quotations about war
Waging war and fighting it are practical activities much like playing an instrument or, at the higher levels, conducting an orchestra. Hence one of the best, perhaps the best if not the only, ways to familiarize oneself with it is to practice it. As the saying goes, the best teacher of war is war. Other things being equal, the larger and more complex the "orchestra," the greater the role of the conductor, i.e. the commander. It is he who is ultimately responsible for coordinating the efforts of everybody else and directing them towards the objective. All the while taking care that the enemy will not interfere with his plans and demolish them.
MARTIN VAN CREVELD
"Why the best teacher of war is war", OUP blog, April 9, 2017
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
In every trade save war men of talent and vigor prosper. In war they die.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
The Crossing
We could make no more tragic mistake than merely to concentrate on military strength. For if we did only this, the future would hold nothing for the world but an Age of Terror.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
State of the Union Address, January 9, 1958
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
This is also a war followed in real time by anyone with a smart device, a technology that delivers instant updates, and oftentimes partial truths, to smart screens across the globe.
ROBERT MAKROS
"'Clean war' is the unicorn of armed conflict", The Hill, March 31, 2017
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
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
We have had over-much of war: I have seen too many of the noble, young, and gallant, fall by the sword. Brute force has had its day; now let us try what policy can do.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY
The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck
The god of war is impartial: he hands out death to the man who hands out death.
HOMER
The Iliad
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 brutal and fierce means of pacification; it means the suppression of resistance by the destruction or enslavement of the conquered.
HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL
Journal Intime
For wide, ah! wide is the woe when the foeman has mounted the wall;
There is havoc and terror and flame, and the dark smoke broods over all,
And wild is the war-god's breath, as in frenzy of conquest he springs,
And pollutes with the blast of his lips the glory of holiest things!
AESCHYLUS
The Seven Against Thebes
Since war has ceased to be the moving force in the world, men have become more tender one to another, and shrink from what they used to inflict without caring; and this is not so much because men are improved (which may or may not be in various cases), but because they have no longer the daily habit of war--have no longer formed their notions upon war, and therefore are guided by thoughts and feelings which soldiers as such--soldiers educated simply by their trade--are too hard to understand.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
Armies are not bad things in themselves; it's war that's evil.
JUAN GOMEZ-JURADO
God's Spy
Wars are not favourable to delicate pleasures.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
"A Secret Vice", The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays
Earth will grow worse till men redeem it,
And wars more evil, ere all wars cease.
G. K. CHESTERTON
A Song of Defeat
To me, the feeling of war is falling in love with something and having it killed in front of you, over and over again.
CHRIS ROESSNER
"Iraq vet talks about his Netflix movie, pulling CQ in Saddam's palace, debunking 'dysfunctional veteran' stereotype", Army Times, April 21, 2017
I know but little of the customs of war, and wish to know less.
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
The Spy
War is a contagion.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
speech, October 5, 1937