quotations about war
War among men defiles this world.
T. S. ELIOT
Murder in the Cathedral
Scarcely one stone remaineth upon another; but in the midst of sorrow we have abundant cause of thankfulness, that so few of our brethren are numbered with the slain, whilst our enemies were cut down like the grass before the scythe.
ABIGAIL ADAMS
letter to John Adams, June 22, 1775
A long war like this makes you realise the society you really prefer, the home, goats chickens and dogs and casual acquaintances. I find myself not caring at all for gardens flowers or vegetables cats cows and rabbits, one gets tired of trees vines and hills, but houses, goats chickens dogs and casual acquaintances never pall.
GERTRUDE STEIN
Wars I Have Seen
It's hard to recapture the horror that earlier generations of Americans felt about preventive war when it was still something that other countries did to the United States and not merely something Americans contemplate doing to others. They viewed it the way some Americans still view torture: as liberation from the moral restraints that human beings require.
PETER BEINART
"How America Shed the Taboo Against Preventive War", The Atlantic, April 21, 2017
We shall not enter into any of the abstruse definitions of war used by publicists. We shall keep to the element of the thing itself, to a duel. War is nothing but a duel on an extensive scale.
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ
On War
Is war necessary? Can some conflicts only be solved by violence? Human history is indeed often presented as primarily a history of wars and battles, conquests and defeats. While that is only one perspective amongst many possible ones, violence of one sort or another has certainly been, if not centre-stage, at least lurking in the wings throughout the human story. Man (especially Man, but also Woman) clearly has the propensity not only to behave aggressively to other humans but also to do so in an organized way and not infrequently with calculated cruelty.
ROBERT AUBREY HINDE
War: The Bases of Institutionalized Violence
The nation having the strongest war footing can easily find an excuse for going to war.
LEWIS F. KORNS
Thoughts
The line, broken into moving fragments by the ground, went calmly on through fields and woods. The youth looked at the men nearest him, and saw, for the most part, expressions of deep interest, as if they were investigating something that had fascinated them. One or two stepped with overvaliant airs as if they were already plunged into war. Others walked as upon thin ice. The greater part of the untested men appeared quiet and absorbed. They were going to look at war, the red animal--war, the blood-swollen god. And they were deeply engrossed in this march.
STEPHEN CRANE
The Red Badge of Courage
When a war breaks out, people say: "It's too stupid; it can't last long." But though the war may well be "too stupid," that doesn't prevent its lasting. Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves.
ALBERT CAMUS
The Plague
So far, war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until an equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that war must have its way.
WILLIAM JAMES
The Moral Equivalent of War
War is a beastly business, it is true, but one proof we are human is our ability to learn, even from it, how better to exist.
M. F. K. FISHER
introduction to revised edition, How to Cook a Wolf
War is hell and all that, but it has a good deal to recommend it. It wipes out all the small nuisances of peace-time.
IAN HAY
The First Hundred Thousand
All we've ever done is fight. Fight for freedom. Fight for justice. All we have to do is forgive.
ASHLYN RYAN
"War is bad -- why not talk out our problems?", The Altamont Enterprise, February 4, 2016
No one should be surprised at the prominence given to war. We are dealing with early ages: nation-making is the occupation of man in these ages, and it is war that makes nations.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
Before a war military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war it seems more like astrology.
REBECCA WEST
attributed, Europe in Arms
We are now in the midst of our first television war ... the television environment [is] total and therefore invisible. Along with the computer, it has altered every phase of the American vision and identity. The television war has meant the end of the dichotomy between civilian and military. The public is now a participant in every phase of the war, and the main actions of the war are now being fought in the American home itself.
MARSHALL MCLUHAN
War and Peace in the Global Village
War seldom enters but where wealth allures.
JOHN DRYDEN
The Hind and the Panther
We may have hell if we have war, and we may have hell if we have peace. But if we have no vision for what we do, we have hell anyway.
GERALD STANLEY LEE
The Air-line to Liberty: A Prospectus for All Nations
The modern State is by its very nature a military State; and every military State must of necessity become a conquering, invasive State; to survive it must conquer or be conquered, for the simple reason that accumulated military power will suffocate if it does not find an outlet.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
Statism and Anarchy
The chain reaction of evil--hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars--must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
Christmas sermon delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, 1957