quotations about war
Anyone who thinks must think of the next war as they would of suicide.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
speech at the National Conference on the Cause and Cure of War, January 21, 1941
A nice war is a war where everybody who is heroic is a hero, and everybody more or less is a hero in a nice war. Now this war is not at all a nice war.
GERTRUDE STEIN
Wars I Have Seen
To me, the feeling of war is falling in love with something and having it killed in front of you, over and over again.
CHRIS ROESSNER
"Iraq vet talks about his Netflix movie, pulling CQ in Saddam's palace, debunking 'dysfunctional veteran' stereotype", Army Times, April 21, 2017
A war undertaken without sufficient monies has but a wisp of force. Coins are the very sinews of battles.
FRANÇOIS RABELAIS
Gargantua
The wars of latter ages seem to be made in the dark, in respect of the glory, and honor, which reflected upon men from the wars, in ancient time. There be now, for martial encouragement, some degrees and orders of chivalry; which nevertheless are conferred promiscuously, upon soldiers and no soldiers; and some remembrance perhaps, upon the scutcheon; and some hospitals for maimed soldiers; and such like things. But in ancient times, the trophies erected upon the place of the victory; the funeral laudatives and monuments for those that died in the wars; the crowns and garlands personal; the style of emperor, which the great kings of the world after borrowed; the triumphs of the generals, upon their return; the great donatives and largesses, upon the disbanding of the armies; were things able to inflame all men's courages. But above all, that of the triumph, amongst the Romans, was not pageants or gaudery, but one of the wisest and noblest institutions, that ever was. For it contained three things: honor to the general; riches to the treasury out of the spoils; and donatives to the army. But that honor, perhaps were not fit for monarchies; except it be in the person of the monarch himself, or his sons; as it came to pass in the times of the Roman emperors, who did impropriate the actual triumphs to themselves, and their sons, for such wars as they did achieve in person; and left only, for wars achieved by subjects, some triumphal garments and ensigns to the general.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of the True Greatness Of Kingdoms And Estates", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
The art of war is at once comprehensive and complicated; ... it demands much previous study; and ... the possession of it, in its most improved and perfect state, is always a great moment to the security of a nation. This, therefore, ought to be a serious care of every government; and for this purpose, an academy, where a regular course of instruction is given, is an obvious expedient, which different nations have successfully employed.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
speech to Congress, December 7, 1796
War is the great scavenger of thought. It is the sovereign disinfectant, and its red stream of blood is the Condy's Fluid that cleans out the stagnant pools and clotted channels of the intellect.... We have awakened from an opium-dream of comfort, of ease, of that miserable poltroonery of "the sheltered life." Our wish for indulgence of every sort, our laxity of manners, our wretched sensitiveness to personal inconvenience, these are suddenly lifted before us in their true guise as the spectres of national decay; and we have risen from the lethargy of our dilettantism to lay them, before it is too late, by the flashing of the unsheathed sword.
EDMUND GOSSE
"War and Literature", Inter Arma
I have never believed that war settled anything satisfactorily, but I am not entirely sure that some times there are certain situations in the world such as we have in actuality when a country is worse off when it does not go to war for its principles than if it went to war.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
attributed, Eleanor and Franklin
When war is perceived to be a win-win economic situation for all parties, the prospect of it occurring increases dramatically.
ROGER ARNOLD
"When War Is a Win-Win Scenario", The Street, April 12, 2017
I believe that, tragically, war is inescapable. I know that's not a very politically correct thing to say. But when you read the scenes of rampage and battle in The Iliad, which Achilles casually evokes when he says, "I've stormed these cities from my ship," and then look at what is happening with, say, ISIS, and the carnage and brutality there, you can see a lot of similarities. But the fact The Iliad still speaks true doesn't just mean that it has prophetic powers. It means that those truths have always been there. They are enduring truths.
CAROLINE ALEXANDER
"War is Unavoidable--and Other Hard Lessons from Homer's Iliad", National Geographic, January 10, 2016
The loss of reason in war seems to me honorable, like the death of a sentry at his post.
LEONID ANDREYEV
The Red Laugh
People do not want war. War springs from causes wholly outside the lives, interests, and feelings of the people.
FREDERIC CLEMSON HOWE
Why War
War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
The Two Towers
War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight,
The lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Queen Mab
As horrible as the death toll was in World War I, the millions who died were, by and large, killed on the battlefield--soldiers killed by soldiers, not civilians killed by lawless or random or planned savagery. The rough proportion of military to civilian casualties was ninety to ten. In World War II, the proportions were roughly even. Today, for every ten military casualties there are on the order of ninety civilian deaths. The reality of our era, as demonstrated in Angola, Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Chechnya, is that torture is rampant, murdering civilians commonplace, and driving the survivors from their homes often the main goal of a particular military offensive.
RON GUTMAN & DAVID RIEFF
preface, Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know
Unjust war is to be abhorred; but woe to the nation that does not make ready to hold its own in time of need against all who would harm it! And woe thrice over to the nation in which the average man loses the fighting edge, loses the power to serve as a soldier if the day of need should arise!
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
speech at the University of Berlin, May 12, 1910
War is the sure result of the existence of armed men. That country which maintains a large standing army will sooner or later have a war. The man who prides himself on fisticuffs is going, some day, to meet a man who considers himself the better man, and they will test the issue.
ELBERT HUBBARD
The American Bible
War is a contagion.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
speech, October 5, 1937
Wars are not favourable to delicate pleasures.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
"A Secret Vice", The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays
Always remember, however sure you are that you could easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think he also had a chance.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
My Early Life: A Roving Commission