrior does not fight because he wishes to but because he has to. A man who yearns for war, a man who enjoys his killing, he is a brute and a monster. No matter how much glory he wins on the battlefield, that cannot erase the fact that he is no better than a rabid wolf who will turn on his friends and family as soon as his foes.
CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI
Brisingr
War is like air, in every house, in every land, on every sea.
STELLA BENSON
This Is the End
All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys,
The champions and enthusiasts of the state:
Turbid ardors and vain joys Not barrenly abate--
Stimulants to the power mature,
Preparatives of fate.
HERMAN MELVILLE
"The March Into Virginia"
A great nation assailed by war has not only its frontiers to protect: it must also protect its good sense. It must protect itself from the hallucinations, injustices, and follies which the plague lets loose.
ROMAIN ROLLAND
preface, Above the Battle
Looking at what's going on in the world right now, it's easy to feel hopeless and frightened. Violent conflict is erupting around the world -- from our own streets, schools, churches and mosques to war-torn countries far away. The call to war is being fueled by capitalizing on the fear people are feeling, but the strategies we are currently employing most often as a response to violent conflict in the world are incredibly expensive and they don't work. In fact, it seems they are making the problem worse.
LORI DRAPER
"Conflict resolution is a much better investment than war", Alaska Dispatch News, January 6, 2016
Spies could be invaluable in peacetime, once the fighting actually started, their value dropped steeply. When the swords were out, it was the information your own scouts provided that mattered, not reports from unknown people whose veracity you couldn't prove.
DAVID WEBER
Off Armageddon Reef
No catalogue of horrors ever kept men from war. Before the war you always think that it's not you that dies. But you will die, brother, if you go to it long enough.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
"Notes on the Next War", Esquire, September 1935
Even a successful war is a loss to most families.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
It is interesting ... how weapons reflect the soul of the maker.
DON DELILLO
Underworld
If I had rubies and riches and crowns
I'd buy the whole world and change things around
I'd throw all the guns and the tanks in the sea
For they are mistakes of a past history
BOB DYLAN
"Let Me Die In My Footsteps"
The risk of a nuclear war breaking out because of a 'catastrophic error' is at its highest ever point, the UN has warned in an ominous report. Complex automated systems could malfunction and start a chain of events which could claim millions of lives, according to a report by the UN's Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDR). The document concludes: 'Nuclear deterrence works--up until the time it will prove not to work. The risk is inherent and, when luck runs out, the results will be catastrophic.'
DAVE BURKE
"The risk of an 'accidental' nuclear war is higher than ever", Daily Mail, April 20, 2017
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
GEORGE SANTAYANA
"Tipperary", Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies
During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man. For WAR consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of Time is to be considered in the nature of War as it is in the nature of Weather. For as the nature of foul weather lieth not in a shower or two of rain but in an inclination thereto of many days together, so the nature of War consisteth not in actual fighting, but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
Our founders were both realists and idealists. They knew the terrors of war and prepared for its eventuality. They also believed the decision to commence war, or even engage in potentially provocative and aggressive offensive military action, was too terrible and momentous to entrust to one or even a select group of elected officials. They believed those representatives closest to the people should deliberate and make the awful decision to spill their constituents' blood and spend their treasure.
DAVID SIMPSON
"Acts of war and the limits on presidential power", TribTalk, April 21, 2017
War is a complex mechanism, whose escapement is the battle, whose function is to produce nothing but waste; as if you peeled apples to get the peel and the core, and threw the fruit away.
K. J. PARKER
The Escapement
I do not mean to exclude altogether the idea of patriotism. I know it exists, and I know it has done much in the present contest. But I will venture to assert, that a great and lasting war can never be supported on this principle alone. It must be aided by a prospect of interest, or some reward.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter, April 21, 1778