War quotes

War

17K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

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War quotes (page 29 of 853)

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau Philosopher, Writer, Composer
War

"War is then not a relationship between one man and another, but a relationship between one State and another, in which individuals are enemies only by accident, not as men, nor even as citizens, but as soldiers; not as members of the fatherland, but as its defenders. Finally, any State can only have other States, and not men, as enemies, inasmuch as it is impossible to fix a true relation between things of different natures."

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Jefferson Davis Politician, Military Leader
War

"The past is dead; let it bury its dead, its hopes and its aspirations; before you lies the future-a future full of golden promise."

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Jiddu Krishnamurti Philosopher, Speaker
War

"It is utterly and irrevocably possible to empty all hurts and therefore to love, to have compassion. To have compassion means to have passion for all things, not just between two people, but for all human beings, for all things of the earth, the animals, the trees - everything the earth contains. When we have such compassion we will not despoil the earth as we are doing now and we will have no wars."

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War

"When the Second World War finished, I was 23 and already I had seen enough horror to last me a lifetime. I'd seen dreadful, dreadful things, without saying a word. Seeing horror depicted on film doesn't affect me much."

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Aldous Huxley Novelist, Essayist
War

"Which is better: to have fun with fungi or to have Idiocy with ideology, to have wars because of words, to have tomorrow's misdeeds out of yesterday's miscreeds?"

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Smedley Butler Military Officer, Author
War

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious."

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Smedley Butler Military Officer, Author
War

"War is a racket. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."

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Ronald Reagan Politician, Actor
War

"Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing."

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J. R. R. Tolkien Novelist, Scholar
War

"The news today about 'Atomic bombs' is so horrifying one is stunned. The utter folly of these lunatic physicists to consent to do such work for war-purposes: calmly plotting the destruction of the world! Such explosives in men's hands, while their moral and intellectual status is declining, is about as useful as giving out firearms to all inmates of a gaol and then saying that you hope 'this will ensure peace'. But one good thing may arise out of it, I suppose, if the write-ups are not overheated: Japan ought to cave in. Well we're in God's hands. But He does not look kindly on Babel-builders."

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Niccolo Machiavelli Political Philosopher, Historian
War

"Conquered states that have been accustomed to liberty and the government of their own laws can be held by the conqueror in three different ways. The first is to ruin them; the second, for the conqueror to go and reside there in person; and the third is to allow them to continue to live under their own laws, subject to a regular tribute, and to create in them a government of a few, who will keep the country friendly to the conqueror"

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Jonathan Swift Satirist, Writer
War

"He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers."

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Plato Philosopher
War

"A tyrant... is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader."

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Prince Musician, Singer, Songwriter
War

"I don't believe in singles. The singles market has changed. I am trying to get back to the old days of releasing albums at will, like Star Wars coming out again."

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