Variant: Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.
Source: The Art of War, Chapter IV · Disposition of the Army
“This is a War of the Unknown Warrior”
Broadcast (14 July 1940), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941 (London: Heinemann, 1983), p. 665
The Second World War (1939–1945)
Context: This is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes. There are vast numbers, not only in this Island but in every land, who will render faithful service in this war, but whose names will never be known, whose deeds will never be recorded. This is a War of the Unknown Warrior; but let all strive without failing in faith or in duty, and the dark curse of Hitler will be lifted from our age.
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Winston S. Churchill 601
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1874–1965Related quotes
“The unknown is the governing condition of war.”
Source: Precepts and Judgments (1919), p. 209
“Man should be trained for war and woman for the recreation of the warrior.”
As reported by Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will, Men Women and Rape, (1975) note 3, at 48. the original statement was attributed to Nietzsche; as quoted in War Crimes Against Women: Prosecution in International War Crimes Tribunals https://books.google.com/books?id=ThfzGvSvQ2UC&pg=PA7&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false, Kelly Dawn Askin, (1997), p.49.
Attributed
“All men are warriors. And life for everything in our universe is nothing but war.”
Source: The Wild (1995), p. 81
a Defensive war I think a righteous war to Defend my life & property & that of my family, in my own opinion, is right & justifiable in the sight of God.
An offensive war, I believe to be wrong and would therefore have nothing to do with it, having no right to meddle with another man's property, his ox or his ass, his man servant or his maid servant or anything that is his. Neither does he have a right to meddle with anything that is mine, if he does I have a right to defend it by force.
Letter to a Quaker (1798)
Undated Letter to a Navy friend http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx; also mentioned by William Safire in his "On Language" article "Warrior" in the New York Times rubric Magazines (26 August 2007) http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/magazine/26wwln-safire-t.html; also in A Thousand Days : John F. Kennedy in the White House (1965), by Arthur Schlesinger, p. 88 http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx
Pre-1960