WAR QUOTES
quotations about war
War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.
JIMMY CARTER
Nobel Lecture, December 10, 2002
It's funny how those who are most pro-war are almost always the guys who never had to fight in one.
JEROME P. CRABB
War Quotes and Quibbles
I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its stupidity.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
speech, January 10, 1946
I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but I do know that World War IV will be fought with rocks.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
attributed, Congressional Record, 1968
War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.
THOMAS MANN
attributed, This I Believe
War is like crack for presidents. It confers instant gravitas, catapulting them to respectability, bypassing all station stops. They get to make macho pronouncements on a topic where every utterance is seen as august.
ANN COULTER
"Lassie, Come Home", Breitbart News, April 12, 2017
War: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that he too is suffering; in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost.
KARL KRAUS
Die Fackel, October 19, 1917
Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks....
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul
BOB DYLAN
"Masters of War"
The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.
G. K. CHESTERTON
The New Jerusalem
There never was a good war, or a bad peace.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanac
When the rich wage war, it is the poor who die.
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
The Devil and the Good Lord
Vietnam was the first war ever fought without any censorship. Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.
WILLIAM WESTMORELAND
Time Magazine, April 5, 1982
History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.
RONALD REAGAN
speech, January 16, 1984
War is like love, it always finds a way.
BERTOLT BRECHT
Mother Courage and Her Children
I think a curse should rest on me -- because I love this war. I know it's smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment -- and yet -- I can't help it -- I enjoy every second of it.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
letter to a friend, 1916
All war represents a failure of diplomacy.
TONY BENN
speech, February 28, 1991
War is the trade of kings.
JOHN DRYDEN
King Arthur
Wars of pen and ink often lead to wars of cannon and bayonets.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
War makes rattling good history; but Peace is poor reading.
THOMAS HARDY
The Dynasts
A mind at peace does not engender wars.
SOPHOCLES
Oedipus Rex