quotations about war
Waging endless wars abroad (in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and now Syria) isn't making America--or the rest of the world--any safer, it's certainly not making America great again, and it's undeniably digging the U.S. deeper into debt. In fact, it's a wonder the economy hasn't collapsed yet. Indeed, even if we were to put an end to all of the government's military meddling and bring all of the troops home today, it would take decades to pay down the price of these wars and get the government's creditors off our backs. Even then, government spending would have to be slashed dramatically and taxes raised. You do the math.
JOHN W. WHITEHEAD
"Beware the Dogs of War: Is the American Empire on the Verge of Collapse?", Global Research, April 12, 2017
This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games.
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS
"The War Universe"
War is a contagion.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
speech, October 5, 1937
Wars are not favourable to delicate pleasures.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
"A Secret Vice", The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays
I've fought for and against pretty much every cause there is. There will always be war of some kind. At first it was over fertile soil and good water, then precious metal and then the most popular version of human disagreement, "My God is better than your God." Whether you draw your faith from Jeremiah and Jesus, Allah and Muhammad or Brahma and Buddha, it doesn't matter. Someone will tell you you're wrong, and he'll fight you over it. Me, I believe in aliens, and to hell with all earthly gods. In the grand scheme of a trillion planets in the universe we're just not that damn important anyway. And humans are rotten to the core.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Camel Club
War is a most uneconomical, foolish, poor arrangement, a bloody enrichment of that soil which bears the sweet flower of peace.
M. E. W. SHERWOOD
An Epistle to Posterity
One day History will pass judgment on each of the nations at war; she will weigh their measure of errors, lies, and heinous follies. Let us try to make ours light before her!
ROMAIN ROLLAND
preface, Above the Battle
War makes men barbarous because, to take part in it, one must harden oneself against all regret, all appreciation of delicacy and sensitive values. One must live as if those values did not exist, and when the war is over one has lost the resilience to return to those values.
CESARE PAVESE
This Business of Living, September 9, 1939
Earth will grow worse till men redeem it,
And wars more evil, ere all wars cease.
G. K. CHESTERTON
A Song of Defeat
War should be carried on like a monsoon; one changeless determination of every particle towards the one unalterable aim.
HERMAN MELVILLE
Israel Potter
War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
The Two Towers
I know but little of the customs of war, and wish to know less.
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
The Spy
Looking at the world today, we know that we face real threats, but we also know that smart and strong American leadership starts with a clear-eyed approach that recognizes that another endless war is not the way to keep our country safe and strengthen global security.
JIM MCGOVERN
"America Cannot Afford an Endless War in Afghanistan", Huffington Post, February 4, 2016
Armies are not bad things in themselves; it's war that's evil.
JUAN GOMEZ-JURADO
God's Spy
War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight,
The lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Queen Mab
Unjust war is to be abhorred; but woe to the nation that does not make ready to hold its own in time of need against all who would harm it! And woe thrice over to the nation in which the average man loses the fighting edge, loses the power to serve as a soldier if the day of need should arise!
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
speech at the University of Berlin, May 12, 1910
Ares ever loves to pluck all the fairest flower of an armed host.
AESCHYLUS
fragment, Europe
No matter how young, weak or vulnerable their victims, the killers wanted no survivors. By the time they had finished their work, at least 27 people including six children and a heavily-pregnant woman, lay clubbed or stabbed to death. This was no spontaneous massacre. At least four of the dead, including the mother-to-be, were positioned as if their hands or feet had been bound while their heads, knees and limbs were smashed. There were no burials -- the bodies of some were thrown into an adjoining lagoon while others were seemingly left to die where they fell. It may sound like an act of medieval barbarity or even an atrocity from the current killing fields of Syria. But this act of indiscriminate slaughter dates back some 10,000 years and as such may represent the earliest evidence of humans at war.
CAHAL MILMO
"War is as old as time: Cambridge University researchers unveil massacred bodies dating back 10,000 years", The Independent, January 20, 2016
In every trade save war men of talent and vigor prosper. In war they die.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
The Crossing
A righteous war is a legacy from heaven--oftentimes the handmaid of a nation's liberty.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims