Quotes about war

"To establish any mode to abolish war, however advantageous it might be to Nations, would be to take from such Government the most lucrative of its branches."

Paine, Thomas on war   

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"The more we sweat in peace the less we bleed in war."

Pandit, Vijaya Lakshmi on war   

"Suppose they gave a war, and no one came?"

Parrish-Bach, Leslie on war   

"The real trouble with war (modern war) is that it gives no one a chance to kill the right people."

Pound, Ezra on war
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"Wars are made to make debt."

Pound, Ezra on war
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"To call war the soil of courage and virtue is like calling debauchery the soil of love."

Proverb, German on war   

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"War begets quiet, quiet idleness, idleness disorder, disorder ruin; likewise ruin order, order virtue, virtue glory, and good fortune."

Raleigh, Sir Walter on war   

"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake."

Rankin, Jeannette on war   

"Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong."

Reagan, Ronald on war
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"More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars."

Roosevelt, Franklin D. on war
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"War is a contagion."

Roosevelt, Franklin D. on war   

"Those who dare to interpret God's will must never claim Him as an asset for one nation or group rather than another. War springs from the love and loyalty which should be offered to God being applied to some God substitute, one of the most dangerous being nationalism."

Runcie, Robert on war   

"I had supposed until that time that it was quite common for parents to love their children, but the war persuaded me that it is a rare exception. I had supposed that most people liked money better than almost anything else, but I discovered that they liked destruction even better. I had supposed that intellectuals frequently loved truth, but I found here again that not ten per cent of them prefer truth to popularity."

Russell, Bertrand on war   

"Are wars... anything but the means whereby a nation's problems are set, where creation is stimulated -- there you have adventure. But there is no adventure in heads-or-tails, in betting that the toss will come out of life or death. War is not an adventure. It is a disease. It is like typhus."

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De on war   

"To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman."

Santayana, George on war   

"If it were not for the war, this war would suit me down to the ground."

Sayers, Dorothy L. on war   

"We go to gain a little patch of ground that hath in it no profit but the name."

Shakespeare, William on war   

"Cry havoc! and let slip the dogs of war, that this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men, groaning for burial."

Shakespeare, William on war
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"In the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence, and famine."

Shaw, George Bernard on war   

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"War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight, The lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade."

Shelley, Percy Bysshe on war   

"War-making is one of the few activities that people are not supposed to view realistically; that is, with an eye to expense and practical outcome. In all-out war, expenditure is all-out, unprudent -- war being defined as an emergency in which no sacrifice is excessive."

Sontag, Susan on war   

"Hence that general is skilful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skilful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack."

Sun Tzu on war
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"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting."

Sun Tzu on war
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"The savage in man is never quite eradicated."

Thoreau, Henry David on war   

"I have a deep sympathy with war, it so apes the gait and bearing of the soul."

Thoreau, Henry David on war   

"There are two things which will always be very difficult for a democratic nation: to start a war and to end it."

Tocqueville, Alexis De on war   

"O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief... for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."

Twain, Mark on war   

"War -- what a waist of time. It's all about great achievements for the very few but hideous losses for the very many."

Unknown, Source on war   

"To say that war is madness is like saying that sex is madness: true enough, from the standpoint of a stateless eunuch, but merely a provocative epigram for those who must make their arrangements in the world as given."

Updike, John on war   

"What war has always been is a puberty ceremony. It's a very rough one, but you went away a boy and came back a man, maybe with an eye missing or whatever but godammit you were a man and people had to call you a man thereafter."

Vonnegut Jr., Kurt on war   

"So you think you can tell heaven from hell blue skies from pain. Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail, a smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell? Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts hot ashes for trees, hot air for a cool breeze, cold comfort for change? Did you exchange a walk on part in a war for a lead role in a cage?"

Waters, R. on war   

"A self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war."

Weil, Simone on war   

"What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war. Petrol is more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict."

Weil, Simone on war   

"As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have it's fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular."

Wilde, Oscar on war   

"If you insist upon fighting to protect me, or our country, let it be understood soberly and rationally between us that you are fighting to gratify a sex instinct which I cannot share; to procure benefits which I have not shared and probably will not share."

Woolf, Virginia on war   

"I think it better that in times like these a poet's mouth be silent, for in truth we have no gift to set a statesman right."

Yeats, William Butler on war   

"It is far easier to make war than to make peace."

Clemenceau, Georges on war
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"No country has suffered so much from the ruins of war while being at peace as the American."

Dahlberg, Edward on war   

"The triumphs of peace have been in some proximity to war. Whilst the hand was still familiar with the sword-hilt, whilst the habits of the camp were still visible in the port and complexion of the gentleman, his intellectual power culminated; the compression and tension of these stern conditions is a training for the finest and softest arts, and can rarely be compensated in tranquil times, except by some analogous vigor drawn from occupations as hardy as war."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on war   

"It is open to a war resister to judge between the combatants and wish success to the one who has justice on his side. By so judging he is more likely to bring peace between the two than by remaining a mere spectator."

Gandhi, Mahatma on war