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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"Yet when we achieved, and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to remake it in the likeness of the former world they knew. Youth could win, but had not learned to keep: and was pitiably weak against age. We stammered that we had worked for a new heaven and a new earth, and they thanked us kindly and made their peace."
"A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit."
"Opportunities multiply as they are seized."
"This war is not an ordinary war. It is the war of the entire Russian people. Not only to eliminate the danger hanging over our heads, but to aid all people groaning under the yoke of Fascism"
"Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war."
"Hardy, I do believe they have done it at last... my backbone is shot through."
"In loneliness, in sickness, in confusion-the mere knowledge of friendship makes it possible to endure, even if the friend is powerless to help. It is enough that they exist. Friendship is not diminished by distance or time, by imprisonment or war, by suffering or silence. It is in these things that it roots most deeply. It is from these things that it flowers."
"There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs."
"Possibly my hatred of war blinds me so that I cannot comprehend the arguments they adduce. But, in my opinion, there is no such thing as a preventive war. Although this suggestion is repeatedly made, none has yet explained how war prevents war. Worse than this, no one has been able to explain away the fact that war creates the conditions that beget war."
"We give up leisure in order that we may have leisure, just as we go to war in order that we may have peace."
"War is organized murder and torture against our brothers."
"If the European discovery had been delayed for a century or two, it is possible that the Aztec in Mexico or the Iroquois in North America would have established strong native states capable of adopting European war tactics and maintaining their independence to this day, as Japan kept her independence from China."
"Peace?' said Vetinari. 'Ah, yes, defined as period of time to allow for preparation for the next war."
"If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat."
"The keys of a fortress are always well worth the retirement of the garrison when it is resolved to yield only on those conditions. On this principle it is always wiser to grant an honorable capitulation to a garrison which has made a vigorous resistance than to risk an assault."
"In war, the strong make slaves of the weak, and in peace the rich makes slaves of the poor."
"Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."
"You must know, then, that there are two methods of fighting, the one by law, the other by force: the first method is that of men, the second of beasts; but as the first method is often insufficient, one must have recourse to the second."
"Knowing how to fight made men more bold, because no one fears doing what it seems to him he has learned to do. Therefore, the ancients wanted their citizens to be trained in every warlike action."
"Every man should lose a battle in his youth, so he does not lose a war when he is old."
