Quotes about war
A collection of quotes on the topic of peace, hostility, fight, world.
Best quotes about war
“Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.”
Source: Heliogabalus
“The only way to abolish war is to make peace heroic.”
James Hinton, Philosophy and Religion: Selections from the Manuscripts of the Late James Hinton, ed. Caroline Haddon, (2nd ed., London: 1884), [//books.google.com/books?id=DpxRAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA267 p. 267].
Widely misattributed on the internet to Dewey, who actually attributes it to Hinton in Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology (New York: 1922), [//books.google.com/books?id=Ws0RAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA115 p. 115].
Misattributed
“Worse than war is the very fear of war.”
peior est bello timor ipse belli.
Thyestes, line 572 (Chorus).
Tragedies
“In peace, prepare for war. In war, prepare for peace.”
Sometimes erroneously prepended to the opening line "The art of war is of vital importance to the State", but appears to be a variation of the Roman motto "Si vis pacem, para bellum". It's not clear who first misattributed this phrase to Sun Tzu. The earliest appearance of the phrase in Google Books is 1920, when it appeared in a pharmaceutical journal, but no attribution was given then.
Misattributed
“The true objective of war is peace.”
This attributed to Sun Tzu and his book The Art of War. Actually James Clavell’s foreword in The Art of War http://www.scribd.com/doc/42222505/The-Art-Of-War states http://www.collegetermpapers.com/TermPapers/History_Other/Sun_Tzu_vs_The_Wisdom_of_the_Desert.shtml, “’the true object of war is peace.’” Therefore the quote is stated by James Clavell, but the true origin of Clavell's quotation is unclear. Nonetheless the essence of the quote, that a long war exhausts a state and therefore ultimately seeking peace is in the interest of the warring state, is true, as Sun Tzu in Chapter II Waging Wars says that "There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare. It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on." This has been interpreted by Lionel Giles http://www.dutchjoens.info/SunTzu%20-%20Art%20of%20War.pdf as "Only one who knows the disastrous effects of a long war can realize the supreme importance of rapidity in bringing it to a close."
Dr. Hiroshi Hatanaka, President of Kobe College, Nishinomiya, Hyōgo, Japan is recorded as saying "the real objective of war is peace" in Pacific Stars and Stripes Ryukyu Edition, Tokyo, Japan (10 February 1949), Page 2, Column 2.
Misattributed
“But it takes a war to make map-reading popular.”
Source: "As I Please," Tribune (11 February 1944)
“All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal.”
“God created war so that Americans would learn geography.”
Quotes about war
“You know it's funny, when it rains it pours
they got money for wars, but can't feed the poor.”
"Keep Ya Head Up"
1990s, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z... (February 16, 1993)
Variant: They got money for wars, but can't feed the poor.
“We don't like to kill our unborn, we need them to grow up and fight our wars.”
" We're From America http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/marilynmanson/werefromamerica.html".
2000s, The High End of Low (2009)
"In Search of a Majority: An Address" (Feb 1960); reprinted in Baldwin, "Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobody_Knows_My_Name (1961)
"The Meaning of Life: The Big Picture", Life Magazine (December 1988)
Interviews
“When diplomacy ends, War begins.”
“True peace is not merely the absence of war, it is the presence of justice.”
As quoted in Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden (2005) by Bruce Lawrence ISBN 1844670457
2000s, 2004
Earth Song
HIStory: Past, Present & Future, Book I (1995)
Krieg ohne Haß
In the preamble written by his wife of the 1953 edition published by the publishing house "Heidenheimer Zeitung", she clearly states that all the chapter titles as well as the book title were chosen by the editors, thus not Erwin Rommel himself.
“Everybody's at war with different things… I'm at war with my own heart sometimes.”
1990s, Vibe magazine interview (February 1996)
Dated 27 March 1942
Diary excerpts
As quoted in Hannibal : Enemy of Rome (1992) by Leonard Cottrell, p. 150.
https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/haken32.htm “Those Damn Nazis: Why Are We Socialists?”
Written by Joseph Goebbels and Mjölnir, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (Munich: Verlag Frz. Eher (1932). “Those Damned Nazis,” (Nazi propaganda pamphlet).
1930s
“Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war.”
Speech to the Reichstag, 30 January 1939, as quoted at The History Place http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/threat.htm.
1930s
Mansel, Philip, Constantinople: city of the world's desire 1453-1924 (1995), p. 84
Poetry
Source: The Rommel Papers (1953), Ch. XI : The Initiative Passes, p. 262.[[Courage which goes against military expediency is stupidity, or, if it is insisted upon by a commander, irresponsibility.]]
Context: The Italian command was, for the most part, not equal to the task of carrying on war in the desert, where the requirement was lightning decision followed by immediate action. The training of the Italian infantryman fell far short of the standard required by modern warfare. … Particularly harmful was the all pervading differentiation between officer and man. While the men had to make shift without field-kitchens, the officers, or many of them, refused adamantly to forgo their several course meals. Many officers, again, considered it unnecessary to put in an appearance during battle and thus set the men an example. All in all, therefore, it was small wonder that the Italian soldier, who incidentally was extraordinarily modest in his needs, developed a feeling of inferiority which accounted for his occasional failure and moments of crisis. There was no foreseeable hope of a change for the better in any of these matters, although many of the bigger men among the Italian officers were making sincere efforts in that direction.
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
"As I Please," Tribune, (31 December 1943)
As I Please (1943–1947)
“The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.”
Source: The Titan's Curse
Source: The Lightning Thief
“And did you ever stop to think that im old enough to go to war but i aint old enough to drink.”
Res Gestae Divi Augusti
As quoted in Albert Speer's diary entry for 26 December 1950 recalling a conversation with Hitler in January 1943, published in Spandau: The Secret Diary (2000), p. 167
1940s
“The only way there could be war is if they start it; we're not going to start a war.”
Declaring what he would tell Yuri Andropov, head of the Soviet Union, were he in the room; in an interview http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1983/120683c.htm for People magazine (12 June 1983)
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)
La guerre, c'est un massacre de gens qui ne se connaissent pas, au profit de gens qui se connaissent, mais ne se massacrent pas.
Bizarre, issues 24-31 (1962), p. 102
This apocryphal quote from Paul Valéry is never precisely sourced: neither on the internet nor in the works we have consulted. See: https://www.guichetdusavoir.org/question/voir/52650
Records of the Grand Historian, by Sima Qian
To Leon Goldensohn (24 May 1946)
The Nuremberg Interviews (2004)
About the first World War.
The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (1926)
Source: The Art of War, Chapter III · Strategic Attack
“The art of war is of vital importance to the State.”
The Art of War, Chapter I · Detail Assessment and Planning
Context: The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.
“It is best to avoid low company, whether they come in peace or in war.”
An argosy of fables, p. 245
about himself, Extracted from Baharīstān-e- Jami
St. John Chrysostom, Homily 24 on the Epistle to the Romans [PG 60:626-27] https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2017/10/contraception-early-church-teaching-william-klimon.html
Zelensky’s speech at the UN General Assembly https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/vistup-prezidenta-ukrayini-volodimira-zelenskogo-na-zagalnih-57477 (25 September 2019)
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
“Instead of war on poverty,
they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me.”
“… taxes are not raised to carry on wars, but that wars are raised to carry on taxes”
Source: Rights of Man
Preface to Food for the Spirit: Vegetarianism and the World Religions by Steven Rosen (New York: Bala Books, 1987, )
Variant: To be a vegetarian is to disagree - to disagree with the course of things today... starvation, cruelty - we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it's a strong one.
Context: Vegetarianism is my religion. I became a consistent vegetarian some twenty-three years ago. Before that, I would try over and over again. But it was sporadic. Finally, in the mid-1960s, I made up my mind. And I've been a vegetarian ever since. When a human kills an animal for food, he is neglecting his own hunger for justice. Man prays for mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to others. Why should man then expect mercy from God? It's unfair to expect something that you are not willing to give. … This is my protest against the conduct of the world. To be a vegetarian is to disagree — to disagree with the course of things today. Nuclear power, starvation, cruelty — we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it's a strong one.
“It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.”
Source: The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception
“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
Misattributed
“The man with the greatest soul will always face the greatest war with the low minded person.”
“Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U. S. was too strong.”
“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”
Earliest record is in a circular letter from Hessian Church minister Karl Lotz on 5 October 1944 and modified from a quote by Johanan ben Zakai according to [Landes, Richard Allen, Heaven on Earth: The varieties of the millennial experience, USA, Oxford University Press, 2011, 978-0-19-975359-8, https://books.google.com/books?id=seS-0JTykgoC&pg=PA48, 48]
Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Martin Luther / Disputed
Misattributed
“I've been accused of every death except the casualty list of the World War.”
The Bootleggers
“Especially dangerous on the musical front in the present class war.”
An official Soviet verdict on Rachmaninoff's music, delivered in 1931; cited from Percy A. Scholes The Oxford Companion to Music, 5th edn. (London: Oxford University Press, 1944) p. 775.
Criticism
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJodTuDeoYg
The Yoga of Nutrition, Editions Prosveta, 2012 ebook edition, pp. 24 https://books.google.it/books?id=jnoVCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT24-25.
“Either Man will abolish war, or war will abolish Man.”
Fact and Fiction (1961), Part IV, Ch. 10: "Can War Be Abolished?", p. 276
1960s
National Prayer Breakfast speech, Washington, D.C. (3 February 1994) http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/abortion/ab0039.html.
1990s
To Leon Goldensohn (24 May 1946)
The Nuremberg Interviews (2004)
Babur-Nama, translated into English by A.S. Beveridge, New Delhi reprint, 1979, pp. 574-75
“I have come not to make war on the Italians, but to aid the Italians against Rome.”
Spoken to Italian soldiers of Rome captured at the Battle of Lake Trasimene (24 June 217 BC) as quoted in Hannibal : One Man Against Rome (1958) by Harold Lamb, p. 119.
Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 1.
Interview, 2 July, 1968; quoted in New York Times, 3 July, 1968, p. 6.
Reminiscing during an ocean voyage to Tahiti, quoted in The Atlantic, November 1960
Early life
How the Jews Created the Comic Book Industry Part I: The Golden Age (1933-1955) Reform Judaism http://reformjudaismmag.net/03fall/comics.shtml (2003)
Babur writing about the battle against the Rajput Confederacy led by Maharana Sangram Singh of Mewar. In Babur-Nama, translated into English by A.S. Beveridge, New Delhi reprint, 1979, pp. 547-572.
Variant translations
It is best to keep one’s own state intact; to crush the enemy’s state is only second best.
Source: The Art of War, Chapter III · Strategic Attack
“What is essential in war is victory, not prolonged operations.”
Source: The Art of War, Chapter II · Waging War
“they possess most gold and silver, by which war, like everything else, flourishes.”
Book VI, 6.34; "they have abundance of gold and silver, and these make war, like other things, go smoothly" ( trans. http://www.classicpersuasion.org/pw/thucydides/jthucbk6rv2.htm Benjamin Jowett)
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book VI
Source: The Art of War, Chapter VIII · Variations and Adaptability
“In war, numbers alone confer no advantage. Do not advance relying on sheer military power.”
Source: The Art of War, Chapter IX · Movement and Development of Troops
1960s, A Time for Choosing (1964)
Context: As for the peace that we would preserve, I wonder who among us would like to approach the wife or mother whose husband or son has died in South Vietnam and ask them if they think this is a peace that should be maintained indefinitely. Do they mean peace, or do they mean we just want to be left in peace? There can be no real peace while one American is dying some place in the world for the rest of us. We're at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it's been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well I think it's time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers.
“Secret operations are essential in war; upon them the army relies to make its every move.”
Source: The Art of War, Chapter XIII · Intelligence and Espionage
“Thus, what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy's strategy.”
是故上攻伐谋
The Art of War, Chapter III · Strategic Attack
Variant: Thus, what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy's strategy.
In an interview with Gilbert in Göring's jail cell during the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials (18 April 1946) http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.asp
Nuremberg Diary (1947)
Context: p> Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.</p
Mankind is Confronted by One Supreme Task, News of the World, 14 November 1937
Reproduced in The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, Vol IV, Churchill at Large, Centenary Edition (1976), Library of Imperial History, p. 421.
The 1930s
Source: The Art of War, Chapter VI · Weaknesses and Strengths
“This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed — for anyone”
"When War Drums Roll" (17 September 2001)
2000s
Context: This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed — for anyone, and certainly not for anyone as baffled as George W. Bush. All he knows is that his father started the war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child-President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it. Now.
Zelensky’s speech at the UN General Assembly https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/vistup-prezidenta-ukrayini-volodimira-zelenskogo-na-zagalnih-57477 (25 September 2019)
(zh-TW) 孫子曰：國之上下，死生之地，存亡之道，不可不察也。
The Art of War, Chapter 1 · Detail Assessment and Planning
"Iron Lady of Israeli politics" Thames TV (1970)
Source: "As I Please," Tribune (4 August 1944)
http://alexpeak.com/twr/orwell/quotes/
"Speech to the Norwegian Storting" (30 March 2022) https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/promova-prezidenta-ukrayini-volodimira-zelenskogo-v-parlamen-73961
Source: The World of Yesterday
“We make war that we may live in peace.”
