Quotes about war
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“I really do think that if for one week in the United States we saw the true face of war, we saw people's limbs sheared off, we saw kids blown apart, for one week, war would be eradicated. Instead, what we see in the U. S. media is the video war game.”

Amy Goodman (1957) American broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist, investigative reporter and author

People, Game, Thinking

“In times of war, the law falls silent.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Law, Time

“All oppression creates a state of war”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Conclusion http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/2nd-sex/ch04.htm, p. 717 Source: The Second Sex (1949) Context: All oppression creates a state of war. And this is no exception. The existent who is regarded as inessential cannot fail to demand the re-establishment of her sovereignty. Today the combat takes a different shape; instead of wishing to put man in a prison, woman endeavours to escape from one; she no longer seeks to drag him into the realms of immanence but to emerge, herself, into the light of transcendence.

“Shadow is ever besieged, for that is its nature. Whilst darkness devours, and light steals. And so one sees shadow ever retreat to hidden places, only to return in the wake of the war between dark and light.”

Steven Erikson book House of Chains

Source: House of Chains

Nature, Light

“Mankind must put an end to war - or war will put an end to mankind.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1961, UN speech
Context: Mankind must put an end to war — or war will put an end to mankind.
So let us here resolve that Dag Hammarskjold did not live, or die, in vain. Let us call a truce to terror. Let us invoke the blessings of peace. And as we build an international capacity to keep peace, let us join in dismantling the national capacity to wage war.
Context: We meet in an hour of grief and challenge. Dag Hammarskjold is dead. But the United Nations lives. His tragedy is deep in our hearts, but the task for which he died is at the top of our agenda. A noble servant of peace is gone. But the quest for peace lies before us.
The problem is not the death of one man — the problem is the life of this organization. It will either grow to meet the challenges of our age, or it will be gone with the wind, without influence, without force, without respect. Were we to let it die, to enfeeble its vigor, to cripple its powers, we would condemn our future. For in the development of this organization rests the only true alternative to war — and war appeals no longer as a rational alternative. Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes. It can no longer concern the great powers alone. For a nuclear disaster, spread by wind and water and fear, could well engulf the great and the small, the rich and the poor, the committed and the uncommitted alike. Mankind must put an end to war — or war will put an end to mankind.
So let us here resolve that Dag Hammarskjold did not live, or die, in vain. Let us call a truce to terror. Let us invoke the blessings of peace. And as we build an international capacity to keep peace, let us join in dismantling the national capacity to wage war.

“My point is not that religion itself is the motivation for wars, murders and terrorist attacks, but that religion is the principal label, and the most dangerous one, by which a 'they' as opposed to a 'we' can be identified at all.”

Richard Dawkins book A Devil's Chaplain

"Time to Stand Up"
A Devil's Chaplain (2003)
Source: A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love

Religion, Motivation

“In war, good guys always become bad guys.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

Guy

“Dying in a a war never stopped wars from happening.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

“They won the war but lost the peace”

Jonathan Maberry book Rot & Ruin

Source: Rot & Ruin

Peace

“To the people who are upset about their hard-earned tax money going to things they don’t like: welcome to the f*cking club. Reimburse me for the Iraq war and oil subsidies, and diaphragms are on me!”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

Money, People

“You don't avoid such a war, you merely postpone it, to your own disadvantage.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 3 (as translated by RM Adams)
Context: If someone puts up the argument that King Louis gave the Romagna to Pope Alexander, and the kingdom of Naples to Spain, in order to avoid a war, I would answer as I did before: that you should never let things get out of hand in order to avoid war. You don't avoid such a war, you merely postpone it, to your own disadvantage.

“Here is a list of fearful things:
The jaws of sharks, a vulture's wings,
The rabid bite of the dog's of war,
The voice of one who went before.
But most of all the mirror's gaze,
which counts us out our numbered days.”

Clive Barker Days of Magic, Nights of War

Abarat, Book One
Source: Days of Magic, Nights of War

Fear, Dogs

“The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line. The objection to it is not that it is predominantly painful, but that it is lacking in sense.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Baltimore Evening Sun (9 August 1926)
1920s
Source: A Mencken Chrestomathy

Pain, Sense

“Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge. The bridge was being repaired: she went right through the Danger sign. The car fell a hundred feet into the ravine, smashing through the treetops feathery with new leaves, then burst into flames and rolled down into the shallow creek at the bottom. Chunks of the bridge fell on top of it. Nothing much was left but charred smithereens.”

Margaret Atwood book The Blind Assassin

Source: The Blind Assassin (2000) first lines

Cars, Sister

“I didn't know that, you take your coffee seriously, dont you?'
'Every morning, I run to the coffeemaker like a soldier returning to a lost love after the war.”

Lisa Kleypas book Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor

Source: Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor

Love, Coffee

“How can you have a war on terrorism when war itself is terrorism?”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

“They say we have we created the man to end all wars; I say we have created a man to end all worlds.”

Alan Moore book Watchmen

Source: Watchmen

World

“Wage war on death. Live for love.”

Ted Dekker book Forbidden

Source: Forbidden

Love, Death

“The phenomenon of war is its hermaphroditism: the principles of victory and of defeat inhabit the same body and the necessary opponent, enemy, is merely the bed they self-exhaust each other on.”

William Faulkner book A Fable

Source: A Fable

Victory

“You see, a conflict always begins with an issue - a difference of opinion, an argument. But by the time it turns into a war, the issue doesn't matter anymore, because now it's about one thing and one thing only: how much each side hates the other.”

Neal Shusterman book Unwind

Source: Unwind

Hate, Time

“A Time For Prayer

"In times of war and not before,
God and the soldier we adore.
But in times of peace and all things righted,
God is forgotten and the soldier slighted."

-Rudyard Kipling”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

God, Peace, Time

“We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children. War is terrorism, magnified a hundred times.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

"The Old Way of Thinking" http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/Old_Way_Thinking.html, in The Progressive (November 2001)

Children, Time

“Peace is not merely the absence of war but the presence of justice, of law, of order —in short, of government.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Source: On Peace

Peace, Justice, Law

“The German people in its whole character is not warlike, but rather soldierly, that is, while they do not want war, they are not frightened by the thoughts of it.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Source: The speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939

People

“For war there is always enough. It's peace that's expensive.”

Joseph Heller book Closing Time

Source: Closing Time

Peace

“All war presupposes human weakness and seeks to exploit it.”

Carl von Clausewitz book On War

On War (1832), Book 5

“I don't know who the good guys are anymore. But I do know what the enemy is. It's the compromise of principles. You lose the war when you lose your principles. And the first principle is to look out for your comrades.”

Karen Traviss British science fiction author

Guy

“How come we play war and not peace?"
"Too few role models.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

The Essential Calvin and Hobbes

Peace

“August 2, 1914: Germany has declared war on Russia. Went swimming in the afternoon.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

“It is easier to start a war than to end it.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

“Tis a well-known fact that a man is either skilled in matters of loving or matters of war. ’Tis obvious that fighting is your skill.”

Maya Banks (1964) Author

Source: In Bed with a Highlander

Love, Fight

“The Statue of Liberty's gender changed nothing. It was the same here as anywhere: men and their wars.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book Middlesex

Source: Middlesex

Men, Change

“Every hour, she thinks, someone for whom the war was memory falls out of the world.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

World, Thinking, Memory

“Beware
At war
Or at peace,
More people die
Of unenlightened self-interest
Than of any other disease”

Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) American science fiction writer

People, Disease, Peace

“War is not nice.”

Barbara Bush (1925–2018) former First Lady of the United States

“Real solemn history, I cannot be interested in…. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars and pestilences in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Women, Men, History

“When Winston Churchill was asked to cut arts funding in favour of the war effort, he simply asked,'then what are we fighting for?”

Kazuo Ishiguro (1954) Japanese-born British author

Art, Effort, Fight

“I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heart-less robots who protect them and their property.”

Assata Shakur (1947) American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army

To My People (July 4, 1973)
Source: Assata: An Autobiography

Lie, Smile, Heart

“War is an ill thing, as I surely know. But 'twould be an ill world for weaponless dreamers if evil men were not now and then slain.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Men, World, Evil

“How ironic is it to see a bumper sticker that says 'Jesus is the answer' next to a bumper sticker supporting the war in Iraq, as if to says 'Jesus is the answer - but not in the real world.”

Shane Claiborne (1975) American activist

World, Support

“War." Gorgon spits the word. "That is what they call it to give the illusion of honor and law. It is chaos. Madness and blood and the hunger to win. It has always been thus and shall always be so.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

Hunger, Law, Madness

“Chess is all about getting the king into check, you see. It's about killing the father. I would say that chess has more to do with the art of murder than it does with the art of war.”

Arturo Pérez-Reverte book The Flanders Panel

Source: The Flanders Panel

Art

“We have a choice. We have two options as human beings. We have a choice between conversation and war. That's it. Conversation and violence. And faith is a conversation stopper.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Faith

“But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.”

Rachel Carson (1907–1964) American marine biologist and conservationist

Nature, Parting

“You must learn to end the wars in your world by ending them in your minds.”

Barbara Marciniak (1928–2012)

Source: Family of Light: Pleiadian Tales and Lessons in Living

World, Learning

“Individual human beings are all tools, that the others use to help us all survive.” “That’s a lie.” “No. It’s just a half truth. You can worry about the other half after we win this war.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

Truth, Lie, Help

“Your war drum ain't / louder than this breath.”

Suheir Hammad (1973) American poet, author, performer, and political activist

Source: Zaatardiva

“Wars are often waged not because of what we believe, but because of the things we want others to believe.”

Neal Shusterman book Everfound

Source: Everfound

“Unless one lives and loves in the trenches, it is difficult to remember that the war against dehumanization is ceaseless.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Love

“This massive ascendancy of corporate power over democratic process is probably the most ominous development since the end of World War II, and for the most part "the free world" seems to be regarding it as merely normal.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Source: Bringing it to the Table: On Farming and Food

World, Parting

“Having a spine is overrated. If everybody squealed and ran away, there'd be no more wars.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

“There is nothing like a War for the reinvention of lives…”

Salman Rushdie book Midnight's Children

Source: Midnight's Children

“I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Department of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, D.C. http://www.hud.gov/news/speeches/presremarks.cfm (June 18, 2002) 2000s, 2002

Peace

“One bachelor is an irritation. Ten thousand bachelors are a war.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender in Exile

Source: Ender in Exile

“Everybody says sex is obscene. The only true obscenity is war.”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Cancer

Source: Tropic of Cancer

Sex

“When the rich make war, it's the poor that die.”

Jean Paul Sartre book The Devil and the Good Lord

Quand les riches se font la guerre, ce sont les pauvres qui meurent.
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)
Source: Le diable et le bon dieu

“When you wage war on the public schools, you're attacking the mortar that holds the community together. You're not a conservative, you're a vandal.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

Source: Homegrown Democrat: A Few Plain Thoughts from the Heart of America

School, Communication

“War is far worse. At least where politics is going on, there are
usually nice hors d’oeuvres.”

Brandon Sanderson book Warbreaker

Source: Warbreaker

“For it can never be that war shall preserve life, and peace destroy it.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

Source: Leviathan

Life, Peace

“Except for the people who were there that one day they discovered the polio vaccine, being part of history is rarely a good idea. History is one war after another with a bunch of murders and natural disasters in between.”

Sarah Vowell book Assassination Vacation

Source: Assassination Vacation (2005), p. 208

People, History, Idea, Nature

“The poor go to war, to fight and die for the delights, riches, and superfluities of others.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Fight

“Wars are never fought for altruistic reasons.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

“War, in its fairest form, implies a perpetual violation of humanity and justice.”

Edward Gibbon The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Source: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Justice

“Frankly, our ancestors don't seem much to brag about. I mean, look at the state they left us in, with the wars, the broken planet. Clearly, they didn't care about what would happen to the people who came after them.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

People

“The dreamers, those who misread the actual state of affairs and act upon their emotions, are often the source of the greatest mistakes in history—the wars that are not thought out, the disasters that are not foreseen”

Robert Greene book The 50th Law

Source: The 50th Law

History

“If there is a war to be fought, we don’t consider cost one of the factors in deciding whether or not to fight.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

Fight

“War don't ennoble men, it turns 'em into dogs. It poisons the soul.”

James Jones book The Thin Red Line

Source: The Thin Red Line

Men, Dogs, Soul

“Men of God and men of war have strange affinities.”

Cormac McCarthy (1933) American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter

Source: Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West

Men, God

“Time can play all sorts of tricks on you. In the blink of an eye, babies appear in carriages, coffins disappear into the ground, wars are won and lost, and children transform, like butterflies, into adults.”

Brian Selznick book The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Source: The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Children, Appearance, Time, Baby

“Let us be separated by wars and pestilence, death, madness but not by the passing of time.”

Mario Puzo book Fools Die

Source: Fools Die

Death, Time, Madness

“We've finally given liberals a war against fundamentalism, and they don't want to fight it. They would, except it would put them on the same side as the United States.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

Fight

“There is neither a foreign war nor a civil war; there is only just and unjust war.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

“Can you ever "solve" poverty? Can you ever "solve" crime? Can you ever "solve" disease, unemployment, war, or any other societal herpes? Hell no.”

Max Brooks book World War Z

Source: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

Disease, Hell

“The condition of man… is a condition of war of everyone against everyone”

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) English philosopher, born 1588

“Ceres wanted a united front in the plant war."
"The plant war," Percy said. "You're going to arm all the little grapes with tiny assault rifles?”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

“Why is it the songs all end with the good people winning, but in life they don't?"
They don't make songs when the good lose," I muttered. "They make war chants against the bad. So there won't be any songs for us.”

Sherwood Smith book Crown Duel

Source: Crown Duel

Life, People

“nobody can save you but yourself and you’re worth saving. it’s a war not easily won but if anything is worth winning then this is it.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“Time is more precious than gold, more precious than diamonds, more precious than oil or any valuable treasures. It is time that we do not have enough of; it is time that causes the war within our hearts, and so we must spend it wisely.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: The Gift

Time, Heart

“Roman might have survived the Great Vampire War of 1710, but he was about to face an even worse terror.
A mortal female in full rage.”

Kerrelyn Sparks (1955) American writer

Source: How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire

Rage

“In war everyone loses. This brutal truth can be seen in the eyes of every solider in every world.”

Steven Erikson book Dust of Dreams

Source: Dust of Dreams

Truth, World

“You never kill anyone you want to kill in a war, he said to himself.”

Ernest Hemingway book For Whom the Bell Tolls

Source: For Whom the Bell Tolls

“We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

"The Meaning of Life: The Big Picture", Life Magazine (December 1988)
Interviews
Context: For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stonewritten. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

Death, Drink, Beer

“This is not a war, this is a test of how far man can be degraded”

Sebastian Faulks book Birdsong

Source: Birdsong

“One of these days they'll be making a film where the whole human race gets wiped out in a nuclear war, but everything works out in the end.”

Haruki Murakami book A Wild Sheep Chase

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (1982)
Context: I watched an old American submarine movie on television. The creaking plot had the captain and first officer constantly at each other’s throat. The submarine was a fossil, and one guy had claustrophobia. But all that didn’t stop everything from working out well in the end. It was an everything-works-out-in-the-end-so-maybe-war’s-not-so-bad-after-all sort of film. One of these days they’ll be making a film where the whole human race gets wiped out in a nuclear war, but everything works out in the end.

“Listen up—there’s no war that will end all wars,’ Crow tells me. ‘War breeds war. Lapping up the blood shed by violence, feeding on wounded flesh. War is a perfect, self-contained being. You need to know that.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

Perfection