War quotes
17K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside war — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"I think that if you believe in regime change, you're mistaken. In 2013, we put 600 tons of weapons - us, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar - into the war against [Bashar] Assad. By pushing Assad back, we did create a safe space."
"Every video I'm in, every magazine cover, they stretch you - they make you perfect. It's not real life. I'm gonna say this about girls: The dieting wars have got to stop. Everyone just knock it off. Because at the end of the day, it's affecting kids your age. And it's making girls sick."
"But if we come back, if German men come back, if British men come back, and Japs, and French, and all the other men, all of us talking, writing, painting, making movies of heroes, and cockroaches and foxholes and blood, then future generations will always be doomed to future Hitlers. It's never occurred to boys to have contempt for wars, to point to soldiers' pictures in history books, laughing at them. If German boys had learned to be contemptuous of violence, Hitler would have had to take up knitting to keep his ego warm."
"A new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken..."
"Here was a new generation, shouting the old cries, learning the old creeds, through a revery of long days and nights; destined finally to go out into that dirty gray turmoil to follow love and pride; a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken."
"Nothing is so important in war as an undivided command."
"If you wage war, do it energetically and with severity. This is the only way to make it shorter and consequently less inhuman."
"An army which cannot be regularly recruited is a doomed army."
"When Monarchs abuse the rights with which they have been invested by the confidence of the people, and bring down upon their heads the calamity of war, the people have the right to withdraw their allegiance."
"It is the business of cavalry to follow up the victory, and to prevent the beaten army from rallying."
"In war, three-quarters turns on personal character and relations; the balance of manpower and materials counts only for the remaining quarter."
"Give me enough medals and I’ll win you any war"
"The admiral needs only one science, that of navigation. The general needs all the sciences."
"People are people, whatever age they're living in. The circumstances may have changed - we go to war with planes instead of chariots - but experiences of grief, longing, rage and love remain the same."
"I dare you to read a book this weekend! War and Peace? To Kill a Mocking Bird? Catcher in the Rye? The Heart is a Lonely Hunter? For Whom the Bell Tolls? As i lay Dying? Giovanni's Room? The Bell Jar? These books changed my life. #artforfreedom #rebelheart"
"I hear the birds on the summer breeze, I drive fast I am alone in the night Been trying hard not to get into trouble, but I I've got a war in my mind So, I just ride"
"It needs but one foe to breed a war, and those who have not swords can still die upon them."
"One has personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead."
"The Sword of Elendil was forged anew by Elvish smiths, and on its blade was traced a device of seven stars set between the crescent Moon and rayed Sun, and about them was written many runes; for Aragorn son of Arathorn was going to war upon the marches of Mordor. Very bright was that sword when it was made whole again; the light of the sun shone redly in it, and the light of the moon shone cold, its edge was hard and keen. And Aragorn gave it a new name and called it Andúril, Flame of the West."
"Our works in stone, in paint, in print, are spared, some of them, for a few decades or a millennium or two, but everything must finally fall in war, or wear away into the ultimate and universal ash - the triumphs, the frauds, the treasures and the fakes. A fact of life: we're going to die. "Be of good heart," cry the dead artists out of the living past. "Our songs will all be silenced, but what of it? Go on singing." Maybe a man's name doesn't matter all that much."
