“The war may present or force a subject; it may bring out a poet, or shock him onto a sensibility of silence. It may kill him. Or germinate the best war poems for exfoliation years after the event.”

— Richard Eberhart

The War Poets ed. Oscar Williams. New York 1945
The War Poets

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Richard Eberhart 6

American poet 1904–2005

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“The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

On the American Civil War (1861); as quoted in Afro-American Writing: An Anthology of Prose and Poetry http://books.google.com/books?id=qPW8i99nuvEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false, by Richard A. Long.
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“You may have the best machinery in the world, you may have adequate supplies of munitions, you may have the men, you may have the generals; but wars are fought out eventually always as contests of will, and there are needed in the responsible positions men who are prepared to give decisions, who are not afraid to take risks, men of inflexible will-power. In all these respects, I say, from very close working with him for the last two years, that we have in the Prime Minister a leader in war such as this country has rarely had in its long history.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1942/may/19/war-situation#column_67 in the House of Commons (19 May 1942).
1940s

“War, no matter what our intentions may be, brings suffering and tragedy.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Obama raises human rights in Vietnam, calls for 'peaceful resolution' of South China Sea disputes http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/24/politics/obama-vietnam-south-china-sea/, CNN (24 May 2016)
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“To Mankind
And the hope that the war against folly may someday be won, after all.”

Isaac Asimov book The Gods Themselves

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“War is most often a form of tyranny. It is best described by paraphrasing Trotsky's aphorism about the dialectic: "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

Misattributed
Context: : In a later work, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (2000) by Michael Walzer, the author states: War is most often a form of tyranny. It is best described by paraphrasing Trotsky's aphorism about the dialectic: "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." This statement on dialectic itself seems to be a paraphrase, with the original in In Defense of Marxism Part VII : "Petty-Bourgeois Moralists and the Proletarian Party" (1942) https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/idom/dm/32-goldman2.htm — where Trotsky publishes a letter to Albert Goldman (5 June 1940) has been translated as "Burnham doesn't recognize dialectics but dialectics does not permit him to escape from its net." More discussion on the origins of this quotation can be found at The Semi-Daily Journal of Economist Brad DeLong: Fair and Balanced Almost Every Day http://econ161.berkeley.edu/movable_type/2003_archives/002422.html.

“Even there, in the mines, underground, I may find a human heart in another convict and murderer by my side, and I may make friends with him, for even there one may live and love and suffer. One may thaw and revive a frozen heart in that convict, one may wait upon him for years, and at last bring up from the dark depths a lofty soul, a feeling, suffering creature; one may bring forth an angel, create a hero! There are so many of them, hundreds of them, and we are to blame for them.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author

The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)

“I do not believe in a major war this year because the French army at present is as large as that of Germany and far more mature. But next year and the year after may carry these Dictator-ridden countries to the climax of their armament and of their domestic embarrassments. We shall certainly need to be ready then.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to Lord Linlithgow (23 September 1937), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 870
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“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

Misattributed

“It is not my purpose as a poet to condemn war (or to be exact, modern warfare). I only wish to present the universal aspects of a particular event”

Herbert Read (1893–1968) English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art

Note appended to his poem The End of War (1933)
Literary Quotes

“Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.”

James E. Lovelock (1919) independent scientist, environmentalist and futurist

Interview with The Guardian (29 March 2010)

“The war may present or force a subject; it may bring out a poet, or shock him onto a sensibility of silence. It may kill him. Or germinate the best war poems for exfoliation years after the event.”

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Richard Eberhart 6

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