I was never convinced that war was the best system to bring democracy to the country.
I acquired a hunger for fairy tales in the dark days of blackout and blitz in the Second World War.
The lessons Noam Chomsky sets out to teach us in ‘Toward a New Cold War’ are invaluable. The United States, like any other nations, can and does err, and often in a big way. But Chomsky cannot support at all his implicit diagnosis that America is ‘bad.’
Let’s be under no illusions: There are attacks on, for example, transgender Americans from the Oval Office, picking on troops – people willing to lay down their lives for this country – not to mention teenagers in our high schools. So we’ve got to end the war on trans Americans.
The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass; and beyond there is a different country.
War is too serious a matter to leave to soldiers.
Peace has its victories no less than war, but it doesn’t have as many monuments to unveil.
You can’t say civilization don’t advance… in every war they kill you in a new way.
No more war! Never again war! If you wish to be brothers, drop your weapons.
I guess if people couldn’t profit from war I don’t think there would be war.
My objective is to fulfil the dream of Bangabandhu through building a hunger- and poverty-free Golden Bangladesh being imbued with the spirit of the War of Liberation.
Too often, stories about Afghanistan center around the various wars, the opium trade, the war on terrorism. Precious little is said about the Afghan people themselves – their culture, their traditions, how they lived in their country and how they manage abroad as exiles.
People try to glorify war, particularly those who aren’t actually fighting in them. People tend to make heroes of those who are fighting in them.
In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.
If you want to go anywhere in modern war, in the air, on the sea, on the land, you must have command of the air.
Peace and not war is the father of all things.
Oh, sure, we have another world war coming, and another great depression, but where are the leaders this time?
Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought!
Virtually every society that survived did so by socializing its sons to be disposable. Disposable in war; disposable in work. We need warriors and volunteer firefighters, so we label these men heroes.
We are all tourists in history, and irony is what we win in wars.
That strange feeling we had in the war. Have you found anything in your lives since to equal it in strength? A sort of splendid carelessness it was, holding us together.
War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.
The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes.
Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.
All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.
I don’t think the war in Afghanistan was ruthlessly enough waged.
My first direct encounter with the military was when I joined ROTC as a graduate student, although my father, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, can trace the military service in our family all the way back to the Revolutionary War.
The time to take counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision. That’s the time to listen to every fear you can imagine! When you have collected all the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all your fears and go ahead!
My dear Excellency! I have not gone to war to collect cheese and eggs, but for another purpose.
‘But,’ say the puling, pusillanimous cowards, ‘we shall be subject to a long and bloody war if we declare independence.’ On the contrary, I affirm it the only step that can bring the contest to a speedy and happy issue.
The war correspondent has his stake – his life – in his own hands, and he can put it on this horse or that horse, or he can put it back in his pocket at the very last minute.
In the epic war over Silicon Valley’s intellectual property, Bill Gates was on the side of licensing copyright and robust protections for intellectual property. He wasn’t on the side of the hackers, and he didn’t want information to be free.
War is fear cloaked in courage.
Only the winners decide what were war crimes.
Bad things do happen in the world, like war, natural disasters, disease. But out of those situations always arise stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
I do not believe we will have a war with Iran.
It has too often been too easy for rulers and governments to incite man to war.
The men and women who served during the Vietnam War are often overlooked.
I went to Vietnam during the Vietnam War to visit all the troops. We would fly into a hospital and serve mess to the guys, and we ate whatever they were eating. Then we slept there and flew out the next day to little bases where there were maybe 10 or 20 guys. Then we flew to another hospital.
Patriotism is an instant reaction that fades away when the war starts.
The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the state governments, in times of peace and security.
All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don’t know by what you do; that’s what I called ‘guess what was at the other side of the hill’.
In war, you win or lose, live or die – and the difference is just an eyelash.
Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes… can no longer be of concern to great powers alone.
You could argue that war is always an irrational act, and yet many states enter into military conflict out of rational calculation or national interest or the stability or longevity of their regime.
I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.
No one hates war like a soldier hates war.
War is the statesman’s game, the priest’s delight, the lawyer’s jest, the hired assassin’s trade.
Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey ‘people.’ People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war… Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest.
We come across thirty or so hurried graves with makeshift wooden markers. ‘Private Edwards, E.’, a number, and that was all. Fourteen days ago he was alive, thinking feeling, hoping… If war was a game of cards, I’d say someone was cheating.
If there is not the war, you don’t get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don’t get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.
As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.
My child, you are going to be a great king; do not imitate me in the taste I have had for building, or in that I have had for war; try, on the contrary, to be at peace with your neighbors.
War consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known.
Reactionaries often describe both Marx and Lenin as theorists, without taking into consideration that their utopias inspired Russia and China – the two countries called upon to lead a new world which will allow for human survival if imperialism does not first unleash a criminal, exterminating war.
Winning the peace is harder than winning the war.
In conclusion, war quotes serve as a solemn reminder of the devastating impact of armed conflict and the urgent need for peace. As we contemplate the consequences of war, may these quotes inspire us to advocate for peaceful resolutions, to promote understanding and empathy, and to strive for a world where dialogue and diplomacy prevail over violence and aggression. Let us work together to build a future where conflicts are resolved through compassion, justice, and a shared commitment to the well-being of all humanity.
