“In our new age of terrifying, lethal gadgets, which supplanted so swiftly the old one, the first great aggressive war, if it should come, will be launched by suicidal little madmen pressing an electronic button. Such a war will not last long and none will ever follow it. There will be no conquerors and no conquests, but only the charred bones of the dead on an uninhabited planet.”

Last words of the preface
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "In our new age of terrifying, lethal gadgets, which supplanted so swiftly the old one, the first great aggressive war, …" by William L. Shirer?
William L. Shirer photo
William L. Shirer 35
American journalist 1904–1993

Related quotes

Bertolt Brecht photo
Peter F. Drucker photo
Anne Fadiman photo

“To use an electronics analogy, closing a book on a bookmark is like pressing the Stop button, whereas when you leave the book facedown, you've only pressed Pause.”

Anne Fadiman (1953) American essayist, journalist and magazine editor

Source: Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader

Tulsi Gabbard photo

“I served in a war in Iraq, a war that was launched based on lies and a war that was launched without evidence. And so the American people were duped… As a soldier, as an American, as a member of Congress, it is my duty and my responsibility to exercise skepticism any time anyone tries to send our service members into harm’s way or use our military to go in and start a new war.”

Tulsi Gabbard (1981) U.S. Representative from Hawaii's 2nd congressional district

Quoted by Kevin Gosztola in CNN Foreign Policy Gatekeepers Vilify Tulsi Gabbard for Her Anti-Intervention Dissent, Mintpress News https://www.mintpressnews.com/cnn-foreign-policy-gatekeepers-vilify-tulsi-gabbard-for-her-anti-intervention-dissent/256221/ (13 March 2019)
2019

Michael Ignatieff photo
Carlos Fuentes photo

“The facade of the Conquest, severe yet jocund, with one foot in the dead Old World and the other in the New.”

Describing a Mexican baroque church
The Death of Artemio Cruz (1962)

F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
Noam Chomsky photo

“Nobody is ever involved in an aggressive war; it's always a defensive war -- on both sides.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Interview by Tor Wennerberg, November 1998 http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/199811--.htm.
Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999
Context: No individual gets up and says, I'm going to take this because I want it. He'd say, I'm going to take it because it really belongs to me and it would be better for everyone if I had it. It's true of children fighting over toys. And it's true of governments going to war. Nobody is ever involved in an aggressive war; it's always a defensive war -- on both sides.

“The general at the radar screen
Rubbed his hands with glee,
And grinning pressed the button
And started world war three.”

Roger McGough (1937) British writer and poet

"Icarus Allsorts", from The Mersey Sound (1967)

Curtis LeMay photo

“I'd like to see a more aggressive attitude on the part of the United States. That doesn't mean launching an immediate preventive war…”

Curtis LeMay (1906–1990) American general and politician

Mission with LeMay: My Story (1965), p. 559.

Related topics