“War is not a courtesy but the most horrible thing in life; and we ought to understand that, and not play at war. We ought to accept this terrible necessity sternly and seriously. It all lies in that: get rid of falsehood and let war be war and not a game. As it is now, war is the favourite pastime of the idle and frivolous.”
Bk. X, ch. 25
War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)
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Leo Tolstoy 456
Russian writer 1828–1910Related quotes

“It's obvious that the number one thing we have to do is to get rid of war.”
Source: The State of the World 2010, public lecture in New York City, USA, (July 2010)
Southby-Tailyour, Ewen (1998). Blondie – a Biography of Lieutenant–Colonel H. G. Hasler DSO OBE RM. Leo Cooper. p. 10. ISBN 9780850525168

"Propaganda has won – VG" https://norway.postsen.com/world/8013/%E2%80%93-Propaganda-has-won-%E2%80%93-VG.html, Norway Posts English, from VG, 30 mai 2022

From The Bush Betrayal (Palgrave, 2004) http://www.jimbovard.com/Epigram%20page%20Bush%20Betrayal.htm
“To accept the legitimacy of the state is to embrace the necessity for war.”
"Iraq and the Roots of War," California Freedom (June 2007).

1860s, Second Inaugural Address (1865)
Context: On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it — all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war — seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.