quotations about war
I find war detestable but those who praise it without participating in it even more so.
ROMAIN ROLLAND
"Journal de Genève", Inter arma Caritas
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
War never takes a wicked man by chance, the good man always.
SOPHOCLES
Philoctetes
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
So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism--despotism during the campaign--is indispensable.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
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"
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
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
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"
War is costly; peace is priceless.
ANONYMOUS
Where are my many promised gifts and spoils of war? Where are my bold and silver cups?
AESCHYLUS
fragment, Perrhaibides
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
No one should be surprised at the prominence given to war. We are dealing with early ages; nation-MAKING is the occupation of man in these ages, and it is war that makes nations. Nation-CHANGING comes afterwards, and is mostly effected by peaceful revolution, though even then war, too, plays its part. The idea of an indestructible nation is a modern idea; in early ages all nations were destructible, and the further we go back, the more incessant was the work of destruction. The internal decoration of nations is a sort of secondary process, which succeeds when the main forces that create nations have principally done their work. We have here been concerned with the political scaffolding; it will be the task of other papers to trace the process of political finishing and building. The nicer play of finer forces may then require more pleasing thoughts than the fierce fights of early ages can ever suggest. It belongs to the idea of progress that beginnings can never seem attractive to those who live far on; the price of improvement is, that the unimproved will always look degraded.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
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
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
The number of conflict photographers covering wars has dwindled 40% over the past 15 years ... but without them, we would never know the realities of war. Governments paint a heroic and rosy picture of war through their official photos and videos, but it's the front-line photographers that show us the realities of violence, injustice, and suffering.
MICHAEL ZHANG
"This is Why the World Needs War Photographers", Peta Pixel, January 15, 2016
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
War is a fevered god
who takes alike
maiden and king and clod.
HILDA DOOLITTLE
"Telesila"
In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defense against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.
JAMES MADISON
speech at Constitutional Convention, June 29, 1787
What happened in World War II was what happened in war generally, and that was whatever the initiating cause, and however clear the moral reason is for the war in which one side looks better than the other, by the time the war ends both sides have been engaged in evil.
HOWARD ZINN
Howard Zinn Speaks: Collected Speeches, 1963-2009