{"id":156034,"date":"2026-03-01T12:43:31","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T11:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.english-culture.com\/?p=156034"},"modified":"2026-03-05T14:54:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T13:54:13","slug":"quotes-on-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.english-culture.com\/quotes-on-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Quotes on war"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Quotes<\/a>
Quotes and aphorisms on war<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Quotes on war, aphorisms, quotations, ideas, and famous sentences by great authors and writers about the stupidity of every war and the cruelty of armies and soldiers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dear William, how is it that there are so many wars in this stupid world? Dear Brown, it’s because peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more bastard children than war\u2019s a destroyer of men.<\/span>
\nCarl William Brown via William Shakespeare<\/span><\/p>\n

Iustum est bellum, quibus necessarium. – War is right for those for whom it is needed -.<\/span>
\nTito Livio, Ab urbe condita, I sec.<\/span><\/p>\n

The aim of war is not to kill the enemy, but to destroy his will to fight.<\/span>
\nGeneral Sir Frank Kitson<\/span><\/p>\n

War is what happens when language fails.<\/span>
\nMargaret Atwood<\/span><\/p>\n

All war is a crime against humanity.<\/span>
\nLeo Tolstoy<\/span><\/p>\n

Wars serve no purpose other than to fill cemeteries, and there are no enemies in cemeteries.
\nCarl William Brown<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Before all else, be armed.<\/span>
\nNiccolo Machiavelli<\/span><\/p>\n

The essence of the Navy, its very soul, is that it is always ready for war.<\/span>
\nAdmiral Sir John Fisher<\/span><\/p>\n

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac… All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting… War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it… Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. <\/span>
\nGeorge Orwell<\/span><\/p>\n

The Ayatollah is no longer here; he has finally been sent to the afterlife; but he will remain a great memory in the history of stupidity.
\nCarl William Brown<\/span><\/p>\n

The enemy is not beaten until he thinks he is.<\/span>
\nField Marshal Sir Claude John Eyre Auchinleck<\/span><\/p>\n

If my soldiers started thinking, no one would stay in my ranks.<\/span>
\nFrederick II King of Prussia<\/span><\/p>\n

If you live long enough, you’ll see that every victory turns into a defeat.<\/span>
\nSimone de Beauvoir<\/span><\/p>\n

Frederick II King of Prussia once said: “If my soldiers started thinking, no one would stay in my ranks.”. That’s why a dictator who favors war is without brain just as well, capable of nothing, but only of a good action, that of dying. <\/span>
\nCarl William Brown<\/span><\/p>\n

War does not determine who is right – only who is left.<\/span>
\nBertrand Russell<\/span><\/p>\n

How wonderful it would be if the human race, like some animal species, practiced mass suicide in a finally serious and convincing way, not as it has done up to now playing with wars.<\/span>
\nCarl William Brown<\/span><\/p>\n

When war is declared, Truth is the first casualty.<\/span>
\nArthur Ponsonby<\/span><\/p>\n

War is fear cloaked in courage.<\/span>
\nWilliam Westmoreland<\/span><\/p>\n

War: a massacre of people who don’t know each other for the profit of people who know each other but don’t massacre each other.<\/span>
\nPaul Valery<\/span><\/p>\n

All’s fair in love and war.<\/span>
\nFrancis Edward Smedley<\/span><\/p>\n

War cemeteries. The dead in war are nothing but advertisements to enrich the funereal marketing of world stupidity.<\/span>
\nCarl William Brown<\/span><\/p>\n

War is what happens when language fails.<\/span>
\nMargaret Atwood<\/span><\/p>\n

If the frontline people do count, you couldn’t prove it by examining the reward systems in most organizations.<\/span>
\nKarl Albrecht<\/span><\/p>\n

War on nations changes maps. War on poverty maps change.<\/span>
\nMuhammad Ali<\/span><\/p>\n

You don’t have to fight too often with an enemy, otherwise you will teach them all your warfare.<\/span>
\nNapoleon I<\/span><\/p>\n

The most important wars in history were the result of trivial causes. Those who know when they have had enough are wealthy.<\/span>
\nFred Van Amburgh<\/span><\/p>\n

A coward is one who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.<\/span>
\nAmbrose Bierce<\/span><\/p>\n

O can’t you see, brother – Death’s a congested road for fighters now, and hero a cheap label.<\/span>
\nC. D. Andrews<\/span><\/p>\n

In war, moral considerations count for three quarters, the ratio of real forces only for the other quarter.<\/span>
\nNapoleon I<\/span><\/p>\n

In the arena of human life the honors and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in action.<\/span>
\nAristotle<\/span><\/p>\n

From the happy expression on their faces you might have supposed that they welcomed the war. I have met with men who loved stamps, and stones, and snakes, but I could not imagine any man loving war.<\/span>
\nMargot Asquith<\/span><\/p>\n

A skillful leech is better far, than half a hundred men of war.<\/span>
\nSamuel Butler<\/span><\/p>\n

Necessity can set me helpless on my back, but she cannot keep me there; nor can four walls limit my vision.<\/span>
\nMargaret Fairless Barber<\/span><\/p>\n

The destructive forces of humanity are directly proportional to the scientific, technological, sociological, economic, political and military capabilities of its imbecility.<\/span>
\nCarl William Brown<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Napoleon
Napoleon on war<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The cannon thunders… limbs fly in all directions… one can hear the groans of victims and the howling of those performing the sacrifice… it’s humanity in search of happiness.<\/span>
\nCharles Baudelaire<\/span><\/p>\n

It takes twenty years or more of peace to make a man; it takes only twenty seconds of war to destroy him.<\/span>
\nBaudouin I<\/span><\/p>\n

A wage hike is very hard to take away, but bonuses and profit-sharing can disappear very quickly in hard times… More people are realizing that bonuses look like raises, but really aren’t.<\/span>
\nAl Bauman<\/span><\/p>\n

If we justify war, it is because all peoples always justify the traits of which they find themselves possessed, not because war will bear an objective examination of its merits.<\/span>
\nRuth Benedict<\/span><\/p>\n

Any soldier who fights for money and for a dictator is a waste of society, an object without a brain, only capable of a good action, that of dying. <\/span>
\nCarl William Brown<\/span><\/p>\n

To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.<\/span>
\nWalter Benjamin<\/span><\/p>\n

The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. <\/span>
\nGeorge Orwell<\/span><\/p>\n

All war represents a failure of diplomacy.<\/span>
\nTony Benn<\/span><\/p>\n

The inevitableness, the idealism, and the blessing of war, as an indispensable and stimulating law of development, must be repeatedly emphasized.<\/span>
\nFriedrich Von Bernhardi<\/span><\/p>\n

If we fight a war and win it with H-bombs, what history will remember is not the ideals we were fighting for, but the methods we used to accomplish them. These methods will be compared to the warfare of Genghis Khan who ruthlessly killed every last inhabitant of Persia.<\/span>
\nHans A. Bethe<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.<\/span>
\nOtto Von Bismarck<\/span><\/p>\n

Hell and damnation, life is such fun with a ragged greatcoat and a Jerry gun!<\/span>
\nAlexander Blok<\/span><\/p>\n

Neither situations nor people can be altered by the interference of an outsider. If they are to be altered, that alteration must come from within.<\/span>
\nPhyllis Bottome<\/span><\/p>\n

Let me have war, say I: it exceeds peace as far as day does night; it’s spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more bastard children than war’s a destroyer of men.<\/span>
\nWilliam Shakespeare<\/span><\/p>\n

When a war breaks out, everyone hopes it will end soon, the only ones who want it to continue as long as possible are those who died first.<\/span>
\nCarl William Brown<\/span><\/p>\n

For cowards the road of desertion should be left open; they will carry over to the enemy nothing, but their fears.<\/span>
\nJohn Christian Bovee<\/span><\/p>\n

Wars can be prevented just as surely as they can be provoked, and we who fail to prevent them must share in the guilt for the dead.<\/span>
\nOmar Nelson Bradley<\/span><\/p>\n

War is like love, it always finds a way.<\/span>
\nBertolt Brecht<\/span><\/p>\n

To see, to hear, means nothing. To recognize (or not to recognize) means everything. Between what I do recognize and what I do not recognize, there stands myself. And what I do not recognize, I shall continue not to recognize.<\/span>
\nAndre Breton<\/span><\/p>\n

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.<\/span>
\nBuddha<\/span><\/p>\n

How many feasible projects have miscarried through despondency, and been strangled in their birth by a cowardly imagination.<\/span>
\nJeremy Collier<\/span><\/p>\n

Faint heart never won fair lady.<\/span>
\nMiguel De Cervantes<\/span><\/p>\n

War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can’t smile, grin. If you can’t grin, keep out of the way till you can.<\/span>
\nWinston Churchill<\/span><\/p>\n

The sinews of war, a limitless supply of money.<\/span>
\nMarcus T. Cicero<\/span><\/p>\n

In war, more than anywhere else in the world, things happen differently from what we had expected, and look differently when near from what they did at a distance.<\/span>
\nKarl Von Clausewitz<\/span><\/p>\n

It was once said that to have peace one had to prepare for war, but I prefer to argue that to have peace one must exterminate war.<\/span>
\nCarl William Brown<\/span><\/p>\n

War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of politics by other means.<\/span>
\nKarl Von Clausewitz<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Stupidity
Stupidity of wars<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is far easier to make war than to make peace.<\/span>
\nGeorges Clemenceau<\/span><\/p>\n

A ‘just war’ is hospitable to every self-deception on the part of those waging it, none more than the certainty of virtue, under whose shelter every abomination can be committed with a clear conscience.<\/span>
\nAlexander Cockburn<\/span><\/p>\n

That cowardice is incorrigible which the love of power cannot overcome.<\/span>
\nCharles Caleb Colton<\/span><\/p>\n

He who wishes to secure the good of others has already secured his own.<\/span>
\nConfucius<\/span><\/p>\n

To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.<\/span>
\nConfucius<\/span><\/p>\n

Blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds, and though a late, a sure reward succeeds.<\/span>
\nWilliam Congreve<\/span><\/p>\n

When war rages in order to obtain peace you have to fight.<\/span>
\nCarl William Brown<\/span><\/p>\n

I would often be a coward, but for the shame of it.<\/span>
\nRalph Connor<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps the reward of the spirit who tries is not the goal but the exercise.<\/span>
\nE. V. Cooke<\/span><\/p>\n

The giving of blood is imbued with the psychology of peace, for it leaves its humanitarian mark in the hearts of those who give for their fellowman.<\/span>
\nRed Cross Courier<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span>
\nNoel Coward<\/span><\/p>\n

Life is a compromise of what your ego wants to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do.<\/span>
\nBruce Crampton<\/span><\/p>\n

War eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs.<\/span>
\nGeorge Orwell<\/span><\/p>\n

Vice is its own reward. It is virtue which, if it is to be marketed with consumer appeal, must carry Green Shield stamps.<\/span>
\nQuentin Crisp<\/span><\/p>\n

The idea of thanking staff should mean giving them something that they would never buy for themselves.<\/span>
\nJayne Crook<\/span><\/p>\n

No country has suffered so much from the ruins of war while being at peace as the American.<\/span>
\nEdward Dahlberg<\/span><\/p>\n

War is the trade of Kings.<\/span>
\nJohn Dryden<\/span><\/p>\n

War, he sang, is toil and trouble; Honor but an empty bubble.<\/span>
\nJohn Dryden<\/span><\/p>\n

Everyone in our culture wants to win a prize. Perhaps that is the grand lesson we have taken with us from kindergarten in the age of perversions of Dewey-style education: everyone gets a ribbon, and praise becomes a meaningless narcotic to soothe egoistic distemper.<\/span>
\nGerald Early<\/span><\/p>\n

America is addicted to wars of distraction.<\/span>
\nBarbara Ehrenreich<\/span><\/p>\n

In past times during the various battles mostly soldiers died, nowadays progress has meant that in times of war mostly civilians die.<\/span>
\nCarl William Brown<\/span><\/p>\n

Covetousness like jealousy, when it has taken root, never leaves a person but with their life. Cowardice is the dread of what will happen.<\/span>
\nEpictetus<\/span><\/p>\n

I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.<\/span>
\nAlbert Einstein<\/span><\/p>\n

Keep on sowing your seed, for you never know which will grow — perhaps it all will.<\/span>
\nAlbert Einstein<\/span><\/p>\n

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.<\/span>
\nDwight D. Eisenhower<\/span><\/p>\n

The most terrible job in warfare is to be a second lieutenant leading a platoon when you are on the battlefield.<\/span>
\nDwight D. Eisenhower<\/span><\/p>\n

The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.<\/span>
\nDwight D. Eisenhower<\/span><\/p>\n

War is not a life: it is a situation, one which may neither be ignored nor accepted.<\/span>
\nT. S. Eliot<\/span><\/p>\n

Although I am opposed to war, as we live in a society of bitter conflicts and bitter competition, it is obvious that to change the state of things a mythical struggle must be undertaken, first of all against stupidity.<\/span>
\nCarl William Brown<\/span><\/p>\n

I feel sure that coups d’etat would go much better if there were seats, boxes, and stalls so that one could see what was happening and not miss anything.<\/span>
\nEdmond and Jules De Goncourt<\/span><\/p>\n

The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.<\/span>
\nRalph Waldo Emerson<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Carl
Carl William Brown<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.<\/span>
\nDesiderius Erasmus<\/span><\/p>\n

A coward turns away, but a brave man’s choice is danger.<\/span>
\nEuripides<\/span><\/p>\n

Moderation in war is imbecility.<\/span>
\nAdmiral John Fisher<\/span><\/p>\n

We would be cowards, if we had courage enough.<\/span>
\nThomas Fuller<\/span><\/p>\n

Cowards can never be moral.<\/span>
\nMahatma Gandhi<\/span><\/p>\n

Fear has its use but cowardice has none.<\/span>
\nMahatma Gandhi<\/span><\/p>\n

It is open to a war resister to judge between the combatants and wish success to the one who has justice on his side. By so judging he is more likely to bring peace between the two than by remaining a mere spectator.<\/span>
\nMahatma Gandhi<\/span><\/p>\n

Stupidity and aggression, selfishness and greed lead to war, but people don’t seem to worry too much, at least until the grenades fall on their feet.<\/span>
\nCarl William Brown<\/span><\/p>\n

Morality is contraband in war.<\/span>
\nMahatma Gandhi<\/span><\/p>\n

Cowards are cruel, but the brave love mercy and delight to save.<\/span>
\nJohn Gay<\/span><\/p>\n

Unless they are immediate victims, the majority of mankind behaves as if war was an act of God which could not be prevented; or they behave as if war elsewhere was none of their business. It would be a bitter cosmic joke if we destroy ourselves due to atrophy of the imagination.<\/span>
\nMartha Gellhorn<\/span><\/p>\n

How many joys are crushed under foot because people look up at the sky and disregard what is at their feet?<\/span>
\nCatharina Elisabetha Goethe<\/span><\/p>\n

The coward threatens when he is safe.<\/span>
\nJohann Wolfgang Von Goethe<\/span><\/p>\n

The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree I planted.<\/span>
\nGeorge Noel Gordon<\/span><\/p>\n

A reward cannot be valued if it is not understood.<\/span>
\nPhillip C. Grant<\/span><\/p>\n

The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.<\/span>
\nRobert Graves<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span>
\nIan Hay<\/span><\/p>\n

Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.<\/span>
\nWilliam Hazlitt<\/span><\/p>\n

War is stupidity, just as stupidity is the existential war of man.<\/span>
\nCarl William Brown<\/span><\/p>\n

Frankly, I’d like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private industry.<\/span>
\nJoseph Heller<\/span><\/p>\n

Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else.<\/span>
\nJoseph Heller<\/span><\/p>\n

Cowardice, as distinguished from panic, is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination.<\/span>
\nErnest Hemingway<\/span><\/p>\n

War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow men.<\/span>
\nNapoleon Hill<\/span><\/p>\n

Force, and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues.<\/span>
\nThomas Hobbes<\/span><\/p>\n

When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong; it easily becomes a fashion.<\/span>
\nEric Hoffer<\/span><\/p>\n

I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more wars.<\/span>
\nAbbie Hoffman<\/span><\/p>\n

Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die.<\/span>
\nHerbert Clark Hoover<\/span><\/p>\n

Here dead lie we because we did not choose to live and shame the land from which we sprung. Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose; but young men think it is, and we were young.<\/span>
\nA. E. Housman<\/span><\/p>\n

No man who does a good deed should expect gratitude. The reward of a good deed is in having done it.<\/span>
\nElbert Hubbard<\/span><\/p>\n

What we believe is more important than our material existence, therefore warfare is a legitimate extension of values.<\/span>
\nEdward Johnson<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Charlie
Charlie Chaplin against war<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

War seems to be one of the most salutary phenomena for the culture of human nature; and it is not without regret that I see it disappearing more and more from the scene.<\/span>
\nKarl Wilhelm Von Humboldt<\/span><\/p>\n

A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.<\/span>
\nAldous Huxley<\/span><\/p>\n

It is better to be the widow of a hero than the wife of a coward.<\/span>
\nDolores Ibarruri<\/span><\/p>\n

The natural principle of war is to do the most harm to our enemy with the least harm to ourselves; and this of course is to be effected by stratagem.<\/span>
\nWashington Irving<\/span><\/p>\n

A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.<\/span>
\nThomas Jefferson<\/span><\/p>\n

In spite of all of the training you get and the precautions you take to keep yourself alive, it’s largely a matter of luck that decides whether or not you get killed.<\/span>
\nJames Jones<\/span><\/p>\n

It is the coward who fawns upon those above him. It is the coward who is insolent whenever he dares be so.<\/span>
\nJunius<\/span><\/p>\n

Criminals and law enforcement agencies, a fratricidal struggle, a civil war between rival gangs.<\/span>
\nCarl William Brown<\/span><\/p>\n

The best-educated human being is the one who understands most about the life in which he is placed.<\/span>
\nHelen Keller<\/span><\/p>\n

Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind. War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.<\/span>
\nJohn F. Kennedy<\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, the brave Music of a distant drum!<\/span>
\nOmar Khayyam<\/span><\/p>\n

War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.<\/span>
\nMartin Luther King Jr.<\/span><\/p>\n

And that is called paying the Dane-geld; but we’ve proved it again and again, that if once you have paid him the Dane-geld you never get rid of the Dane.<\/span>
\nRudyard Kipling<\/span><\/p>\n

If any question why we died, tell them, because our fathers lied.<\/span>
\nRudyard Kipling<\/span><\/p>\n

A coward is a hero with a wife, kids, and a mortgage.<\/span>
\nMarvin Kitman<\/span><\/p>\n

Dishonesty, cowardice and duplicity are never impulsive.<\/span>
\nGeorge A. Knight<\/span><\/p>\n

The most persistent sound which reverberates through man’s history is the beating of war drums.<\/span>
\nArthur Koestler<\/span><\/p>\n

Where do all the women who have watched so carefully over the lives of their beloved ones get the heroism to send them to face the cannon?<\/span>
\nKaThe Kollwitz<\/span><\/p>\n

How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.<\/span>
\nKarl Kraus<\/span><\/p>\n

Sure war is a bad thing, but at least it helps bring down unemployment.<\/span>
\nCarl William Brown<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span>
\nKarl Kraus<\/span><\/p>\n

The more prosperous and settled a nation, the more readily it tends to think of war as a regrettable accident; to nations less fortunate the chance of war presents itself as a possible bountiful friend.<\/span>
\nLewis H. Lapham<\/span><\/p>\n

Cowards cannot see that their greatest safety lies in dauntless courage.<\/span>
\nJohann Kaspar Lavater<\/span><\/p>\n

The war is dreadful. It is the business of the artist to follow it home to the heart of the individual fighters — not to talk in armies and nations and numbers — but to track it home.<\/span>
\nD. H. Lawrence<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course in war all madnesses come out in a man. That is the fault of war not of a man or a nation.<\/span>
\nFrieda Lawrence<\/span><\/p>\n

I have been up to see the Congress and they do not seem to be able to do anything except to eat peanuts and chew tobacco, while my army is starving.<\/span>
\nRobert E. Lee<\/span><\/p>\n

Lots of people who complained about us receiving the MBE received theirs for heroism in the war –for killing people. We received ours for entertaining other people. I’d say we deserve ours more.<\/span>
\nJohn Lennon<\/span><\/p>\n

I sincerely wish war was a pleasanter and easier business than it is, but it does not admit of holidays.<\/span>
\nAbraham Lincoln<\/span><\/p>\n

Let him not boast who puts his armor on as he who puts it off, the battle done.<\/span>
\nHenry Wadsworth Longfellow<\/span><\/p>\n

I have known war as few men now living know it. Its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes.<\/span>
\nDouglas Macarthur<\/span><\/p>\n

In a country where the military earns a lot of money, the only thing to do to amortize the expense is to generate a war.<\/span>
\nCarl William Brown<\/span><\/p>\n

I see that old flagpole still stands. Have your troops hoist the colors to its peak, and let no enemy ever haul them down.<\/span>
\nDouglas Macarthur<\/span><\/p>\n

In war, there is no substitute for victory.<\/span>
\nDouglas Macarthur<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.<\/span>
\nNiccolo Machiavelli<\/span><\/p>\n

\"War
War aircraft<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Oscars demonstrate the will of the people to control and judge those they have elected to stand above them (much, perhaps, as in bygone days, an election celebrated the same).<\/span>
\nDavid Mamet<\/span><\/p>\n

Wars are carried out by large organizations; Peace is brought one by one.<\/span>
\nRachel Manor<\/span><\/p>\n

Blunders are an inescapable feature of war, because choice in military affairs lies generally between the bad and the worse.<\/span>
\nAllan Massie<\/span><\/p>\n

Men are at war with each other because each man is at war with himself.<\/span>
\nFrancis Meehan<\/span><\/p>\n

War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands.<\/span>
\nH. L. Mencken<\/span><\/p>\n

God always provides what we need, but we must be ready to open our eyes and see it.<\/span>
\nMidrash<\/span><\/p>\n

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.<\/span>
\nHenry Miller<\/span><\/p>\n

I’m a hero with coward’s legs.<\/span>
\nSpike Milligan<\/span><\/p>\n

War hath no fury like a non-combatant.<\/span>
\nCharles Edward Montague<\/span><\/p>\n

Cowardice is the mother of cruelty.<\/span>
\nMichel Eyquem De Montaigne<\/span><\/p>\n

The only war I can conceive is that against stupidity. But in this area the human race always prefers to be at peace with itself and its deadliest enemies.<\/span>
\nCarl William Brown<\/span><\/p>\n

It is the part of cowardliness, and not of virtue, to seek to squat itself in some hollow lurking hole, or to hide herself under some massive tomb, thereby to shun the strokes of fortune.<\/span>
\nMichel Eyquem De Montaigne<\/span><\/p>\n

War is the supreme drama of a completely mechanized society.<\/span>
\nLewis Mumford<\/span><\/p>\n

In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.<\/span>
\nJose Narosky<\/span><\/p>\n

The only cowards are sinners; fighting the fight is all.<\/span>
\nJohn G. Neihardt<\/span><\/p>\n

War has always been the grand sagacity of every spirit which has grown too inward and too profound; its curative power lies even in the wounds one receives.<\/span>
\nFriedrich Nietzsche<\/span><\/p>\n

Our rewards in life will always be in direct ratio to our service.<\/span>
\nEarl Nightingale<\/span><\/p>\n

Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.<\/span>
\nRonald Reagan<\/span><\/p>\n

The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.<\/span>
\nGeorge Orwell<\/span><\/p>\n

There is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one side stands more or less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction.<\/span>
\nGeorge Orwell<\/span><\/p>\n

What are we hoping to get out of it, what’s it all in aid of — is it really just for the sake of a gloved hand waving at you from a golden coach?<\/span>
\nJohn Osborne<\/span><\/p>\n

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns.<\/span>
\nWilfred Owen<\/span><\/p>\n

To establish any mode to abolish war, however advantageous it might be to Nations, would be to take from such Government the most lucrative of its branches.<\/span>
\nThomas Paine<\/span><\/p>\n

The more we sweat in peace the less we bleed in war.<\/span>
\nVijaya Lakshmi Pandit<\/span><\/p>\n

Suppose they gave a war, and no one came?<\/span>
\nLeslie Parrish-Bach<\/span><\/p>\n

He that does good for good’s sake seeks neither paradise nor reward, but he is sure of both in the end.<\/span>
\nWilliam Penn<\/span><\/p>\n

That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.<\/span>
\nEdgar Allan Poe<\/span><\/p>\n

The real trouble with war (modern war) is that it gives no one a chance to kill the right people.<\/span>
\nEzra Pound<\/span><\/p>\n

Wars are made to make debt.<\/span>
\nEzra Pound<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no reason for war that reasonable men can’t settle. Clouds and thunder don’t always result in rain. A small cloud can hide the sun and the moon.<\/span>
\nArmenian Proverb<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Cruelty
Cruelty of war quotes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

War is much too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military.<\/span>
\nFrench Proverb<\/span><\/p>\n

To call war the soil of courage and virtue is like calling debauchery the soil of love.<\/span>
\nGerman Proverb<\/span><\/p>\n

It is better to be a coward for a minute than dead for the rest of your life.<\/span>
\nIrish Proverb<\/span><\/p>\n

We won the war, but we lost peace.<\/span>
\nSerbian Proverb<\/span><\/p>\n

Cowards falter, but danger is often overcome by those who nobly dare.<\/span>
\nQueen Elizabeth II<\/span><\/p>\n

War begets quiet, quiet idleness, idleness disorder, disorder ruin; likewise ruin order, order virtue, virtue glory, and good fortune.<\/span>
\nSir Walter Raleigh<\/span><\/p>\n

By now the cold war has turned into a hot peace, and people have already begun to sweat a lot.<\/span>
\nCarl William Brown<\/span><\/p>\n

There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist.<\/span>
\nAyn Rand<\/span><\/p>\n

You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.<\/span>
\nJeannette Rankin<\/span><\/p>\n

The reward of great men is that, long after they have died, one is not quite sure that they are dead.<\/span>
\nJules Renard<\/span><\/p>\n

Do you know the only thing that gives me pleasure? It’s to see my dividends coming in.<\/span>
\nJohn D. Rockefeller<\/span><\/p>\n

I cannot believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war and no one will win the next.<\/span>
\nEleanor Roosevelt<\/span><\/p>\n

More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars.<\/span>
\nFranklin D. Roosevelt<\/span><\/p>\n

War is a contagion.<\/span>
\nFranklin D. Roosevelt<\/span><\/p>\n

Open-mindedness should not be fostered because, as Scripture teaches, Truth is great and will prevail, nor because, as Milton suggests, Truth will always win in a free and open encounter. It should be fostered for its own sake.<\/span>
\nRichard Rorty <\/span><\/p>\n

A cowardly cur barks more fiercely than it bites.<\/span>
\nQuintus Curtius Rufus<\/span><\/p>\n

War is not an adventure. It is a disease. It is like typhus.<\/span>
\nAntoine De Saint-Exupery<\/span><\/p>\n

To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman.<\/span>
\nGeorge Santayana<\/span><\/p>\n

Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.<\/span>
\nWilliam T. Sherman<\/span><\/p>\n

If it were not for the war, this war would suit me down to the ground.<\/span>
\nDorothy L. Sayers<\/span><\/p>\n

God’s delays are not God’s denials.<\/span>
\nRobert H. Schuller<\/span><\/p>\n

When the adulation of life is gone, the coward sneaks to his death, but the brave live on.<\/span>
\nGeorge Sewell<\/span><\/p>\n

Cowards die a thousand deaths. The valiant taste of death but once.<\/span>
\nWilliam Shakespeare<\/span><\/p>\n

Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.<\/span>
\nWilliam Shakespeare<\/span><\/p>\n

For the humorist, good is evil, war is peace, life is death.<\/span>
\nCarl William Brown<\/span><\/p>\n

Cry “havoc!” and let loose the dogs of war, that this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men, groaning for burial.<\/span>
\nWilliam Shakespeare<\/span><\/p>\n

We go to gain a little patch of ground that hath in it no profit but the name.<\/span>
\nWilliam Shakespeare<\/span><\/p>\n

In the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence, and famine.<\/span>
\nGeorge Bernard Shaw<\/span><\/p>\n

Man gives every reason for his conduct save one, every excuse for his crimes save one, every plea for his safety save one; and that one is his cowardice.<\/span>
\nGeorge Bernard Shaw<\/span><\/p>\n

War is the statesman’s game, the priest’s delight, The lawyer’s jest, the hired assassin’s trade.<\/span>
\nPercy Bysshe Shelley <\/span><\/p>\n

My valor is certainly going, it is sneaking off! I feel it oozing out as it were, at the palms of my hands!<\/span>
\nRichard Brinsley Sheridan<\/span><\/p>\n

War – what a waste of time. It’s all about great achievements for the very few but hideous losses for the very many.<\/span>
\nAuthor Unknown<\/span><\/p>\n

Hence that general is skilful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skilful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack.<\/span>
\nSun Tzu<\/span><\/p>\n

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.<\/span>
\nSun Tzu<\/span><\/p>\n

Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.<\/span>
\nSun Tzu<\/span><\/p>\n

You can ensure the success of your attacks if you only attack places that are undefended. You can ensure the safety of your defense if you only hold positions that cannot be attacked. Therefore, that general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skillful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack.<\/span>
\nSun Tzu<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A
A modern tank<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is better to be killed than frightened to death.<\/span>
\nRobert S. Surtees<\/span><\/p>\n

Greater even than the pious man is he who eats that which is the fruit of his own toil; for scripture declares him twice-blessed.<\/span>
\nThe Talmud<\/span><\/p>\n

I have a deep sympathy with war; it so apes the gait and bearing of the soul.<\/span>
\nHenry David Thoreau<\/span><\/p>\n

The savage in man is never quite eradicated.<\/span>
\nHenry David Thoreau<\/span><\/p>\n

There are two things which will always be very difficult for a democratic nation: to start a war and to end it.<\/span>
\nAlexis De Tocqueville<\/span><\/p>\n

Not in rewards, but in the strength to strive, the blessing lies.<\/span>
\nJ. T. Towbridge<\/span><\/p>\n

Except a person be part coward, it is not a compliment to say he is brave.<\/span>
\nMark Twain<\/span><\/p>\n

Except a person be part coward, it is not a compliment to say he is brave.<\/span>
\nMark Twain<\/span><\/p>\n

It is better to deserve an honor and not receive it, than to receive one and not deserve it!<\/span>
\nMark Twain<\/span><\/p>\n

The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession, but carrying a banner.<\/span>
\nMark Twain<\/span><\/p>\n

There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.<\/span>
\nMark Twain<\/span><\/p>\n

A coward gets scared and quits. A hero gets scared, but still goes on.<\/span>
\nAuthor Unknown<\/span><\/p>\n

As cowardly as a coward is, it is not safe to call a coward a coward.<\/span>
\nAuthor Unknown<\/span><\/p>\n

All wars are wars of power, which is why being against power and stupidity it is obvious that it is also against the war for power, but not against the revolt against power and its atrocities.<\/span>
\nCarl William Brown<\/span><\/p>\n

Companies that give excellent service reward employees for providing it.<\/span>
\nAuthor Unknown<\/span><\/p>\n

Let the motive be in the deed and not in the event. Be not one whose motive for action is the hope of reward.<\/span>
\nAuthor Unknown<\/span><\/p>\n

The cowards never started – and the weak died along the way.<\/span>
\nAuthor Unknown<\/span><\/p>\n

To say that war is madness is like saying that sex is madness: true enough, from the standpoint of a stateless eunuch, but merely a provocative epigram for those who must make their arrangements in the world as given.<\/span>
\nJohn Updike<\/span><\/p>\n

To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.<\/span>
\nPeter Ustinov<\/span><\/p>\n

Most people grow old within a small circle of ideas, which they have not discovered for themselves. There are perhaps less wrong-minded people than thoughtless.<\/span>
\nMarquis De Vauvenargues<\/span><\/p>\n

It is forbidden to kill – and thus, all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers, and with the background of trumpets playing.<\/span>
\nFrancois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the chief misfortunes of honest people is that they are cowardly.<\/span>
\nFrancois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire<\/span><\/p>\n

What war has always been is a puberty ceremony. It’s a very rough one, but you went away a boy and came back a man, maybe with an eye missing or whatever but godammit you were a man and people had to call you a man thereafter.<\/span>
\nKurt Vonnegut Jr.<\/span><\/p>\n

No man, who continues to add something to the material, intellectual and moral well-being of the place in which he lives, is left long without proper reward.<\/span>
\nBooker T. Washington<\/span><\/p>\n

A self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war.<\/span>
\nSimone Weil<\/span><\/p>\n

What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war. Petrol is more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict.<\/span>
\nSimone Weil<\/span><\/p>\n

Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men.<\/span>
\nBishop Westcott<\/span><\/p>\n

With every deed you are sowing a seed, though the harvest you may not see.<\/span>
\nElla Wheeler Wilcox<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span>
\nOscar Wilde<\/span><\/p>\n

All men would be cowards if they durst.<\/span>
\nJohn Wilmot<\/span><\/p>\n

My mind is my biggest asset.<\/span>
\nTiger Woods<\/span><\/p>\n

If you insist upon fighting to protect me, or “our” country, let it be understood soberly and rationally between us that you are fighting to gratify a sex instinct which I cannot share; to procure benefits which I have not shared and probably will not share.<\/span>
\nVirginia Woolf<\/span><\/p>\n

The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness.<\/span>
\nVirginia Woolf<\/span><\/p>\n

I think it better that in times like these a poet’s mouth be silent, for in truth we have no gift to set a statesman right.<\/span>
\nWilliam Butler Yeats<\/span><\/p>\n

You can also read:<\/span><\/p>\n

Arms and Warfare quotes<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

War and peace quotes<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Call me Putrid<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Essays with quotes<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Quotes by authors<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Quotes by arguments<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Thoughts and reflections<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

News and events<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quotes on war, aphorisms, quotations, ideas, and famous sentences by great authors and writers about the stupidity of every war and the cruelty of armies and soldiers. Dear William, how is it …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98,718,706,230,1127,187,192,2037,194,562,171,25,28,55,151,132,64],"tags":[106,918,4452,3748,897,4455,522,173,3663,1290,2028,1172,174,4456,3811,1863,1996,1391,108,109,975,976,3524,1997,3760,56,787,2248,2058,4454,253,768,4453,2547],"class_list":["post-156034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authority-power","category-english-world","category-fort-attack","category-freedom","category-history","category-ideas","category-people","category-politics","category-power","category-quotations","category-quotes","category-quotes-by-arguments","category-strategy","category-struggle-against-stupidity","category-stupidity-2","category-the-world-of-english","category-warcraft","tag-aphorisms","tag-aristotle","tag-armies","tag-army","tag-baudelaire","tag-bierce","tag-brown","tag-churchill","tag-cicero","tag-einstein","tag-eisenhower","tag-eliot","tag-gandhi","tag-kraus","tag-lennon","tag-lincoln","tag-orwell","tag-proverbs","tag-quotations-2","tag-quotes","tag-roosevelt","tag-russell","tag-shakespare","tag-shaw","tag-soldiers","tag-stupidity","tag-sun-tzu","tag-thoreau","tag-twain","tag-valery","tag-voltaire","tag-war","tag-weapons","tag-wilde"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t