“We are exhausted [in Antwerp] and have endured so much that this war seems without purpose.... [and that it seemed] strange that Spain, which provides so little for the needs of this country.... has an abundance of means to wage an offensive war elsewhere.”

— Peter Paul Rubens

In a letter to Pierre Dupuy, Sept. / Oct. 1627; as quoted by Simon Schrama, in Rembrandt's eyes, Alfred A. Knopf - Borzoi Books, New York 1999, p. 248
1625 - 1640

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Peter Paul Rubens13

Flemish painter 1577–1640

Olaf Stapledon (1886–1950) British novelist and philosopher

Source: The Seed and the Flower

“War is an episode, a crisis, a fever the purpose of which is to rid the body of fever. So the purpose of a war is to end the war.”

William Faulkner book A Fable

Source: A Fable

“From time immemorial, people have talked about peace without achieving it. Do we simply lack enough experience? Though we talk peace, we wage war. Sometimes we even wage war in the name of peace.. . . War may be too much a part of history to be eliminated—ever.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

As quoted in "Is World Peace on the Horizon?", in The Watchtower (15 April 1991)

“The way a nation wages war — the role allotted to the people in defending the country and the purposes for which it fights — testifies to the actual character of its political system.”

Andrew Bacevich (1947) United States Army officer

Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country (2013).

“The hurricane that has swept us away is so strange & new a phenomenon that we shall not for some time understand its real meaning. ... It seems to me to be inspired by some definite desire for change: & means business. It may disappear as rapidly as it came: or it may be the beginning of a serious war of classes. Gladstone is doing all he can to give it the latter meaning.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Source: Letter to Arthur Balfour after the Conservative defeat in the general election (10 April 1880), quoted in Salisbury–Balfour Correspondence, ed. Robin Harcourt Williams (1988), p. 40

“And life goes on, which seems kind of strange and cruel when you're watching someone die. But there's a joy and an abundance of everything, like information and laughter and summer weather and so many stories.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

“The Shoshone did not wage war, because it served no purpose.”

Peter Farb (1929–1980) American academic and writer

Man's Rise to Civilization (1968), p. 31