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“Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war.”
Donald Rumsfeld
U.S. Secretary of Defense
(January 20, 2001 – December 18, 2006)
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Mostly these are quotations about war from various points of view, arranged in alphabetical order by author's last name. The first section contains short quotations, the second section contains longer, more extensive quotations.
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I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
John Adams (1735 - 1826)
The chief reason warfare is still with us is neither a secret death-wish of the human species, nor an irrepressible instinct of aggression, nor, finally and more plausibly, the serious economic and social dangers inherent in disarmament, but the simple fact that no substitute for this final arbiter in international affairs has yet appeared on the political scene.
Hannah Arendt (1906 - 1975)
We make war that we may live in peace.
Aristotle (384 - 322 BCE)
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
Isaac Asimov (1920 – 1992)
The purpose of all war is ultimately peace.
Saint Augustine (354 – 430)
One of the main reasons that it is so easy to march men off to war, is that each of them feels sorry for the man next to him who will die.
Ernest Becker (1925 - 1974)
People never lie so much as before an election, during a war, or after a hunt.
Otto von Bismarck (1815 - 1898)
The way to win an atomic war is to make certain it never starts.
Omar Bradley (1893 - 1981)
Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.
Omar N. Bradley (1893 - 1981)
War is not its own end, except in some catastrophic slide into absolute damnation. It's peace that's wanted. Some better peace than the one you started with.
Lois McMaster Bujold (1949 - )
There are no warlike people, just warlike leaders.
Ralph Bunche (1904 -1971)
War is not nice.
Barbara Bush (1925 - )
War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.
Jimmy Carter (1924 - )
One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.
Agatha Christie (1890 - 1976)
Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.
Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)
One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once 'The Unnecessary War'.
Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)
It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.
Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)
War is a catalogue of blunders.
Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)
War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men.
Georges Clemenceau (1841 - 1929)
War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory.
Georges Clemenceau (1841 - 1929)
In peace the sons bury their fathers, but in war the fathers bury their sons.
Croesus (595 - 546 BCE)
So long as there are men there will be wars.
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955), (attributed)
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
The essence of war is violence. Moderation in war is imbecility.
John Arbuthnot Fisher`(1841 - 1920)
There never was a good war or a bad peace.
Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)
The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.
David Friedman (1945 - )
Either war is obsolete or men are.
R. Buckminster Fuller (1895 - 1983)
It is war that shapes peace and armaments that shape war.
Jonh Frederick Charles Fuller (1878 - 1966)
From: Armament and History, 1945.
Morality is contraband in war.
Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948)
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?
Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948)
Wars teach us not to love our enemies, but to hate our allies.
William Lloyd George (1863 - 1945)
The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears, and to gather into your bosom his wives and daughters.”
Ghengis Kahn (1162-1227)
The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on.
Ulysses S. Grant (1822 - 1885)
Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.
Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961)
But in modern war you will die like a dog for no good reason.
Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961)
It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
Patrick Henry (1736 - 1799)
Force, and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues.
Thomas Hobbes (1588 - 1679)
The outcome of the war is in our hands; the outcome of words is in the council.
Homer (800 - 700 BCE)
I have the consolation to reflect that during the period of my Administration not a drop of the blood of a single citizen was shed by the sword of war.
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
What we believe is more important than our material existence, therefore warfare is a legitimate extension of values.
Edward Johnson
People in general are scared to death of the war and all the exhibition have been a failure, because the rich - don't want to buy anything.
Frida Kahlo (1907 - 1954)
Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes. It can no longer be of concern to great powers alone. For a nuclear disaster, spread by winds and waters and fear, could well engulf the great and the small, the rich and the poor, the committed and the uncommitted alike. Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.
John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963)
War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation as the warrior does today.
John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963)
Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind. War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.
John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963)
I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government.
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968)
War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)
There's a graveyard in northern France where all the dead boys from D-Day are buried. The white crosses reach from one horizon to the other. I remember looking it over and thinking it was a forest of graves. But the rows were like this, dizzying, diagonal, perfectly straight, so after all it wasn't a forest but an orchard of graves. Nothing to do with nature, unless you count human nature.
Barbara Kingsolver (1955 - )
The most persistent sound which reverberates through man's history is the beating of war drums.
Arthur Koestler (1905 - 1983)
It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.
Robert E. Lee (1807 - 1870)
It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.
General Douglas MacArthur (1880 - 1964)
I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a method of settling international disputes.
General Douglas MacArthur (1880 - 1964)
There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.
Niccolo Machiavelli (1569 - 1527)
War is the parent of armies: from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instrument for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war ... the discretionary power of the Exucutive is extended; ... and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.
James Madison (1751 - 1836)
War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.
Thomas Mann (1875 - 1955)
Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.
Mao Tse-Tung (1893 - 1976)
No society that feeds its children on tales of successful violence can expect them not to believe that violence in the end is rewarded.”
Margaret Mead (1901 - 1978)
Men are at war with each other because each man is at war with himself.
Francis Meehan
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873)
Preparation for war is a constant stimulus to suspicion and ill will.
James Monroe (1758-1831)
He who lives by fighting with an enemy has an interest in the preservation of the enemy's life.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)
How good bad music and bad reasons sound when we march against an enemy.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)
Under peaceful conditions the militant man attacks himself.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)
Ye say a good cause will hallow even war? I say unto you a good war shallowest every cause
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)
The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.
George Orwell (1903 - 1950)
If there must be trouble let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.
Thomas Paine (1737 - 1809)
Americans love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle.
George S. Patton (1885 - 1945)
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Plato (427 - 347 BCE)
Wars are made to make debt.
Ezra Pound (1885 - 1972)
You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.
Jeanette Rankin (1880 - 1973)
History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.
Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911 - 2004)
The opposite of war is not peace, it's creation.
Jonathan Larson Rent (1960 - 1996)
Take the diplomacy out of war and the thing would fall flat in a week.
Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)
You can't say civilization don't advance -- for in every war, they kill you in a new way.
Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)
More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars.
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882 - 1945)
Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war.
Donald Rumsfeld (1932 - )
Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war.
Donald Rumsfeld (1932 - )
People are fungible. You can have them here or there.
Donald Rumsfeld (1932 - )
War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)
Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come.
Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967)
Wealth, religion, military victory have more rhetorical than efficacious worth.
George Santayana (1863 - 1952)
It is war that wastes a nation's wealth, chokes its industries, kills its flower, narrows its sympathies, condemns it to be governed by adventurers, and leaves the puny, deformed, and unmanly to breed the next generation.
George Santayana (1863 - 1952) (From: The Life of Reason: Reason in Society, Scribner's, 1905, p. 82)
To call war the soil of courage and virtue is like calling debauchery the soil of love.
George Santayana (1863 - 1952) (From: The Life of Reason: Reason in Society, Scribner's, 1905, p. 83)
To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman.
George Santayana (1863 - 1952)
In the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence, and famine.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
In modern war the great expence of fire-arms gives an evident advantage to the nation which can best afford that expence; and consequently, to an opulent and civilized over a poor and barbarous nation. In ancient times the opulent and civilized found it difficult to defend themselves against the poor and barbarous nations. In modern times, the poor and barbarous find it difficult to defend themselves against the opulent and civilized. The invention of fire-arms, and invention which at first sight appears to be so pernicious, is certainly favourable both to the permanency and to the extension of civilization.
Adam Smith (1723 - 1790)
War-making is one of the few activities that people are not supposed to view realistically; that is, with an eye to expense and practical outcome. In all-out war, expenditure is all-out, unprudent -- war being defined as an emergency in which no sacrifice is excessive.
Susan Sontag (1933 - 2004)
Peace is not the absence of war; it is a virtue; a state of mind; a disposition for benevolence; confidence; and justice.
Baruch Spinoza (1632 - 1677)
An unjust peace is better than a just war.
Sun Tzu (544 – 496 BCE)
There is no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare.
Sun Tzu (544 – 496 BCE)
Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate.
Sun Tzu (544 – 496 BCE)
The best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities...It is best to win without fighting.
Sun Tzu (544 – 496 BCE)
A military operation involves deception. Even though you are competent, appear to be incompetent. Though effective, appear to be ineffective.
Sun Tzu (544 – 496 BCE)
Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.
Sun Tzu (544 – 496 BCE)
The most important occurrence in the life of a nation is the breaking out of a war.
Alexis De Tocqueville (1805 - 1859)
There are two things which will always be very difficult for a democratic nation: to start a war and to end it.
Alexis De Tocqueville (1805 - 1859)
O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief... for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
Be loyal to your country always; and to the government only when it deserves it.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy.
George Washington (1732 - 1799)
I do not mean to exclude altogether the idea of patriotism. I know it exists, and I know it has done much in the present contest. But I will venture to assert, that a great and lasting war can never be supported on this principle alone. It must be aided by a prospect of interest, or some reward.
George Washington (1732 - 1799)
A self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war.
Simone Weil (1909 - 1943)
As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have it's fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.
Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)
Is there any man, is there any woman, let me say any child here that does not know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry?
Woodrow Wilson (1856 - 1924)
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More extensive quotations
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Let us keep in mind the exhortation of Abraham Lincoln, whose words, uttered at a moment of shattering national peril, form a complete text for our deliberation. I quote, paraphrasing slightly:
We cannot escape history. We of this meeting will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we are passing will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.
We say we are for Peace. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save Peace. The world knows that we do. We, even we here, hold the power and have the responsibility.
We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope of earth. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just - a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud.
Benard Baruch (Address to the UN Atomic Energy Commission, June 14, 1946)
For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate,
A time for war, and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. These plain and cruel truths define the peril and point the hope that come with this spring of 1953.
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 - 1969)
[This excerpt was taken from a speech entitled The Chance for Peace, by Dwight Eisenhower given before the American Society for Newspaper Editors on April 16, 1953, shortly after the death of Stalin. Also known as the "Cross of Iron" speech. Eisenhower contrasts the Soviet Union's post-World War II doctrine as one of force, while the United States pursued peace and cooperation in the world. The President notes that the belligerence of the Soviet Union brought free nations together to avoid atomic war, and he challenges the new Soviet leadership to reject Stalin's style of governance.]
Inscription for a War
Linger not, stranger; shed no tear;
Go back to those who sent us here.
We are the young they drafted out
To wars their folly brought about.
Go tell those old men, safe in bed,
We took their orders and are dead.
A. D. Hope (1907-2000)
Ownership turns the fighting man into the economic man.
Only the exclusion of private property can maintain the military character of the State.
Only the warrior who has no other occupation, apart from war, than preparation for war, is always ready for war.
Men occupied in affairs may wage wars of defense but not long wars of conquest.
Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973)
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In War,
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For an army of
One thousand
Four-horse swift chariots,
One thousand
Hide-armored wagons,
For one hundred thousand
Mail-clad soldiers,
With provisions for
Four hundred miles;
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Allowing for
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Expenses at home and at the front,
Dealings with envoys and advisers;
Glue and lacquer,
Repairs to chariots and armor;
The daily cost of all this
Will exceed
One thousand taels of silver.
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In War,
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Victory should be
Swift.
If victory is slow,
Men tire,
Morale sags.
Sieges
Exhaust strength;
Protracted campaigns
Strain the public treasury.
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If men are tired,
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Morale low,
Strength exhausted,
Treasure spent;
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Then the feudal lords
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Will exploit the disarray
And attack.
This even the wisest
Will be powerless
to mend.
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I have heard that in war
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Haste can be
Folly
But have never seen
Delay that was
Wise.
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No nation has ever benefited
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From a protracted war.
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Without a full understanding of
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The harm
Caused by war,
It is impossible to understand
The most profitable way
Of conducting it.
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The Skillful Warrior
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Never conscripts troops
A second time;
Never transports provisions
A third.
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He brings equipment from home
But forages off the enemy.
And so his men
Have plenty to eat.
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Supplying an army
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At a distance
Drains the public coffers
And impoverishes
The common people.
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Where an army is close at hand,
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Prices rise;
When prices rise,
The common people
Spend all they have;
When they spend all,
They feel the pinch of
Taxes and levies.
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Strength is depleted
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On the battlefield;
Families at home
Are destitute.
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The common people
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Lose seven-tenths
Of their wealth
Six-tenths of the public coffers
Are spent
On broken chariots,
Worn-out horses,
Armor and helmets,
Crossbows and arrows,
Spears and bucklers,
Lances and shields,
Draft animals
Heavy wagons.
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So a wise general
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Feeds his army
Off the enemy.
One peck
Of enemy provisions
Is worth twenty
Carried from home;
One picul
Of enemy fodder
Is worth twenty
Carried from home.
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The killing of an enemy
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Stems from
Wrath;
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The fighting for booty
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Stems from
A desire for reward.
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In chariot fighting,
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When more than ten
Enemy chariots are captured,
The man to take the first
Should be rewarded.
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Change the enemy's
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Chariot flags and standards;
Mingle their chariots
With ours.
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Treat prisoners of war kindly,
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And care for them.
Use victory over the enemy
To enhance your own strength.
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In War,
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Prize victory,
Not a protracted campaign.
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The wise general
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Is a Lord of Destiny;
He holds the nation's
Peace or peril
In his hands.
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Sun Tzu (544 – 496 BCE) on the Waging of War 1
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Notes
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1 John Minford, The Art of War: The Essential Translation of the Classic Book of Life, (Viking Press: New York, 2002), pp. xlvii-325.
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