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135 quotes

War135 quotes

I love the smell of napalm in the morning. — Bill Killgore · 1979 The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. — Wilfred Owen · 1918 There are no atheists in the fox holes. — William Thomas Cummings · 1943 War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means. — Karl Von Clausewitz · 1833 If the Persians hide the sun, the battle will be in shade rather than sunlight. — Herodotus · 430 BC Carthage must be destroyed. — Cato the Elder · 149 BC All 135 quotes →

War and peace10 quotes

Make war that we may live in peace. — Aristotle · 322 BC No one is stupid enough to prefer war to peace; in peace sons bury their fathers and in war fathers bury their sons. However, I suppose the god must have wanted this to happen. — Herodotus · 430 BC Let me have war, say I. It exceeds peace as far as day does night. It's sprightly waking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible. — William Shakespeare · 1616 Even in those cities which seem to enjoy the blessings of peace, and where the arts flourish, the inhabitants are devoured by envy, cares and anxieties, which are greater plagues than any experienced in a town when it is under siege. — Voltaire · 1759 There never was a good War, or a bad Peace. — Benjamin Franklin · 1783 War appears to be as old as mankind, but peace is a modern invention. — Henry Maine · 1887 All 10 quotes →

Anti-war9 quotes

War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. — Edwin Starr · 1970 What if someone gave a war & Nobody came? Life would ring the bells of Ecstasy and Forever be Itself again. — Allen Ginsberg · 1973 You think you are dying for your country; you die for the industrialists. — Anatole France · 1922 We are mad, not only individually, but nationally. We check manslaughter and isolated murders; but what of war and the much vaunted crime of slaughtering whole peoples? — Seneca · 65 Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come. — Carl Sandburg · 1936 War, he sung, is Toil and Trouble; Honour, but an empty Bubble. Never ending, still beginning, Fighting still, and still destroying; If the World be worth thy winning, Think, O think it worth enjoying. — John Dryden · 1697 All 9 quotes →

Peace9 quotes

Vietnam War6 quotes

I love the smell of napalm in the morning. — Bill Killgore · 1979 I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy; we fought ourselves. And the enemy...was in us. — Chris · 1986 North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that. — Richard Nixon · 1969 To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe in the face of the evidence the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, if unsatisfactory, conclusion. — Walter Cronkite · 1968 Some of you think you have problems because you're against the war. You demonstrated in school, you wear peace symbols on your steel, and you have attitudes. I'm an orphan, my brother's queer, the city of Chicago got the clap from my sister, Mom drinks, Dad coughs blood, I have ringworm, immersion foot, the incurable crud and the draft ruined my chances of being a brain surgeon. People, you have no problem. Except me and him. — Sgt. Adam Frantz · 1987 On guard at night you'll write letters, play with your organ, and think of your girl back home. Forget her. Some hair head has her on her back right now and is telling her to fuck for peace. — Sgt. Adam Frantz · 1987

World War II6 quotes

Americans traditionally love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle. — George S. Patton · 1969 That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason. — Robert H. Jackson · 1945 In bombers named for girls, we burned The cities we had learned about in school- Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among The people we had killed and never seen. When we lasted long enough they gave us medals; When we died they said, "Our casualties were low." — Randall Jarrell · 1948 I don't want to get any messages saying that we are holding our position. We're not holding anything. Let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding on to anything except the enemy. We're going to hold on to him by the nose and we're gonna kick him in the ass. We're gonna kick the hell out of him all the time and we're gonna go through him like crap through a goose! — General George S. Patton · 1969 Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war. Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans. — General George S. Patton · 1969 The policy is obliteration, openly acknowledged. This is not a justifiable act of war. — George Bell · 1944

World War I5 quotes

In those days, when every male who could stand half-way erect was being shipped to Verdun to undergo a radical change of posture from the vertical to the eternal horizontal. — Gunter Grass · 1959 I gave my life for freedom-This I know: For those who bade me fight had told me so. — William Norman Ewer · 1914 Every position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end. — Douglas Haig · 1918 The war has used up words. — Henry James · 1915 The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires. — Wilfred Owen · 1917

Dying for one's country4 quotes

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. — Wilfred Owen · 1918 You think you are dying for your country; you die for the industrialists. — Anatole France · 1922 Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. — General George S. Patton · 1969 I gave my life for freedom-This I know: For those who bade me fight had told me so. — William Norman Ewer · 1914

Horrors of war4 quotes

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. — Wilfred Owen · 1920 You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. — William Tecumseh Sherman · 1864 The war has used up words. — Henry James · 1915 The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires. — Wilfred Owen · 1917

Military strategy4 quotes

The history of failure in war can almost be summed up in two words: too late. — Douglas MacArthur · 1940 Rule 1, on page 1 of the book of war, is: "Do not march on Moscow"...[Rule 2] is: "Do not go fighting with your land armies in China." — Bernard Montgomery · 1962 A good plan violenty executed now is better than a perfect plan next week. — General George S. Patton · 1947 Military force—especially when wielded by an outside power—just cannot bring order in a country that cannot govern itself. — Robert McNamara · 1995

Battle3 quotes

Hail Caesar, those who are about to die salute you. — Suetonius · 52 In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. — Dwight D. Eisenhower · 1962 Give brief orders; speeches that are too long are likely to be forgotten. — Abu Bakr · 634

Nature of war3 quotes

War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means. — Karl Von Clausewitz · 1833 We hear war called murder. It is not: it is suicide. — Ramsay MacDonald · 1930 Were I to... Take a peasant by the shoulders and whisper to him, "In your lifetime, have you known peace?" wait for his answer, shake his shoulders and transform him into his father, and ask him the same question, and transform him in turn into his father, I would never hear the word "yes" if I carried my questioning of the dead back for a thousand years. — Rebecca West · 1941

Patriotism3 quotes

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. — Wilfred Owen · 1918 You think you are dying for your country; you die for the industrialists. — Anatole France · 1922 There was no patriotism in the trenches. It was too remote a sentiment, and rejected as fit only for civilians. — Robert Graves · 1929

Preparing for war3 quotes

To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace. — George Washington · 1790 Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead grip, and Germans, no less than other peoples, prepare for the last war. — Barbara Tuchman · 1962 A war regarded as inevitable or even probable, and therefore much prepared for, has a very good chance of eventually being fought. — George F. Kennan · 1977

Absurdity of war2 quotes

Yes, quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down You'd treat if met where any bar is, Or help to half-a-crown. — Thomas Hardy · 1902 We go to gain a little patch of ground That hath in it no profit but the name. — William Shakespeare · 1616

American Civil War2 quotes

War, at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and in its duration, is one of the most terrible. — Abraham Lincoln · 1864 You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. — William Tecumseh Sherman · 1864

American character2 quotes

Americans traditionally love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle. — George S. Patton · 1969 Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war. Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans. — General George S. Patton · 1969

Attraction of war2 quotes

War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to face it. — Benito Mussolini · 1932 It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it. — Robert E. Lee · 1862

Costs of war2 quotes

Every gun that is made, ever warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. — Dwight D. Eisenhower · 1953 The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. — Dwight D. Eisenhower · 1953

Courage2 quotes

If the Persians hide the sun, the battle will be in shade rather than sunlight. — Herodotus · 430 BC If a warrior is not unattached to life and death, he will be of no use whatsoever. — Yamamoto Tsunetomo · 1716

Effects of war2 quotes

For what can war, but endless war still breed? — John Milton · 1674 War is the greatest of all agents of change. It speeds up all processes, wipes out minor distinctions, brings realities to the surface. Above all, war brings it home to the individual that he is not altogether an individual. It is only because they are aware of this that men will die on the field of battle. — George Orwell · 1941

Political theory2 quotes

Laws are silent in time of war. — Cicero · 52 BC Military force—especially when wielded by an outside power—just cannot bring order in a country that cannot govern itself. — Robert McNamara · 1995

Politics2 quotes

I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. — John Adams · 1780 Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed. — Mao Zedong · 1938

Praise of war2 quotes

War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to face it. — Benito Mussolini · 1932 Eternal peace is a dream, and not even a beautiful one, and war is a link in God's world order. In him, the noblest virtues of man, courage and renunciation, devotion to duty and willingness to sacrifice, unfold with the institution of life. Without the war, the world would become bogged down in materialism. — Helmuth von Moltke the Elder · 1880

Preparation2 quotes

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. — Dwight D. Eisenhower · 1962 No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main strength. — Helmuth von Moltke the Elder · 1871

Soldiers2 quotes

But you realize every time you suit up, every time we go out, it's life or death. You roll the dice...and you deal with it. — Sergeant JT Sanborn · 2008 Slowly the reality of it all formed in my mind: we were expendable! It was difficult to accept. We come from a nature and a culture that values life and the individual. To find oneself in a situation where your life seems of little value is the ultimate in loneliness. It is a humbling experience. — E.B. Sledge · 1981

War stories2 quotes

Now tell us all about the war, And what they kill'd each other for. — Robert Southey · 1805 A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. — Tim O'Brien · 1987

Winning a war2 quotes

Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory. — General George S. Patton · 1933 The best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities... It is best to win without fighting. — Sun Tzu · 490 BC

Winning and losing2 quotes

The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose. — Henry Kissinger · 1969 Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war. Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans. — General George S. Patton · 1969

Abuses of patriotism1 quote

I gave my life for freedom-This I know: For those who bade me fight had told me so. — William Norman Ewer · 1914

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