“We should have known better after the first war.”
Gerd von Rundstedt (1875–1953) German Field Marshal during World War II
Quoted in "Crossroads of Modern Warfare" - by Drew Middleton - History - 1983
“It is probably well that we had the war when we did. We are better off now than we would have been without it, and have made more rapid progress than we otherwise should have made… But this war was a fearful lesson, and should teach us the necessity of avoiding wars in the future.”
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1880s, Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant (1885)
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Ulysses S. Grant177
18th President of the United States 1822–1885Related quotes
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor
2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), Q&A
“I have a feeling that we are doing better in the war [in Vietnam] than the people have been told.”
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)
As quoted in Los Angeles Times (16 October 1967)
1960s
Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934) 10th President of the French Republic
Diary entry (3 August 1914), quoted in John Keiger, 'France' in Keith Wilson (ed.), Decisions for War 1914 (London: University College London Press, 1995), p. 140.
“It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.”
Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) Confederate general in the Civil War
Comment to James Longstreet, on seeing a Union charge repelled in the Battle of Fredericksburg (13 December 1862)
1860s
Burton K. Wheeler (1882–1975) American politician and lawyer
Speech, reported in Robert G. Torricelli, Andrew Carroll, In Our Own Words: Extraordinary Speeches of the American Century (2000), p. 126.
Leighton W. Smith, Jr. (1939) United States Navy admiral
On losing one of his wingmen during an unauthorized dive-bombing maneuver used against some authorized targets on a beach in Vietnam, as quoted in Afterburner : Naval Aviators and the Vietnam War (2004) by John Darrell Sherwood, Ch. 20 : Leighton Warren Smith and the Fall of Thanh Hoa, p. 276
Context: We went out on a very cloudy day, in an area we probably should not have been operating in, and the two of us did a maneuver that was not authorized, and I made it and he didn't. … We pulled up over some overcast to dive bomb the target. I had practice with this maneuver in the Med, but Bill was less familiar with it. I made it, but Bill just disappeared. I went back and looked for hims. I saw no race of any wreckage. I tried to tank and go back but was ordered to return to the ship.
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher
Talks in Saanen (1974), p. 71
1970s
Context: It is utterly and irrevocably possible to empty all hurts and, therefore, to love, to have compassion. To have compassion means to have passion for all things, not just between two people, but for all human beings, for all things of the earth, the animals, the trees, everything the earth contains. When we have such compassion we will not despoil the earth as we are doing now, and we will have no wars.