Quotes about war
page 23

Sacha Baron Cohen photo

“I is here standing outside the United Nations of Benetton. Which is where representatives from the three corners of the world come to end wars, international drug trafficking, and everything else that is a bit of a laugh.”

Sacha Baron Cohen (1971) English stand-up comedian, writer, actor, and voice actor

As quoted in "War" http://www.listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=aV3ncKB8a4s (28 February 2003), Da Ali G Show http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0508528/?ref_=ttep_ep2.

Richard K. Morgan photo
Robert Erskine Childers photo

“This Irish war, small as it may seem now, will, if it is persisted in, will corrupt and eventually ruin not only your army, but your Empire itself. What right has England to torment and demoralise Ireland?”

Robert Erskine Childers (1870–1922) Irish nationalist and author

The Daily News, 1919, as cited in "The Riddle of Erskine Childers" By Andrew Boyle, Hutchinson, London, (1977), pg. 260.
Literary Years and War (1900-1918), Last Years: Ireland (1919-1922)

Ranil Wickremesinghe photo
James Nasmyth photo

“Everything connected with war and warlike exploits is interesting to a boy.”

James Nasmyth (1808–1890) Scottish mechanical engineer and inventor

Source: James Nasmyth engineer, 1883, p. 52 (in 2010 edition)

Colin Wilson photo
Frank Klepacki photo

“Metal is back. (concerning the music for the Hierarchy faction of Universe at War: Earth Assault)”

Frank Klepacki (1974) American musician, video game music composer and sound director

Petroglyph Video Podcast

Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV photo

“That no one who had followed the events of the Great War could help realising that while it had resulted in overthrowing the three great monarchies of Europe, its effect on the British Empire had been to strengthen the bonds between king and people and to leave the British Throne more deeply seated in the affections of every class of His Imperial Majesty's subjects.”

Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV (1884–1940) King of Mysore

Lord Irwin on the occasion of the State Banquet held on the 29th July on his taking over as Viceroy. Modern_Mysore, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Open University, 26 November 2013, archive.org, 345-46 http://archive.org/stream/modernmysore035292mbp/modernmysore035292mbp_djvu.txt,
As ruler of the state

Andrew Vachss photo

“[A]nybody who has served in combat in any way understands that words are weapons. And I'm in a war. The war hasn't stopped. I've always used the books as a blunt instrument.”

Andrew Vachss (1942) American writer and lawyer

Dan Webster interview, originally published June 19, 2005, by the Spokesman Review,

Joseph Goebbels photo

“I ask you: Do you want total war? If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even yet imagine?”

Ich frage euch: Wollt ihr den totalen Krieg? Wollt ihr ihn, wenn nötig, totaler und radikaler, als wir ihn uns heute überhaupt erst vorstellen können?
Sportpalast speech, 18 February 1943
1940s

George W. Bush photo
Hideki Tōjō photo

“The moment the first American soldier sets foot on the Japanese mainland, all prisoners of war will be shot.”

Hideki Tōjō (1884–1948) former Prime Minister of Japan and Minister of War executed in 1948

Note signed by Tojo (June 1945), left at a camp during the Bataan Death March http://home.att.net/~betsynewmark3/DebateonBomb.htm. Possible forgery since Tojo was no longer in power for over a year at the time of the discovery. Also, the Japanese homeland was not threatened with invasion at the time and it was common sense that the Philippines would be attacked before.
1940s

Adam Roberts photo

“There is always war,” said Dakkar, coldly. “There will always be war, whilst empires oppress and distort human potential.”

Source: Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea (2014), Chapter 24, “Dakkar” (p. 229)

Gore Vidal photo

“Congress no longer declares war or makes budgets. So that's the end of the constitution as a working machine.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

"America First? America Last? America at Last?," Lowell Lecture, Harvard University (20 April 1992)
1990s

Hans Fritzsche photo
John Donne photo
Thomas Carlyle photo

“War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle; therefore they take boys from one village and another village, stick them into uniforms, equip them with guns, and let them loose like wild beasts against each other.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

Quoted by Emma Goldman in her essay, "Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty", chapter five of Anarchism and Other Essays (2nd revised edition, 1911).
Attributed

William T. Sherman photo
Henry Gantt photo

“Taylor’s friend Henry Gantt explains to his fellow engineers in the middle of the First World War that they must "develop a task system on the basis of democracy that will yield as good, or better, results than those now in operation under autocracy"”

Henry Gantt (1861–1919) American engineer

Source: Industrial leadership, 1916, p. 53 as cited in: Thibault Le Texier (2011) "Management Is By Nature Knowledge Management: Taylor, Scientific Management and the Early Organization of Knowledge".

William T. Sherman photo

“You also remember well who first burned the bridges of your railroad, who forced Union men to give up their slaves to work on the rebel forts at Bowling Green, who took wagons and horses and burned houses of persons differing with them honestly in opinion, when I would not let our men burn fence rails for fire or gather fruit or vegetables though hungry, and these were the property of outspoken rebels. We at that time were restrained, tied by a deep seated reverence for law and property. The rebels first introduced terror as a part of their system, and forced contributions to diminish their wagon trains and thereby increase the mobility and efficiency of their columns. When General Buell had to move at a snail's pace with his vast wagon trains, Bragg moved rapidly, living on the country. No military mind could endure this long, and we are forced in self defense to imitate their example. To me this whole matter seems simple. We must, to live and prosper, be governed by law, and as near that which we inherited as possible. Our hitherto political and private differences were settled by debate, or vote, or decree of a court. We are still willing to return to that system, but our adversaries say no, and appeal to war. They dared us to war, and you remember how tauntingly they defied us to the contest. We have accepted the issue and it must be fought out. You might as well reason with a thunder-storm.”

William T. Sherman (1820–1891) American General, businessman, educator, and author.

1860s, 1864, Letter to James Guthrie (August 1864)

Will Rogers photo

“The United States never lost a war or won a conference.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Remark after the Versailles Peace Conference, as quoted in Wit and Wisdom (1936) edited by Jack Lait
As quoted in ...

“What's the dominant emotion associated with purity? Anger. The most aggressive people are the ones who insist on being utterly pure. It's responsible for countless wars at all levels of society. Far better to have no aspiration, no hope and relate to things just as they are.”

Ken McLeod (1948) Canadian lama

Heart Sutra Workshop http://www.unfetteredmind.org/heart-sutra-commentary-3#sect13. Unfettered Mind http://www.unfetteredmind.org. (2008-09-13) (Topic: Life)

Gregory Benford photo

“Whether we like the idea or not, war has again and again been seen as the great auditor, the special testing time, of a nation's strength and fibre.”

Geoffrey Blainey (1930) Australian historian

"Gallipoli: A Battle for a Mammoth Prize," The Australian (April 24, 1990)

Harry Truman photo
Miklós Horthy photo
David Horowitz photo
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad photo
Georgy Zhukov photo
Kent Hovind photo
Wilhelm II, German Emperor photo
Subcomandante Marcos photo
Walt Whitman photo
Robert Frost photo
Gloria Steinem photo

“I was perversely delighted to see the Catholic Church and the Vatican go after nuns because I think they made a major error. People are quite clear in viewing nuns as the servants and the teachers and the supporters of the poor. You contrast that with the fact that the Vatican did virtually nothing about long-known pedophiles, and it’s just too much.
Their stance on abortion is also quite dishonest historically, because as the Jesuits (who always seem to be more honest historians of the Catholic Church) point out, the Church approved of and even regulated abortion well into the mid-1800s. The whole question of ensoulment was determined by the date of baptism. But after the Napoleonic Wars there weren’t enough soldiers anymore and the French were quite sophisticated about contraception. So Napoleon III prevailed on Pope Pius IX to declare abortion a mortal sin, in return for which Pope Pius IX got all the teaching positions in the French schools and support for the doctrine of papal infallibility. … My favorite line belongs to an old Irish woman taxi driver in Boston. Flo Kennedy and I were in the backseat talking about Flo’s book, Abortion Rap (1971), and the driver turned around and said, “Honey, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” I wish I’d gotten her name so we could attribute it to her.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

The Humanist interview (2012)

Neville Chamberlain photo
Thomas R. Marshall photo
Charlie Brooker photo
Bernie Sanders photo

“The revolution comes when two strangers smile at each other, when a father refuses to send his child to school because schools destroy children, when a commune is started and people begin to trust each other, when a young man refuses to go to war and when a girl pushes aside all that her mother has 'taught' her and accepts her boyfriends (sic) love.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

"The Revolution Is Life Versus Death" https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2157415-sanders-revolution.html, in Vermont Freeman (1969), as quoted in "The origins of Sanders' ideology, in his own words" http://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/29/politics/bernie-sanders-own-words/ by Brianna Keilar, CNN (29 February 2016)
1970s

Marshall McLuhan photo
Amir Taheri photo

“So, is “Caliph Ibrahim” of the Islamic State an extremist, a militant, a terrorist or an Islamic fighter? None of the above. All those labels imply behavior that makes some sort of sense in terms of human reality and normal ideologies. Yet the Islamic State and its kindred have broken out of the entire conceivable range of political activity, even its extreme forms. A “militant” spends much of his time promoting an idea or a political program within acceptable rules of behavior. The neo-Islamists, by contrast, recognize no rules apart from those they themselves set; they have no desire to win an argument through hard canvassing. They don’t even seek to impose a point of view; they seek naked and brutal domination. A “terrorist,” meanwhile, tries to instill fear in an adversary from whom he demands specific concessions. Yet the Islamic State et al. use mass murder to such ends. They don’t want to persuade or cajole anyone to do anything in particular; they want everything. “Islamic fighter” is equally inapt. An Islamic fighter is a Muslim who fights a hostile infidel who is trying to prevent Muslims from practicing their faith. That was not the situation in Mosul. No one was preventing the city’s Muslim majority from practicing their faith, let alone forcing them to covert to another religion. Yet the Islamic State came, conquered and began to slaughter. The Islamic State kills people because it can. And in both Syria and Iraq it has killed more Muslims than members of any other religious community. How, then, can we define a phenomenon that has made even al Qaeda, the Taliban and the Khomeinist gangs appear “moderate” in comparison? The international community faced a similar question in the 18th century when pirates acted as a law onto themselves, ignoring the most basic norms of human interaction. The issue was discussed in long negotiations that led to the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) and the Treaty of Rastadt (1714) and developed a new judicial concept: the crime against humanity. Those who committed that crime would qualify as “enemies of mankind” — in Latin, hostis generis humanis. Individuals and groups convicted of such a crime were no longer covered by penal codes or even the laws of war. They’d set themselves outside humanity by behaving like wild beasts… Neo-Islamist groups represent a cocktail of nihilism and crimes against humanity. Like the pirates of yesteryear, they’ve attracted criminals from many different nationalities… Having embarked on genocide, the neo-Islamists do not represent an Iraqi or Syrian or Nigerian problem, but a problem for humanity as a whole. They are not enemies of any particular religion, sect or government but enemies of mankind. They deserve to be treated as such (as do the various governments and semi-governmental “charities” that help them). To deal with these enemies of mankind, we need much more than frozen bank accounts and visa restrictions.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

"Beyond terrorism: ISIS and other enemies of humanity" http://nypost.com/2014/08/20/beyond-terrorism-isis-and-other-enemies-of-humanity/, New York Post (August 20, 2014).
New York Post

Rick Santorum photo
George W. Bush photo
Edward Heath photo
Clement Attlee photo
Ilana Mercer photo

“Libya is a war of the womb. A product of the romantic minds of women — Samantha Power, Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice — who fantasize about an Arab awakening. It is estrogen-driven paternalism on steroids.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“Libya: A War of the Womb,” http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=596 WorldNetDaily.com, April 8, 2011.
2010s, 2011

Nile Kinnick photo
Guy De Maupassant photo

“Any government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's captain has to avoid a shipwreck.”

Variant translation: Every government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's captain has to avoid a shipwreck.
Sur l’eau (1888)

Marcel Duchamp photo
Christopher Hitchens photo

“My quarrel with Chomsky goes back to the Balkan wars of the 1990s, where he more or less openly represented the "Serbian Socialist Party" (actually the national-socialist and expansionist dictatorship of Slobodan Milosevic) as the victim. Many of us are proud of having helped organize to prevent the slaughter and deportation of Europe's oldest and largest and most tolerant Muslim minority, in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Kosovo. But at that time, when they were real, Chomsky wasn't apparently interested in Muslim grievances. He only became a voice for that when the Taliban and Al Qaeda needed to be represented in their turn as the victims of a "silent genocide" in Afghanistan. Let me put it like this, if a supposed scholar takes the Christian-Orthodox side when it is the aggressor, and then switches to taking the "Muslim" side when Muslims commit mass murder, I think that there is something very nasty going on. And yes, I don't think it is exaggerated to describe that nastiness as "anti-American" when the power that stops and punishes both aggressions is the United States … In some awful way, his regard for the underdog has mutated into support for mad dogs. This is not at all like watching the implosion of an obvious huckster and jerk like Michael Moore, who would have made a perfectly good Brownshirt populist. The collapse of Chomsky feels to me more like tragedy.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

"Love, Poverty and War" http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=C78DC231-4599-4745-9CA5-A398398916A0, FrontPageMagazine.com (2004-12-29): On Noam Chomsky
2000s, 2004

Thomas Jefferson photo
Daniel Abraham photo

“He couldn’t fix the cancer of war, couldn’t even slow down the spread, but at least he could admit it was happening.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Leviathan Wakes (2011), Chapter 16 (p. 164)

“The authentic British poetry of the second world war was not a poetry of protest, still less was it inspired by patriotic enthusiasm”

Vernon Scannell (1922–2007) British boxer and poet

Introductory Essay 'Setting the Scene'
Not Without Glory, 1976

Paul von Hindenburg photo

“In the Great War ledger, the page on which the Russian losses were written has been torn out. No one knows the figure. Five or eight Million?”

Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934) Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and president of Germany

As quoted in With Snow on Their Boots : The Tragic Odyssey of the Russian Expeditionary Force in France During World War I (1999) by Jamie H. Cockfield, p. 28
Undated

Franklin D. Roosevelt photo
Harry V. Jaffa photo
Martin Amis photo
Heather Brooke photo
Ron Paul photo
Dianne Feinstein photo

“It’s important to understand how we got where we are today. In 1966, the unthinkable happened: a madman climbed the University of Texas clock tower and opened fire, killing more than a dozen people. It was the first mass shooting in the age of television, and it left a real impression on the country. It was the kind of terror we didn’t expect to ever see again. But around 30 years ago, we started to see an uptick in these types of shootings, and over the last decade they’ve become the new norm.
In July 2012, a gunman walked into a darkened theater in Aurora and shot 12 people to death, injuring 70 more. One of his weapons was an assault rifle. The sudden and utterly random violence was a terrifying sign of what was to come.
In December 2012, a young man entered an elementary school in Newtown and murdered six educators and 20 young children. One of his weapons was an assault rifle. Watching the aftermath of these young babies being gunned down was heartrending.
In June 2016, a gunman entered a nightclub in Orlando and sprayed revelers with gunfire. The shooter fired hundreds of rounds, many in close proximity, and killed 49. Many of the victims were shot in the head at close range. One of his weapons was an assault rifle.
Last month, a gunman opened fire on concertgoers in Las Vegas, turning an evening of music into a killing field. All told, the shooter used multiple assault rifles fitted with bump-fire stocks to kill 58 people. The concert venue looked like a warzone.
Over the weekend in Sutherland Springs, 26 were killed by a gunman with an assault rifle. The dead ranged from 17 months old to 77 years. No one is spared with these weapons of war. When so many rounds are fired so quickly, no one is spared. Another community devastated and dozens of families left to pick up the pieces.
These are just a few of the many communities we talk about in hushed tones—San Bernardino, Littleton, Aurora, towns and cities across the country that have been permanently scarred.”

Dianne Feinstein (1933) American politician

[Senators Introduce Assault Weapons Ban, November 8, 2017, w:Diane Feinstein, Diane, Feinstein, https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/11/senators-introduce-assault-weapons-ban]
On the introduction of the Assault Weapons Ban of 2017

Mike Malloy photo

“In the run-up to World War II, they helped Hitler build the death camps to take the Jews and kill them. Take the gays and kill them. Take the socialists and kill them. Take the Polish partisans and kill them. Take the gypsies and kill them. The Bush Family is eye-ball deep in blood, blood, blood.”

Mike Malloy (1942) American radio broadcaster

http://server7.whiterosesociety.org/content/malloy/MalloyMemories/Red_Rum.mp3
presumably a reference to the financial support given to Hitler by Prescott Bush, George W. Bush's grandfather
On the Bush family and their associates

Stanley Baldwin photo
Käthe Kollwitz photo
John Varley photo
André Maurois photo
Frances Kellor photo
Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo
Kurt Tucholský photo

“At which a diplomat from France replies: «The war? I can't find it too terrible! The death of one man: that is a catastrophe. One hundred thousand deaths: that is a statistic!»)”

Darauf sagt ein Diplomat vom Quai d’Orsay: «Der Krieg? Ich kann das nicht so schrecklich finden! Der Tod eines Menschen: das ist eine Katastrophe. Hunderttausend Tote: das ist eine Statistik!»
"Französischer Witz" (1932).

Rodolfo Graziani photo

“Mr. Hussein's dogged insistence on pursuing his nuclear ambitions, along with what defectors described in interviews as Iraq's push to improve and expand Baghdad's chemical and biological arsenals, have brought Iraq and the United States to the brink of war.”

"U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/08/international/middleeast/08IRAQ.html?ex=1121140800&en=76eddceb628af81e&ei=5070, New York Times, September 8, 2002

Maithripala Sirisena photo

“He (Mr Rajapaksa) was publicly lamenting that he was to be taken before a war crimes court and executed on an electric chair. The people who voted me against him have prevented that”

Maithripala Sirisena (1951) Sri Lankan politician, 7th President of Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Saturday claimed that his victory in the elections saved his predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa from being hauled before an international war crimes court, quoted on The Asian Age, "Maithripala Sirisena: Saved Mahinda Rajapaksa from war crimes court" http://www.asianage.com/international/maithripala-sirisena-saved-mahinda-rajapaksa-war-crimes-court-574, February 14, 2016.

Hamid Dabashi photo
Serzh Sargsyan photo

“Azerbaijan unleashed the war, and was defeated in that war; Azerbaijan asked for truce (including from the Commander of Karabakh’s forces) and later started to sob about the dire repercussions of that war. As if wars ever bring pleasant repercussions. And on top of that, Azerbaijan adopted conceited stance and started to make demands as if anywhere in the world defeated aggressors are ever allowed to make demands.”

Serzh Sargsyan (1954) Armenian politician, 3rd President of Armenia

Remarks by President Serzh Sargsyan at the meeting with journalists from Diaspora http://www.president.am/events/news/eng/?search=%D5%AC%D6%80%D5%A1%D5%A3%D6%80%D5%B8%D5%B2%D5%B6%D5%A5%D6%80&id=1252 (October 16, 2010)

Geert Wilders photo
Lewis H. Lapham photo

“Wars might come and go, but the seven o'clock news lives forever.”

Lewis H. Lapham (1935) American journalist

Source: Money And Class In America (1989), Chapter 9, Coined Souls, p. 227

Charles Lindbergh photo
Todd Snider photo
Tim O'Brien photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Benjamin Franklin photo

“The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction. The inability of colonists to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of George the III and the international bankers was the PRIME reason for the Revolutionary War.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Widely quoted statement on the reasons for the American War of Independence sometimes cited as being from Franklin's autobiography, but this statement was never in any edition.
Variants from various small publications from the 1940s:
The refusal of King George to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the revolution.
The refusal of King George to allow the Colonies to operate on an honest Colonial system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators, was probably the prime cause of the revolution.
The refusal of King George to allow the colonies to operate on an honest, colonial money system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators, was probably the prime cause of the revolution.
Some of the statement might be derived from those made during his examination by the British Parliament in February 1766, published in "The Examination of Benjamin Franklin" in The Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803‎ (1813); when questioned why Parliament had lost respect among the people of the Colonies, he answered: "To a concurrence of causes: the restraints lately laid on their trade, by which the bringing of foreign gold and silver into the Colonies was prevented; the prohibition of making paper money among themselves, and then demanding a new and heavy tax by stamps; taking away, at the same time, trials by juries, and refusing to receive and hear their humble petitions".
Misattributed
Variant: The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England and the Rothschild's Bank took away from the colonies their money which created unemployment, dissatisfaction and debt.

Ben Klassen photo
Otto von Bismarck photo

“At no time there is more lying than before the elections, during the war and after the hunt.”

Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) German statesman, Chancellor of Germany

The earliest attestation is: A representative of the "Löwe faction" also aptly remarked: "There is never more lying than before the elections, during the war and after the hunt.", in: Im neuen Reich. Wochenschrift für das Leben des deutschen Volkes in Staat, Wissenschaft und Kunst. Volume 9 (1879), 1st semivolume, p. 199 books.google http://books.google.de/books?hl=de&id=TO0aAAAAYAAJ&q=jagd.
The witticism was first attributed to Bismarck in printed form, as far as it is clear, in Zeitschrift für Bekämpfung der Geschlechtskrankheiten. Im Auftrage der Deutschen Gesellschaft zur Bekämpfung der Geschlechtskrankheiten. Volume 2 (1904) p. 283 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=ZwETAQAAMAAJ&q=jagd: "[...] when Bismarck would have repeated his well-known word about the instances in which the most lying occurs, out of the three mentioned by him (before an election, during a war, after a hunt), he would certainly have to put pelvic inflammatory disease in women first."
Before this, it always went without naming an author as a "witticism" in 1895 http://books.google.de/books?id=stoYAQAAIAAJ&q=gelogen, as "the proverbial answer to the question when the most lying occurs" in 1897 http://books.google.de/books?id=ZkoxAQAAMAAJ&q=gelogen, as "an old story" in 1898 http://books.google.de/books?id=LzkZAAAAYAAJ&q=%22einer+jagd%22 and as "what one usually says" in 1901 http://books.google.de/books?id=sjsZAAAAYAAJ&q=gelogen. Die Neue Zeit - Wochenschrift der deutschen Sozialdemokratie even spoke of a "self-admission" of Bismarck in 1906 http://books.google.de/books?id=YtY5AQAAMAAJ&q=gelogen; however, the fellow social democratic magazine Das freie Wort attributed it to an unnamed representative of the Zentrumspartei in that same year http://books.google.de/books?id=LjQ8AQAAIAAJ&q=%22mehr+gelogen%22.
Misattributed
Original: "Es wird niemals so viel gelogen wie vor der Wahl, während des Krieges und nach der Jagd."

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Fred Rogers photo
Vladimir Lenin photo

“What caused the war? The greed of the Italian money bags and capitalists, who need new markets and new achievements for Italian imperialism. What kind of war was it? A perfected, civilised blood bath, the massacre of Arabs with the help of the “latest” weapons.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

"The End of the Italo-Turkish War" in Pravda, No. 129 (28 September 1912) http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1912/sep/28.htm; Collected Works, Vol. 18.
1910s

Donald Barthelme photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Ahad Ha'am photo
Kate Bornstein photo

“That was the true terror of war, that often one had to accept danger and simply wait to live or die.”

David Zindell (1952) American writer

Source: War in Heaven (1998), p. 207

Ludovico Ariosto photo

“The harsh realities of war impose
More searching tests of valour, be it said,
Than grace and style; and fortune too is needed,
Without which valour seldom has succeeded.”

Bisognan di valor segni più chiari,
Che por con leggiadria la lancia in resta:
Ma fortuna anco più bisogna assai;
Che senza, val virtù raro o non mai.
Canto XVI, stanza 46 (tr. B. Reynolds)
Orlando Furioso (1532)

William T. Sherman photo