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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"It may seem sometimes as if a culture of peace does not stand a chance against the culture of war, the culture of violence and the cultures of impunity and intolerance. Peace may indeed be a complex challenge, dependent on action in many fields and even a bit of luck from time to time. It may be a painfully slow process, and fragile and imperfect when it is achieved. But peace is in our hands. We can do it."
"During the Vietnam War, which lasted longer than any war we've ever been in - and which we lost - every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high."
"Men rush to arms for slight causes, or no cause at all, and once taken up there is no longer any respect for law, divine or human."
"Love is a war of lightning, and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness. Kiss by kiss I cover your tiny infinity, your margins, your rivers, your diminutive villages, and a genital fire, transformed by delight, slips through the narrow channels of blood to precipitate a nocturnal carnation, to be, and be nothing but light in the dark."
"The followers of Christ have been called to peace. . . . And they must not only have peace but make it. And to that end they renounce all violence and tumult. In the cause of Christ nothing is to be gained by such methods . . . . His disciples keep the peace by choosing to endure suffering themselves rather than inflict it on others. They maintain fellowship where others would break it off. They renounce hatred and wrong. In so doing they overcome evil with good, and establish the peace of God in the midst of a world of war and hate."
"Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'"
"There are evils that have the ability to survive identification and go on for ever... money, for instance, or war."
"Governments constantly choose between telling lies and fighting wars, with the end result always being the same. One will always lead to the other."
"How many things apparently impossible have nevertheless been performed by resolute men who had no alternative but death."
"In war, as in prostitution, amateurs are often better than professionals."
"Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all."
"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it."
"Nothing fills me with deeper sadness than to see a Southerner apologizing for the defense we made of our inheritance."
"There is always inequality in life. Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded and some men never leave the country. Life is unfair."
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive."
"Affliction comes to us, not to make us sad but sober; not to make us sorry but wise."
"A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything."
"Come on boys! Give them the cold steel! Who will follow me?"
"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy."
"Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns."
