quotations about war
War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man. At the dawn of history, its morality was not questioned; it was simply a fact, like drought or disease -- the manner in which tribes and then civilizations sought power and settled their differences. And over time, as codes of law sought to control violence within groups, so did philosophers and clerics and statesmen seek to regulate the destructive power of war. The concept of a "just war" emerged, suggesting that war is justified only when certain conditions were met: if it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense; if the force used is proportional; and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence. Of course, we know that for most of history, this concept of "just war" was rarely observed. The capacity of human beings to think up new ways to kill one another proved inexhaustible, as did our capacity to exempt from mercy those who look different or pray to a different God.
BARACK OBAMA
Nobel Lecture, December 10, 2009
War is a contagion.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
speech, October 5, 1937
War is the great scavenger of thought. It is the sovereign disinfectant, and its red stream of blood is the Condy's Fluid that cleans out the stagnant pools and clotted channels of the intellect.... We have awakened from an opium-dream of comfort, of ease, of that miserable poltroonery of "the sheltered life." Our wish for indulgence of every sort, our laxity of manners, our wretched sensitiveness to personal inconvenience, these are suddenly lifted before us in their true guise as the spectres of national decay; and we have risen from the lethargy of our dilettantism to lay them, before it is too late, by the flashing of the unsheathed sword.
EDMUND GOSSE
"War and Literature", Inter Arma
Wars are not favourable to delicate pleasures.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
"A Secret Vice", The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays
One day History will pass judgment on each of the nations at war; she will weigh their measure of errors, lies, and heinous follies. Let us try to make ours light before her!
ROMAIN ROLLAND
preface, Above the Battle
War is a most uneconomical, foolish, poor arrangement, a bloody enrichment of that soil which bears the sweet flower of peace.
M. E. W. SHERWOOD
An Epistle to Posterity
Armies are not bad things in themselves; it's war that's evil.
JUAN GOMEZ-JURADO
God's Spy
Earth will grow worse till men redeem it,
And wars more evil, ere all wars cease.
G. K. CHESTERTON
A Song of Defeat
I know but little of the customs of war, and wish to know less.
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
The Spy
War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight,
The lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Queen Mab
War makes men barbarous because, to take part in it, one must harden oneself against all regret, all appreciation of delicacy and sensitive values. One must live as if those values did not exist, and when the war is over one has lost the resilience to return to those values.
CESARE PAVESE
This Business of Living, September 9, 1939
War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
The Two Towers
War should be carried on like a monsoon; one changeless determination of every particle towards the one unalterable aim.
HERMAN MELVILLE
Israel Potter
A righteous war is a legacy from heaven--oftentimes the handmaid of a nation's liberty.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Ares ever loves to pluck all the fairest flower of an armed host.
AESCHYLUS
fragment, Europe
I've fought for and against pretty much every cause there is. There will always be war of some kind. At first it was over fertile soil and good water, then precious metal and then the most popular version of human disagreement, "My God is better than your God." Whether you draw your faith from Jeremiah and Jesus, Allah and Muhammad or Brahma and Buddha, it doesn't matter. Someone will tell you you're wrong, and he'll fight you over it. Me, I believe in aliens, and to hell with all earthly gods. In the grand scheme of a trillion planets in the universe we're just not that damn important anyway. And humans are rotten to the core.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Camel Club
In every trade save war men of talent and vigor prosper. In war they die.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
The Crossing
Looking at the world today, we know that we face real threats, but we also know that smart and strong American leadership starts with a clear-eyed approach that recognizes that another endless war is not the way to keep our country safe and strengthen global security.
JIM MCGOVERN
"America Cannot Afford an Endless War in Afghanistan", Huffington Post, February 4, 2016
No matter how young, weak or vulnerable their victims, the killers wanted no survivors. By the time they had finished their work, at least 27 people including six children and a heavily-pregnant woman, lay clubbed or stabbed to death. This was no spontaneous massacre. At least four of the dead, including the mother-to-be, were positioned as if their hands or feet had been bound while their heads, knees and limbs were smashed. There were no burials -- the bodies of some were thrown into an adjoining lagoon while others were seemingly left to die where they fell. It may sound like an act of medieval barbarity or even an atrocity from the current killing fields of Syria. But this act of indiscriminate slaughter dates back some 10,000 years and as such may represent the earliest evidence of humans at war.
CAHAL MILMO
"War is as old as time: Cambridge University researchers unveil massacred bodies dating back 10,000 years", The Independent, January 20, 2016
No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
letter to Harry Truman, March 22, 1948