War quotes
17K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"I had earlier concluded that a war with Iraq would be a distraction from the successful and expeditious completion of our aims in Afghanistan. Now I had come to question whether the White House was telling the truth."
"I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did - or did not do - to put the fire out in Africa. History, like God, is watching what we do."
"There is no greater evil than killing. I don't care whether they call it war or justice. Life is precious."
"It's an eclectic film and I think we served the novel really well. And we had a great cast who worked for free. Everyone read it and said, I'm in, from Nick [Nolte] to Albert [Finney] to Omar [Epps] to Barbara [Hershey]. We really had fun and shot it in a very short time. I think the subject matter is more topical today, more to the point, than it was 30 years ago, when it concerned the Vietnam War."
"I'll tell you that for me, one when someone used to say something that was true, one way I knew it was true was that I immediately felt defensive. I blocked it off, and I went to war with them in my mind and suffered all that goes with it. And they were only saying what was true."
"The mind at war with itself does war with any other mind, and that produces war in the world - all of it."
"Defense is the first act of war."
"They say, "Katie, you're wrong." And if I say, "How dare you say that? I have studied and studied." Or, "I am an expert in" whatever area we're talking about. Or, "No, you are wrong! And I think you're rude!" Or anything like that, and if we don't say it out loud, maybe we think it, but that's stressful. The moment I've defended, in any way, I've started the war."
"When I turn the thought around - the thought that war, let's say war in Iraq, should stop - the turnaround is the war in myself should stop."
"If we want justice for minorities and cooled wars with our natural enemies, whether human or non-human, we must first come to terms with the minority and the enemy in ourselves and in our own hearts, for the rascal is there as much as anywhere in the "external" world - -especially when you realize that the world outside your skin is as much yourself as the world inside."
"War cannot be humanized. It can only be abolished."
"I would teach peace rather than war, love rather than hate."
"The Nuremberg Trial of the German war criminals was tacitly based on the recognition of the principle: criminal actions cannot be excused if committed on government orders; conscience supersedes the authority of the law of the state."
"Every thoughtful, well-meaning and conscientious human being should assume in time of peace, the solemn and unconditional obligation not to participate in any war, for any reason or to lend support of any kind, whether direct or indirect."
"When the Special Theory of Relativity began to germinate in me, I was visited by all sorts of nervous conflicts... I used to go away for weeks in a state of confusion."
"Man is unique in organizing the mass murder of his own species."
"Ironically enough, the only people who can hold up indefinitely under the stress of modern war are psychotics. Individual insanity is immune to the consequences of collective insanity."
"War is often described as a law of nature-this is not true: Among the lower animals, war is unknown."
"Wherever we turn we find that the real obstacles to peace are human will and feeling, human convictions, prejudices, opinions. If we want to get rid of war we must get rid first of all of its psychological causes. Only when this has been done will the rulers of the nations even desire to get rid of the economic and political causes."
"You can't rewind war. It spools on, and on, and on, looping and jumping, distorted and cracked with age, and the stories contract until only the nuggets of hatred remain and no one can even remember, or imagine, why the war was organized in the first place."
