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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"The professional military mind is by necessity an inferior and unimaginative mind; no man of high intellectual quality would willingly imprison his gifts in such a calling."
"States organized for war will make war as surely as hens will lay eggs."
"The War That Will End War."
"This isn't a war," said the artilleryman. "It never was a war, any more than there's war between man and ants."
"And of course there is so much of World War II that is documented that we never have seen"
"The lesson of Pearl Harbor ought never to be forgotten, and of course the motto that came from that, 69 years ago, the war which my dad fought, was 'Remember Pearl Harbor, never again.' We need to keep that to mind."
"And so, the youngsters you have today, even though there are far fewer of them - in World War II 16.5 million men and women in uniform, today roughly a million in uniform in spite of the fact that the country is almost twice as large a population as we had in World War II."
"There is only one favorable moment in war; talent consists in knowing how to seize it."
"The object of war is victory, the object of victory is conquest, and the object of conquest is occupation."
"In war the simplest manoeuvres are the best."
"At the head of an army, nothing is more becoming than simplicity."
"Better to have a known enemy than a forced ally."
"In war, groping tactics, half-way measures, lose everything."
"The science of war leads one to dictatorship, pure and simple. The science of non-violence alone can lead one to pure democracy. Power based on love is thousand times more effective and permanent than power derived from fear of punishment. It is a blasphemy to say non-violence can be practiced only by individuals and never by nations which are composed of individuals. The nearest approach to purest anarchy would be a democracy based on non-violence. A society organized and run on the basis of complete non-violence would be the purest anarchy."
"When two nations are fighting, the duty of a votary of ahimsa is to stop the war."
"The slaying of multitudes should be mourned with sorrow. A victory should be celebrated with the funeral rite."
"lack of self-esteem is what causes wars because people who really love themselves don't go out and try to fight other people ... It's the root of all the problems."
"If the Americans would only take all the money they have spent on this war (Iraq), and spend it like Soros has done on civil societies in these countries, then in 10 years they would have wonderful results."
"The redeeming feature of war is that it puts a nation to the test. As exposure to the atmosphere reduces all mummies to instant dissolution, so war passes supreme judgment upon social systems that have outlived their vitality."
"Do you know why I won the last elections? It was because the people liked me, yes, because I had worked, yes, but also because the opposition had behaved badly toward me. And do you know why I won this war? Because my army was able to do it, yes, but also because the Americans were on the side of Pakistan."
