War quotes
17K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"Let's contemplate this, how many people would die if war breaks out. There are 2.7 billion people in the world. One-third could be lost; or, a little more, it could be half... I say that, taking the extreme situation, half dies, half lives, but imperialism would be razed to the ground and the whole world would become socialist."
"History shows that wars are divided into two kinds-just and unjust. All wars that are progressive are just, and all wars that impede progress are unjust."
"Revolutionary war is an antitoxin that not only eliminates the enemy's poison but also purges us of our own filth. Every just, revolutionary war is endowed with tremendous power and can transform many things or clear the way for their transformation. The Sino-Japanese war will transform both China and Japan; provided China perseveres in the War of Resistance and in the united front, the old Japan will surely be transformed into a new Japan and the old China into a new China, and people and everything else in both China and Japan will be transformed during and after the war."
"The ruthless economic exploitation and political oppression of the peasants by the landlord class forced them into numerous uprisings against its rule.... It was the class struggles of the peasants, the peasant uprisings and peasant wars that constituted the real motive force of historical development in Chinese feudal society."
"It's very disheartening to encounter a fearful twenty-one year old. They haven't earned the right to be that afraid. It's not like we're living in war-torn Bosnia or something."
"We in astrophysics we think of the universe all the time. So to us, Earth is just another planet. From a distance, it's a speck. And I'm convinced that if everyone had a cosmic perspective you wouldn't have legions of armies waging war on other people because someone would say, "Stop, look at the universe.""
"This fear factor, this war driver is a very strong one and it's been with the species ever since the beginning and it motivated the Great Wall of China. War can be aggressive or defensive, right? So it motivated the Great Wall of China. Our space program was reactive to Russia."
"George W. Bush was a very bad president. The Iraq war was a big mistake. The U.S.A. needed a political change. I hoped Barack Obama could be a good president, but I'm disappointed. He hasn't done well."
"It seems that certain transcendental realities emit rays to which the masses are sensitive. That is how, for example, when an event takes place, when at the front an army is in danger, or defeated, or victorious, the rather obscure news which the cultivated man does not quite understand, excite in the masses an emotion which surprises him and in which, once the experts have informed him of the actual military situation, he recognizes the populace's perception of that "aura" surrounding great events and visible for hundreds of kilometers."
"Mr. Avery said it was written on the Rosetta Stone that when children disobeyed their parents, smoked cigarettes and made war on each other, the seasons would change: Jem and I were burdened with the guilt of contributing to the aberrations of nature, thereby causing unhappiness to our neighbors and discomfort to ourselves."
"With mindfulness - the practice of peace - we can begin by working to transform the wars in ourselves. Conscious breathing helps us do this."
"The roots of war are in the way we live our daily lives -- the way we develop our industries, build up our society, and consume goods."
"He who makes war his profession cannot be otherwise than vicious. War makes thieves, and peace brings them to the gallows."
"I say that every prince must desire to be considered merciful and not cruel. He must, however, take care not to misuse this mercifulness."
"Every little advantage is of great moment when men have to come to blows."
"It is much better to tempt fortune where it can favor you than to see your certain ruin by not tempting it."
"Since the handling of arms is a beautiful spectacle, it is delightful to young men."
"All wars are crusades, or we're made to feel they are. That's just what's so wicked about them. We're made to feel - not think - and people can't think when they feel."
"The violence inherent in our systems and structures of power is a part of who we are - our thoughts, sensibilities, imaginations, language. We live in manifestations of it - permanent war, environmental destrucution, poverty, racism, misogyny, the assault on labor, torture in our prisons, capital punishment - a corporate capitalist state controlled by oligarchical interests for their own private profit and gain."
"Listen up—there’s no war that will end all wars,’ Crow tells me. ‘War breeds war. Lapping up the blood shed by violence, feeding on wounded flesh. War is a perfect, self-contained being. You need to know that."
