War quotes
17K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"And if such malignity is hidden for a time, it proceeds from the unknown reason that would not be known because the experience of the contrary had not been seen, but time, which is said to be the father of every truth, will cause it to be discovered."
"War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans."
"You must never believe that the enemy does not know how to conduct his own affairs. Indeed, if you want to be deceived less and want to bear less danger, the more the enemy is weak or the less the enemy is cautious, so much more must you esteem him."
"Good order and discipline in any army are to be depended upon more than courage alone."
"The people resemble a wild beast, which, naturally fierce and accustomed to live in the woods, has been brought up, as it were, in a prison and in servitude, and having by accident got its liberty, not being accustomed to search for its food, and not knowing where to conceal itself, easily becomes the prey of the first who seeks to incarcerate it again."
"Sometimes it has been of great moment while the fight is going on, to disseminate words that pronounce the enemies' captain to be dead, or to have been conquered by another part of the army. Many times this has given victory to him who used it."
"Present wars impoverish the lords that win as much as those that lose."
"Violence must be inflicted once for all; people will then forget what it tastes like and so be less resentful. Benefits must be conferred gradually; and in that way they will taste better."
"The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two has to be wanting. For it may be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, voluble, dissemblers, anxious to avoid danger, and covetous of gain; as long as you benefit them, they are entirely yours; they offer you their blood, their goods, their life, and their children, as I have before said, when the necessity is remote; but when it approaches, they revolt."
"To know in war how to recognize an opportunity and seize it is better than anything else."
"If someone puts up the argument that King Louis gave the Romagna to Pope Alexander, and the kingdom of Naples to Spain, in order to avoid a war, I would answer as I did before: that you should never let things get out of hand in order to avoid war. You don't avoid such a war, you merely postpone it, to your own disadvantage."
"Then also pretexts for seizing property are never wanting, and one who begins to live by rapine will always find some reason for taking the goods of others, whereas causes for taking life are rarer and more quickly destroyed."
"For whoever conquers a free Town, and does not demolish it, commits a great Error, and may expect to be ruin 'd himself."
"A good man does not spy around for the black spots in others, but presses unswervingly on towards his mark."
"The only excuse for war is that we may live in peace unharmed."
"A war is never undertaken by the ideal state, except in defense of its honor or its safety."
"We need to make a distinction between misled Iraqis, those who believe that they are carrying weapons to liberate Iraq from what they call occupation, and criminal gangs that came from outside and wants to wage a deadly war on the Iraqi people, killing women and children in mosques and churches."
"Reconciliation with our enemies is simply a desire to better our condition, a weariness of war, or the fear of some unlucky thing from occurring."
"The notion that disarmament can put a stop to war is contradicted by the nearest dogfight."
"Something is wrong. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, crime, torture, corruption and the ice capades. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed. This is not what you expect to find on the resume of a supreme being. It's what you expect from an office temp with a bad attitude."
