“Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about a modern battlefield is the desolation and emptiness of it all…one cannot emphasize too much. Nothing is to be seen of war or soldiers--only the split and shattered trees and the burst of an occasional shell reveal anything of the truth. One can look for miles and see no human being. But in those miles of country lurk (like moles or rats, it seems) thousands, even hundreds of thousands of men, planning against each other perpetually some new device of death. Never showing themselves, they launch at each other bullet, bomb, aerial torpedo and shell. And somewhere too (on the German side we know of their existence opposite us) are the little cylinders of gas, waiting only for the moment to spit forth their nauseous and destroying fumes. And yet the landscape shows nothing of all this--nothing but a few shattered trees and three or four lines of earth and sandbags, these and the ruins of towns and villages are the only signs of war anywhere visible. The glamour of red coats--the martial tunes of flag and drum--aide-de-camps scurrying hither and thither on splendid chargers--lances glittering and swords flashing--how different the old wars must have been!”

The Spirit of Revolt (1880)
Context: In periods of frenzied haste toward wealth, of feverish speculation and of crisis, of the sudden downfall of great industries and the ephemeral expansion of other branches of production, of scandalous fortunes amassed in a few years and dissipated as quickly, it becomes evident that the economic institutions which control production and exchange are far from giving to society the prosperity which they are supposed to guarantee; they produce precisely the opposite result. … Human society is seen to be splitting more and more into two hostile camps, and at the same time to be subdividing into thousands of small groups waging merciless war against each other. Weary of these wars, weary of the miseries which they cause, society rushes to seek a new organization; it clamors loudly for a complete remodeling of the system of property ownership, of production, of exchange and all economic relations which spring from it.

Source: Unsinkable: A Young Woman's Courageous Battle on the High Seas (2011), p. 196

R.U.R. (1920)

Source: Desert Solitaire

What the Future Holds (1984)

Source: Northern Farm, 1948, p. 16

Ich habe im Krieg nichts anderes getan als hunderttausende Österreicher auch, nämlich meine Pflicht als Soldat erfüllt.
Waldheim Affair http://derstandard.at/2000031874110/Ich-habe-im-Krieg-nichts-anderes-getan-als-meine-Pflicht, 9 March 1986

Under Fire (1916), Ch. 24 - The Dawn

"The Root of All Evil" as translated by Michael Hamburger