Quotes about war
page 69

“The Conservatives can't talk of class war: they started it.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

G. M. Young, Stanley Baldwin (1952), p. 31
Undated

“Nothing struck me so much in the war as the disappearance of the individual, of the human being... I saw what the State machine was, that it destroyed the individual, absorbed him to itself, and I said, "Give me Liberty."”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

That is what a complete Socialistic State would mean, once you carried it out. That is why I am a Liberal and not a Socialist. Socialism would enslave labour. For its own benefit, its own advantage, Socialism would in the end enslave labour. Liberalism has made labour free, and it is its business to preserve the freedom of labour.
Speech to the Lancashire and Cheshire Federation of the League of Young Liberals in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester (28 April 1923), quoted in The Times (30 April 1923), p. 17
Leader of the National Liberal Party

“The fortune of war has thrown me into the hands of Government, and I am utterly ignorant of what fate may attend me, but in the worst event I hope I shall bear it like a man, and that my death will not disgrace my life.”

Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763–1798) Irish politician

Letter to Thomas Addis Emmet, William James MacNaven, Arthur O'Connor and John Sweetman (10 November 1798), quoted in T. W. Moody, R. B. McDowell and C. J. Woods (eds.), The Writings of Theobald Wolfe Tone, 1763–98, Volume III: France, the Rhine, Lough Swilly and Death of Tone, January 1797 to November 1798 (2007), p. 402

Fate, Hope, Life, Death

“Building a gazebo in the middle of the civil war, that'd be like doing stand-up comedy now.”

John Mulaney (1982) American actor and comedian

Kid Gorgeous (2018)

“Perhaps if all the peoples of the world understand what war really means,we would eliminate it.”

Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American broadcast journalist

Free the Airwaves! (2002)

Understanding, People, World

“You do not declare war on rebels.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

On the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence; minute-sheet on Ireland (30 April 1920), quoted in D. G. Boyce, 'How to Settle the Irish Question: Lloyd George and Ireland 1916–21', in A. J. P. Taylor (ed.), Lloyd George: Twelve Essays (1971), p. 149
Prime Minister

“I think the whole policy of pre-emptive war is a serious,serious mistake.”

Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American broadcast journalist

Free the Airwaves! (2002)

Thinking

“I simply told people what I thought about the state of the war in Vietnam,and it was that we better get out of this.”

Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American broadcast journalist

Free the Airwaves! (2002)

People

“It was in the Second World War, then, that the full force of the modern European state was mobilized for the first time, for the primary purpose of conquering and exploiting other Europeans.”

Tony Judt (1948–2010) British historian

Chap. 1 : The Legacy of War
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (2005)

Time, World

“Gentlemen, ideas outlive men; ideas outlive all earthly things. You who fought in the war for the Union fought for immortal ideas, and by their might you crowned the war with victory.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

[Great applause.] But victory was worth nothing except for the truths that were under it, in it, and above it. We meet tonight as comrades to stand guard around the sacred truths for which we fought. [Loud and prolonged cheers.] And while we have life to meet and grasp the hand of a comrade, we will stand by the great truths of the war. ["Good," "good," and loud cheers.] Many convictions have sunk so deep into our hearts that we can never forget them. Think of the elevating spirit of the war itself. We gathered the boys from all our farms and shops and stores and schools and homes, from all over the Republic. They went forth unknown to fame, but returned enrolled on the roster of immortal heroes. [Great applause.] They went in the spirit of the soldiers of Henry at Agincourt, of whom he said. 'For he today that sheds his blood with me. Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile. This day shall gentle his condition.'
1880s, Speech to the 'Boys in Blue' (1880)

Victory, Idea, Men

“It isn’t in the way we wield a sword, but in the dialogue we hold that could avoid a war.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), About Elegance

Way

“Defeat means that we lose a particular battle or war. Failure does not allow us to go on fighting.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), The Defeated Ones

Failure, Fight

“Would not anyone who is a man have his slumbers broken by a war-trumpet rather than by a chorus of serenaders?”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LI: On Baiae and Morals

“You cannot wage war with sentimentality. The more ruthlessly war is conducted, the more merciful is it in fact, for it finishes the war the sooner.”

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

Remark (November 1914), Paul Dehn, Hindenburg, als Erzieher (1918), p. 12, quoted in W. W. Coole (ed.), Thus Spake Germany (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1941), p. 74
Supreme Commander of All German Forces in the East

“Europe needs an army to fight the resource wars of the twenty-first century.”

Jacques Delors (1925) French economist and politician

Variations of this have circulated among Irish and left-wing Eurosceptic groups. Delors explicitly denied making any such statement in 1992 and 1998 in the leadup to Irish referendums on the Maastricht and Amsterdam treaties. Commentators have found no evidence for it. Attributions: [Facing the threat of Brussels rule at our expense, https://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/archive/1991/1121/Pg014.html#Ar01400, 30 July 2019, The Irish Times, 21 November 1991, 14, subscription, Anthony, Coughlan] [Proinsias, de Rossa, https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1991-11-29/3/#para_191, 29 November 1991, Dáil Éireann debates, Maastricht Summit: Motion] [Maastricht and neutrality : Ireland's neutrality and the future of Europe, John, Maguire, Joe, Noonan, 1992, Cork, People First/Meitheal, 19–20] [Fox, Carol, Gearing up, 25554848, Fortnight, 1994, 334, 11–12: 12, 0141-7762] [Joe, Higgins, https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1997-10-16/24/#para_608, 16 October 1997, Dáil Éireann debates, Amsterdam Treaty: Statements (Resumed)] Edward, Spalton, 4 July 2004, (Letter) Fashion statement, Daily Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/3608033/Fashion-statement.html, John, Boyd, Campaign Against European Federalism, Europe for Peace Conference, Manchester, 5 March 2005 https://web.archive.org/web/20070809083941/http://www.gmdcnd.org.uk/events/europeconference/amC.htm, [Gibson, Dirk C., Commercial Space Tourism: Impediments to Industrial Development and Strategic Communication Solutions, 2012, Bentham Science Publishers, 9781608052394, 12, https://books.google.ie/books?id=hSkW9TW3omEC&pg=PA12, 21 July 2019] The European Alliance of EU-critical Movements, EU Counter Summit Statement, London, 7 November 2015 http://teameurope.co/statements.html, [The financial cost of signing up to PESCO, https://people.ie/news/PN-178.pdf, People's News, People's Movement, Dublin, 178, 20 December 2017] Morning Star, Macron calls for joint EU army project to step up a gear, 27 August 2018 https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/macron-calls-joint-eu-army-project-step-gear, Refutations: The Irish Times, subscription, 12 June 1992, 12, Colm, Boland, 'Interference' by Delors denounced https://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/archive/1992/0612/Pg007.html#Ar00701, [30001811, Ireland's Foreign Relations in 1992, Patrick, Keatinge, Irish Studies in International Affairs, 4, 1993, 72 [footnote]] McKenna's case not a Euromyth, 15 May 1998, Patrick, Smyth, The Irish Times https://www.irishtimes.com/news/mckenna-s-case-not-a-euromyth-1.152890, Misattributed

Fight

“American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58238497

Fight

“"War is the continuation of politics." In this sense war is politics and war itself is a political action; since ancient times there has never been a war that did not have a political character.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

(zh-CN) “战争是政治的继续”，在这点上说，战争就是政治，战争本身就是政治性质的行动，从古以来没有不带政治性的战争。
1930s, On Protracted Warfare (1938)

Time, Sense

“Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive factor; it is people, not things that are decisive. The contest of strength is not only a contest of military and economic power, but also a contest of human power and morale. People necessarily wield military and economic power.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

1930s, On Protracted Warfare (1938)

People, Decision

“Do I trust the Taliban? No. But I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and more re- — more competent in terms of conducting war.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2021, July 2021, Remarks by President Biden on the Drawdown of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan

Training

“I am the latest victim of the cold war, no longer needed by the US. The lesson is that my support for American policy counts for nothing.”

Mobutu Sésé Seko (1930–1997) President of Zaïre

Gbadolite: The Versailles of The Jungle https://www.amusingplanet.com/2020/09/gbadolite-versailles-of-jungle.html

Support

“The highest obligation of a soldier is not to die in war but to live through it.”

Suraj Sani (1996) Nigerian writer, Spoken word artist

P. 127. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10937449-the-highest-obligation-of-a-soldier-is-not-to-die

“War is the life-element of an army.”

Friedrich von Waldersee (1795–1864) Prussian general (1795-1864)

Quoted by Friedrich Engels in Waldersee über die französische Armee, 1861 http://ciml.250x.com/archive/marx_engels/english/mecwsh/mecwsh-18_365.pdf

Life

“Isn't it clear that the war makers are gambling with your lives, while pocketing huge profits?”

Hanoi Hannah (1931–2016) Vietnamese radio personality

At a 1967 broadcast directed to U.S. troops, as quoted in "'Hanoi Hannah,' Whose Broadcasts Taunted And Entertained American GIs, Dies" in NPR (6 October 2016) https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/10/05/496662815/hanoi-hannah-whose-broadcasts-taunted-and-entertained-american-gis-dies-at-87 During Vietnam War

“I was a witness of two civil wars and their ghastly and tragic consequences, and I learnt, as never before, to value the freedom of British political traditions.”

Hugh Gaitskell (1906–1963) British politician

Chatham News (28 December 1934), quoted in Philip Williams, Hugh Gaitskell: A Political Biography (1979), p. 59

Freedom

“The times of the peace dividend following the end of the Cold War are over.”

Bronisław Komorowski (1952) Polish politician, president of Poland

"Polish president warns in Berlin of rebirth of 1930s nationalism" in Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-poland-president/polish-president-warns-in-berlin-of-rebirth-of-1930s-nationalism-idUSKBN0H51C420140910 (10 September 2014)

Peace, Time

“The losers on the battlefield were not the soldier and his spirit, but the decision-making officials who were supposed to be ready for a possible war, properly organize and wage it.”

Armen Sarkissian (1953) 4th President of Armenia, Member of the Global Leadership Foundation, one of the directors of Eurasia House, phy…

"In an interview with CivilNet" https://www.president.am/en/interviews-and-press-conferences/item/2020/12/11/President-Armen-Sarkissians-interview-with-CivilNet/ (11 December 2020)

Decision

“And is there no war on today? It is the weapons that have changed, that's all. Instead of an axe or scythe or scimitar, they fight with roubles.”

Bolesław Prus book The Doll

The Doll

Fight, Change

“It has been said, and I find it true from personal experience, that it is easier to risk one's life on the battlefield than it is to perform customary humble and humdrum duties which, however, are just as necessary to winning the war.”

Soong Mei-ling (1897–2003) Chiang Kai-shek's wife, First Lady of the Republic of China

Address to the U.S. House of Representatives (February 18, 1943)

Personality, Life

“War between religions and science will never end; because they speak difference languages. There is a lack of communication between them.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Religion, Communication, Science

“I don't see wars in the world, only misunderstandings.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

World

“Love is the cause of all the wars and fighting in the world, perhaps, the whole universe.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Universe, World, Fight, Love

“Most of the terrible wars in the world are based upon religion. It seems to divide, rather than uniting. Perhaps, we are going wrong somewhere.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Religion, World

“Wars make a man more masculine. Hence, it is the oldest game of men that has been played in every generation.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Game, Men

“Total war necessitates total espionage. The leadership of a country must be capable of finding out about and calculating the entire force of resistance of in opponents, military and otherwise.”

Curt Martin Riess (1902–1993) German journalist and writer

Source: Total Espionage: Germany’s Information and Disinformation Apparatus 1932-41 (1941), p. 7

Country

“We are against the world war being fomented by the superpowers and also against all the local wars of aggression which they instigate or back.”

Hu Yaobang (1915–1989) former General Secretary of the Communist Party of China

Taiwan Communique and Separation of Powers: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, pp. 199 (1983)

World

“Maitreya says 'To get rid of war is not so difficult. It's really very simple. You just have to have a change of heart. That's all. You just have to change your heart.' Send it out to be cleaned...dry cleaned heart... you have to look at life differently. You have to look at your self differently to understand what we're here, what we're here for, why we're in incarnation at all....”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

The State of the World 2010, public lecture in New York City, USA, (July 2010)

Understanding, Heart, Life, Change

“It's obvious that the number one thing we have to do is to get rid of war.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Source: The State of the World 2010, public lecture in New York City, USA, (July 2010)

“We now have no option but to end war forever because with the nuclear bombs and armament today, we can destroy all life... it's up to us. We have to do it. We have to make the decision.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

The State of the World 2010, public lecture in New York City, USA, (July 2010)

Decision, Life

“It is not even impossible to imagine that the effects of an atomic war fought with greatly perfected weapons and pushed by the utmost determination will endanger the survival of man.”

Edward Teller (1908–2003) Hungarian-American nuclear physicist

How Dangerous Are Atomic Weapons?, 1947

Imagination, Perfection

“They can extinguish awareness by dumbing down education, owning TV stations, paying "guest fees" to leader writers, or just buying the media up. The media—and not just The Washington Post—is where democracies conduct their civil wars.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery", p. 124
Cloud Atlas (2004), Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery (Part 1)

Democracy, Education

“We are in a state of bloodless civil war. No common principles, no respect for common institutions or traditions unite the various groups of politicians, who are struggling for power. To loot somebody or something is the common object under a thick varnish of pious phrases.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Letter to W. H. Smith (5 February 1889), quoted in Michael Bentley, Lord Salisbury's World: Conservative Environments in Late-Victorian Britain (2001), p. 65
1880s

“A thousand creeds and battle-cries,
A thousand warring social schemes,
A thousand new moralities,
And twenty thousand thousand dreams!

Each on his own anarchic way,
From the old order breaking free, —
Our ruined world desires, you say,
License, once more, not Liberty.”

Alfred Noyes (1880–1958) English poet

Forward
The Lord of Misrule and Other Poems (1915)

World, Dreams, Way

“Where there’s war, there’s whores.”

Bruce Sterling book Islands in the Net

Source: Islands in the Net (1988), Chapter 5 (p. 168)

Whore

“We need a movement to #DefundTheMilitary. Why spend so much $ for a dept that can’t pass an audit, can’t win a war, and brings so much death and misery to black and brown people around the world?”

Medea Benjamin (1952) American political activist and author

Twitter https://twitter.com/medeabenjamin/status/1275043766601203717 (22 June 2020) 2014, 2020

People, World, Death

“Even galaxy-spanning anarchist utopias of stupefying full-spectrum civilisational power have turf wars within their unacknowledged militaries.”

Iain Banks Culture series

Source: Culture series, Matter (2008), Chapter 18 “The Current Emergency” (p. 333)

“If the President had his way, we’d have a nuclear war every week.”

Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) United States Secretary of State

Source: Henry Kissinger on Nixon, as quoted in Bass, G. J. (2014). The Blood telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a forgotten genocide. chapter 19

Way

“But I do not willingly involve us in nationalistic wars; the side of the angels is seldom self-evident.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Friday

Source: Friday (1982), Chapter 4 (p. 37)

Angels

“The money we raised was secondary. The main thing was, we spread the word and helped get the war ended ... What we did show was that musicians and people are more humane than politicians.”

George Harrison (1943–2001) British musician, former member of the Beatles

Source: George Harrison, 1992 in Joshua M. Greene, Here Comes the Sun: The Spiritual and Musical Journey of George Harrison, John Wiley & Sons (Hoboken, NJ, 2006; ISBN 978-0-470-12780-3).

Money, People, Help

“So how to we get at stopping war? We have to create trust. We have to get rid of injustice.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Source: The State of the World 2010, public lecture in New York City, USA, (July 2010)

“It is the vaccine or vaccines that will win the war against COVID-19, not the government or mythological beliefs.”

P. Chidambaram (1945) Indian politician

Source: Jan 2021 https://twitter.com/PChidambaram_IN/status/1350733987640086530

“I've got so many movies I would like to make. I've got my western, my World War II bunch of guys on a mission, my spaghetti western, my horror film. But since I know I won't live long enough to do all the movies I want to do, with every movie the goal is to wipe out as many as I can.”

Quentin Tarantino (1963) American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor

Source: Interview, circa 1994; as quoted in Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies (2003) by Leslie Halliwell, p. 450

World, Guy

“I am a peace man. I haven't got any use for wars and there is no more humor in 'em than there is reason for 'em.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Daily Telegram (4 December 1931), as quoted in Will Rogers' Daily Telegrams (1979), p. 104; also in Will Rogers Speaks: Over 1,000 Timeless Quotations for Public Speakers (1995) edited by Bryan B. Sterling and ‎Frances N. Sterling, p. 304
Daily telegrams

Peace

“If defense is the stronger form of war, yet has a negative object, it follows that it should be used only so long as weakness compels, and be abandoned as soon as we are strong enough to pursue a positive object.”

Carl von Clausewitz book On War

Source: On War (1832), Book 6, Chapter 1.

Strong

“Surprise becomes effective when we suddenly face the enemy at one point with far more troops than he expected. This type of numerical superiority is quite distinct from numerical superiority in general: it is the most powerful medium in the art of war.”

Carl von Clausewitz book On War

Source: On War (1832), Book 6, Chapter 1.

Art

“It is the great challenge of our time: How to achieve justice, with struggle, but without war.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

Declarations of Independence: Cross-examining American Ideology (HarperCollins, 1990), Ch. 5, p. 105

Time, Justice

“Of course, we in the so-called developed countries thought we were civilized. At least war wasn't respectable any more, and the United Nations was always doing its best to stop the wars that did break out. Not very successfully: I'd give it about three out of ten...”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

1990s, 3001: The Final Odyssey (1997)

Country

“This century has seen world war for the first time. It has seen a world civilization threatened with self-destruction, not only through war but through the exploitation of all the kingdoms in nature...”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Introduction p. I - XII

Time, Nature, World

“When several imperialist powers seek to plunder the weaker nations of the world, the result is an imperialist world war for the redistribution of colonies. And this crime, the most monstrous in world history, is committed by the bourgeoisie under the banner of “nationalism.””

Liu Shaoqi (1898–1969) 2nd President of the People's Republic of China (1898-1969)

Internationalism and Nationalism (1952) Source: "1.The Bourgeois-Nationalist Concept of the Nation" https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/liu-shaoqi/1952/internationalism_nationalism/ch01.htm

History, World

“Wars are...usually fought for hegemony, for business. And then of course there’s the business of war...”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Source: Articles, Come September (29 Sep 2002)

Business

“The world is called upon to condemn suicide bombers. But can we ignore the long road they have journeyed on before they have arrived at this destination? September 11, 1922 to September 11, 2002 – eighty years is a long time to have been waging war.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Source: Articles, Come September (29 Sep 2002)

World, Time, Suicide

“Last year, like many others, I too made the mistake of scoffing at this post-September 11th rhetoric, dismissing it as foolish and arrogant. But I’ve realized...It’s actually a canny recruitment drive for a misconceived, dangerous war.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Source: Articles, Come September (29 Sep 2002)

“As you know, wars always make certain people wealthier. A war has two functions: it serves for some to die and for other to become wealthy.”

José Hermano Saraiva (1919–2012) Historian, Jurist, Politician

"Horizontes da Memória - Mangualde: De à Cinco Mil Anos para Cá"
Original: (pt) Como sabem, as guerras fazem sempre enriquecer certas pessoas. Uma guerra tem duas utilidades: serve para uns morrerem e para outros ficarem ricos.

People

“Had I finished off France in '39, then world history would have taken another course. But then I had to wait until 1940. Then a two-front war, that was bad luck. After that, even we were broken.”

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

Source: In a meeting with Mannerheim https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/oct/15/radio.internationalnews, 4 June 1942

Waiting, Bad luck, History, World

“The war now proposed is for the purpose of establishing Jewish influence throughout the world.”

George Van Horn Moseley (1874–1960) United States Army general

Source: New York Tribune, 29 March 1939. See Silent Truth https://books.google.com.br/books?id=-bIAEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT190&lpg=PT190 by Mark Edwards

World

“You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our Country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out.”

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

1860s, 1864
Source: Retort to a lady of Confederate sympathies, who berated him for the wasting of Mississippi by the Army of the Tennessee during the Meridian Campaign ; cited in The Civil War Generation, Norman K. Risjord, Rowman & Littlefield (2002), p. 143 : ISBN 0742521699 , and in Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction, Allen C. Guelzo, Oxford University Press (2012), p. 439 : ISBN 0199843295

Country, People

“What is happening in the world today? We have been living through an epoch in which wars, tyrannies and privations seem to have reached their peak...”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Introduction p. I - XII

World

“Waste of Blood, and waste of Tears
Waste of youth's most precious years,
Waste of ways the saints have trod,
Waste of Glory, waste of God,
War!”

Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy (1883–1929) British saint

Source: from Waste, in More Rough Rhymes of a Padre (1919)

God, Youth, Way, Tear

“... you know, it's like you think the second world war is over ... [the] second world war is not over ... d'you understand what i'm telling you ... th'second world war is not over.”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

Source: Diane Sawyer interview (ABC, 1993)

Thinking, World, Understanding

“There are hundreds of other [Koranic] psalms and hadiths urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.”

Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) Religious leader, politician

Source: Excerpted from "Islam Is Not a Religion of Pacifists" (1942), English translation in Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin, Anti-American Terrorism and the Middle East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 29, 32-36.

Soul, Religion, Fight, Men

“The key to implementation is people. In a war, even you have a good fighting strategy, history tells us that having soldiers who are brave enough, with skills in shooting and fighting, is what makes the difference.”

Liu Chuanzhi (1944) Chinese businessman

Source: Lenovo Group’s Liu Chuanzhi on ‘Building a Healthy Company’ https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/lenovo-groups-liu-chuanzhi-on-building-a-healthy-company/ in Knowledge @ Wharton (8 July 2009)

History, People, Fight

“It wasn’t a city anymore, it was a collection of broken places separated by war without politics or acquisition so not war at all really but something more pathological.”

China Miéville Embassytown

Source: Embassytown (2011), Chapter 18 (p. 238)

“The United States while they wish for war with no nation, will buy peace with none, it being a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, so war is better than tribute.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

A paraphrased variant of this seems to have arisen on the internet around 2007: It is ... a settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute. The United States, while they wish for war with no nation, will buy peace with none. 1810s Source: Message delivered to Dey Omar Agha, by Isaac Chauncey and William Shaler , summarizing the Treaty with Algiers (1815) http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/bar1815t.asp, and U.S attitudes and actions in the Barbary Wars, in refusing to pay ransom or tribute to pirates of the Barbary States, as quoted in History and Present Condition of Tripoli: With Some Accounts of the Other Barbary States http://books.google.com/books?id=YMwRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA46 (1835) by Robert Greenhow, p. 46

Peace

“I don't know what a hero is. This business of the captain taking all the credit, ordering someone else and so forth -- that's not it. The men who do the actual fighting, man the guns, they're the guys that really win the war.”

John D. Bulkeley (1911–1996) United States Navy Medal of Honor recipient

Source: "Vice Adm. John D. Bulkeley, 84, Hero of D-Day and Philippines" in The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/08/us/vice-adm-john-d-bulkeley-84-hero-of-d-day-and-philippines.html (8 April 1996)

Business, Fight, Guy, Men

“War tore the guts out of the British empire, weakening it in resources and morale. The first major loss was Ireland.”

Jeremy Black (historian) (1955) British military historian

Source: A History of the British Isles (1996)

Loss

“It is easy to start a war, but its end is decided by will-o-the-wisp, which is so effective in deceiving travelers on this road!”

Guity Novin (1944) artist

Source: Facebook Page (2021)

Travel

“The question of who strikes first in a war is on the same level as who strikes first in a boxing contest.”

Francis Parker Yockey (1917–1960) American writer

Source: Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics (1948)

Question, Box

“Most war correspondents, for the first twenty-four hours, think they learn their job from movies until they get shot at.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

Source: On Contact: Business secrets of drug dealing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5U3eSPvfMo&t=285s RT America, November 20, 2021

Learning, Thinking

“This service of civilization is our true work; the occupation that gives meaning to life. We need peace, inward and outward, because peace leaves us free to attend to it; while war—or, indeed, any violent hatred—interrupts and wrecks and perverts.”

Gilbert Murray (1866–1957) Anglo-Australian scholar

1920s, The Ordeal of This Generation: The War, the League and the Future (1929)
Source: "Peace and Strife as Elements in Life: The Ideal of "“Unhindered Activity”", p. 39

Peace, Life

“Leave him alone. He has already met his judge. I wage war on the living, not the dead.”

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558) Holy Roman Emperor

In response to the Duke of Alva who proposed to desecrate the tomb of Martin Luther, burn his body, and scatter his ashes to the wind.
Source: Luther and His Times Michael Grzonka

Dead

“I make a call, to all daughters and sons of our nation, to support the war effort, each according to their abilities.”

Roch Marc Christian Kaboré (1957) President of Burkina Faso

Source: Roch Marc Christian Kaboré (2021) cited in " Burkina Faso president picks former nuclear watchdog head Zerbo as PM https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20211211-burkina-faso-president-picks-former-nuclear-watchdog-head-zerbo-as-pm" on France 24, 11 December 2021.

Support, Daughters, Effort

“We said no to communism. We said no to apartheid. We said no to injustice. We said no to oppression. And we said yes to freedom, yes to democracy. Now I ask you: What do we say to war? CROWD: No!”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

February 15, 2003 speaking before a massive rally in New York to oppose the imminent U.S. invasion of Iraq Source: As quoted in Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1931-2021) on Apartheid, War, Palestine, Guantánamo, Climate Crisis & More https://www.democracynow.org/2021/12/27/life_and_legacy_archbishop_desmond_tutu, Democracy Now!, December 27, 2021

Democracy, Freedom, Communication

“People marched and demonstrated, and the Berlin Wall fell, and communism was ended. People marched and demonstrated, and apartheid ended. And democracy and freedom were born. And now people are marching, and people are demonstrating, because people are saying no to war!”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

Democracy, Freedom, People, Communication

“My ability to persuade my wife to marry me [was] quite my most brilliant achievement ... Of course, it would have been impossible for any ordinary man to have got through what I had to go through in peace and war without the devoted aid of what we call, in England, one's better half.”

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

Post-war years (1945–1955)
Source: As cited in Churchill by Himself (2008), ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, p. 511, ISBN 1586489577

Peace

“You have a tendency to think of wars as being fought in arenas set aside for fighting. But when you go through these farms and little towns, you realize wars are fought in people's backyards, stores, streets, and cities. It was all so very real then. It's real to me today.”

Lynn Compton book Call of Duty

Source: Call of Duty: My Life Before, During and After the Band of Brothers (2008), p. 246

People, Thinking, Fight

“Why should we hate the people we once loved because of a war that mars even our memories?”

Lamia Abbas (1929–2021) Iraqi poet

Source: Frouzanda Mahrad (an Arabic poem, translated by Mike Maggio in: Buckley, Jorunn Jacobsen (2002). The Mandaeans: ancient texts and modern people. New York: Oxford University Press.)

Hate, Memory, Love, People

“Warring partisan tribes now define a dysfunctional system...”

Laurence Tribe (1941) American lawyer and law school professor

To End a Presidency (2018)

“It was one long scene of unrelieved misery; not the sort of thing a man of his position should ever be subjected to. One knew that these things happened in war, of course; they were regrettable but necessary. But one preferred not to experience them at first hand.”

Margaret Ball (1515–1584) Lady Mayoress of Dublic and Catholic martyr

Source: Lost in Translation (1995), Chapter 11 (p. 201)

“Democracy is confronted by serious challenges, to the point that we could say there is a war declared against democracy. A war which we need us all to confront with more political will and determination, consensus and solidarity.”

Salome Zourabichvili (1952) Georgian politician and former French diplomat

Salome Zourabichvili (2021) cited in: " Georgia greets 2022 with prospects of a ‘murky national accord’ https://oc-media.org/features/georgia-greets-2022-with-prospects-of-a-murky-national-accord/" in OC Media, 30 December 2021.

Democracy

“Let Will but set its appetite on war,
And Reason will promptly invent offence,
And furnish blood with arguments.”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

Source: Prince Lucifer (1887), Abdiel in Act III, sc. iii; p. 80.

“If wars can be started with lies, they can be stopped by truth.”

Julian Assange (1971) Australian editor, activist, publisher and journalist

Source: Quoted in Fate Of Anti-War Journalism Lies in Upcoming Assange Hearings, Sam Carliner, https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/10/22/fate-anti-war-journalism-lies-upcoming-assange-hearings October 22, 2021

Truth

“Probably one of the most completely misunderstood of all modern institutions is militarism. While military organizations take their origin in man's lust for war, militarism is something more than a mere war machine. By militarism I mean that institution in which the nation maintains large national armies and navies in time of peace, usually raised on the principle of conscription.”

John Thomas Flynn (1882–1964) American journalist

Source: As We Go Marching (1944), p. 98-99

Peace, Time

“The world's biggest problem is not sexism, racism, political polarization, war, or income inequality. The key never-ending crisis is that most people can’t or won’t think. Poor thinking skills cut cross all the usual lines to drag down societies like nothing else. Thinking well could alleviate or solve virtually all our problems.”

Guy P. Harrison (1963) American skeptic author

People, World, Problem, Thinking

“Silly people, and there are many, not only in enemy countries, might discount the force of the United States. Some said they were soft, others that they would never be united. They would fool around at a distance. They would never come to grips. They would never stand bloodletting. Their democracy and system of recurrent elections would paralyse their war horizon to friend or foe. Now we should see the weakness of this numerous but remote, wealthy, and talkative people. But I had studied the American Civil War, fought out to the last desperate inch.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

The Second World War (1948–1953)
Source: The Grand Alliance: The Second World War, Volume 3, (1950) p. 540

Democracy, Country, Study, People

“[I]f we lay at all too much stress on the need of warlike preparations for quelling the peace-breaker, we find ourselves on a very slippery slope. ... It is all a perpetuation of war, not a planting of peace: a hardening in old error, not a change of heart. One of the most advanced French advocates of the League once said to me that the true guarantee of peace in Europe was a strong French Army and a strong British Navy. The sort of man who thinks that is the sort of man who ought never to be allowed to touch international affairs. Remove that implication. Accept freely, and put into practice, the principles of genuine and equal Disarmament, and then your preparation for Sanctions is perfectly right. To put crushing Sanctions in the hands of two particular Powers, or of an alliance of certain highly armed Powers, would be a crime against humanity.”

Gilbert Murray (1866–1957) Anglo-Australian scholar

1920s, The Ordeal of This Generation: The War, the League and the Future (1929)
Source: "The Felt Need. The Three Principles of the Covenant: Conference, Law, Sanctions", pp. 88-89

Thinking, Strong, Change, Peace

“The belief that we can maintain current levels of consumption, especially of animal products, capitalist expansion, imperial wars, a reliance on fossil fuels and abject subservience to unfettered corporate power, which has solidified the worst income inequality in human history, is not a form of hope but suicidal self-delusion. We are not headed under the policies of the Biden administration and the global ruling elite for the broad sunlit uplands of a new and glorious future, but economic misery, vast climate migrations, waves of new and more virulent pandemics, of which COVID-19 is a mild precursor, along with irreversible ecological systems collapse and frightening forms of societal breakdown, authoritarianism and neofascism.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

Source: The Great Delusion https://scheerpost.com/2020/12/21/chris-hedges-the-great-delusion/. Scheerpost, December 21, 2020

History, Suicide, Future, Hope

“Okay, firstly, academic historians write academic history for academics. It's a myth that you can't be a historian without having a degree. Ian Fletcher, the globally acknowledged expert in the Peninsular War, doesn't have a degree. He always tells me that, “The books we write are the ones which academics read to get their degrees from.””

Rick D Phillips

Source: https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-become-historian-without-studying-history-in-University

Reading, History, Books