“War is wretched beyond description, and only a fool or a fraud could sentimentalize its cruel reality.”

The Tragedy of Irene (1749), Act III, Sc. 2
Context: To-morrow's action! Can that hoary wisdom,
Borne down with years, still doat upon tomorrow!
That fatal mistress of the young, the lazy,
The coward, and the fool, condemn'd to lose
A useless life in waiting for to-morrow,
To gaze with longing eyes upon to-morrow,
Till interposing death destroys the prospect
Strange! that this general fraud from day to day
Should fill the world with wretches undetected.
The soldier, labouring through a winter's march,
Still sees to-morrow drest in robes of triumph;
Still to the lover's long-expecting arms
To-morrow brings the visionary bride.
But thou, too old to hear another cheat,
Learn, that the present hour alone is man's.

“Poor Little Warrior!” p. 80
Short fiction, Who Can Replace a Man? (1965)

Source: Precepts and Judgments (1919), p. 211
Context: A war not only arises, but derives its nature, from the political ideas, the moral sentiments, and the international relations obtaining at the moment when it breaks out.
This amounts to saying : try and know why and with the help of what you are going to act; then you will find out how to act.

Letters From Emptiness (page 33)
Not Always So, practicing the true spirit of Zen (2002)

Lecture III, "The Reality of the Unseen"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)

Knowing Yourself: The True in the False (1996)
Context: Love is beyond description; but not beyond demonstrating. Love is beyond the mind because it is always new. Any product of the mind is a reaction of the past, a synthesis of what is old. So the mind is a modifier, a reactor; a renovator, but it cannot create the new.

Source: 1Q84