Warfare Quotes 

There is no instance of a country having benefitted from prolonged warfare.
SunTzu
Share

More Warfare Quotes 

Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er, Dream of fighting fields no more: Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking, Morn of toil, nor night of waking.

walter scott

— Walter Scott, Lady of the Lake (1810), Canto I, Stanza 31.

Tags: Soldier, rest, Dream, fighting, fields, more, Sleep, breaking, Morn

Share
twitter

[regarding US conquest of the Philippines] "I turn green in bed at midnight if I think of the horror of a year's warfare in the Philippines [...] We must slaughter a million or two foolish Malays in order to give them the comforts of flannel petticoats and electric railways."

henry adams

— As quoted in Little Brown Brother: How the United States Purchased and Pacified the Philippine Islands at the Century's Turn by Leon Wolff, p. 195

Tags: regarding, US, conquest, Philippines, turn, green, bed, midnight, think

Share
twitter

The world is full of warfare 'twixt the evil and the good;I watched the battle from afar as one who understoodThe shouting and confusion, the bloody, blundering fight—How few there are that see it clear, how few that wage it right!

henry van dyke

— Another Chance.

Tags: world, full, 'twixt, evil, goodI, watched, battle, afar, one

Share
twitter

Logistics is the ball and chain of armored warfare.

heinz guderian

— Quoted in "Sword Point" - Page 141 - by Harold Coyle - 1988

Tags: Logistics, ball, chain, armored

Share
twitter

In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed - they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love and five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock!

orson welles

— As the character Harry Lime in the film The Third Man (1949)

Tags: Italy, thirty, years, under, Borgias, terror, murder, bloodshed, produced

Share
twitter

My outlook on warfare is best illustrated by a cartoon I did some thirty-odd years ago of a soldier in an Italian foxhole reading about the Normandy invasion and observing to his buddy that: "The hell this ain't the most important hole in the world . I'm in it."

bill mauldin

— Mud & Guts : A Look at the Common Soldier of the American Revolution (1978) Foreword

Tags: outlook, best, illustrated, cartoon, years, soldier, Italian, reading, Normandy

Share
twitter

All the devastation, the butchery, the plundering, the conflagrations, and all the anguish which accompanied the recent disaster at Rome were in accordance with the general practice of warfare.

St Augustine originally Aurelius Augustinus

— AD 427  City of God, vol.1, ch.1, section 8.

Tags: devastation, butchery, plundering, conflagrations, anguish, accompanied, recent, disaster, Rome

Share
twitter

In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, blood shed they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo daVinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock.

Harry Lime

— Harry Lime's speech to Holly Martins as he leaves the great wheel, The Third Man. This phrase was added to the script by Welles who played Harry Lime. 1949

Tags: Italy, thirty, years, under, Borgias, terror, murder, produced, Michelangelo

Share
twitter

There is no such thing as an "atrocity" in warfare that is greater than the atrocity of warfare itself.

sydney j. harris

— All's Fair in War
— Strictly Personal syndicated column (31 August 1981)

Tags: There, thing, atrocity, greater

Share
twitter

It's emotional warfare telling the people we love, the most, the truth about ourselves.

lauryn hill

— MTV Unplugged 2.0, By: Lauryn Hill (2002)

Tags: emotional, telling, people, we, love, most, truth, ourselves

Share
twitter

The US has always taken velvet revolution into consideration by promoting Western culture in the society and by causing strife between people and the government through propaganda, organizing certain individuals, psychological warfare and making intentional use of media, intellectual circles, university student's establishments and feminism movements in order to implement its interfering policies.

ahmad khatami

— Cleric says US seeks velvet revolution, Press TV, 20 Jul 2007

Tags: US, taken, velvet, revolution, consideration, promoting, Western, culture, society

Share
twitter

Attention must be given to the study of the given operations. Their study with due allowance made for the existing means of warfare will make it possible to reach a number of useful theoretical conclusions for conducting operations in the initial phase of a war.

matvei zakharov

— Quoted in "Timely Lessons of History: The Manchurian Model for Soviet Strategy" - Page 4 - by John Despres, Lilita Dzirkals, Barton Whaley - History - 1976

Tags: Attention, given, study, operations, due, allowance, existing, means, possible

Share
twitter

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

— "On Violence"

Tags: chief, reason, us, secret, deathwish, human, species, irrepressible, instinct

Share
twitter

That was how divorced from the human scale modern warfare had become. You could smash and destroy from unthinkable distances, obliterate planets from beyond their own system and provoke stars into novae from light-years off...and still have no good idea why you were really fighting.

iain banks

— Chapter 2 “The Hand of God 137” (p. 32)

Tags: divorced, human, scale, modern, become, You, smash, destroy, unthinkable

Share
twitter

Science, like art, religion, commerce, warfare, and even sleep, is based on presuppositions. It differs, however, from most other branches of human activity in that not only are the pathways of scientific thought determined by the presuppositions of the scientists but their goals are the testing and revision of old presuppositions and the creation of new.

Gregory Bateson

— p.25 (Mind and Nature, a necessary unity, 1988)

Tags: Science, art, religion, commerce, sleep, based, presuppositions, differs, most

Share
twitter

We see in the 20th Century an unfortunate trench warfare, in which psychoanalysis, in a struggle against the internalized compulsion and superstition of a particular doctrine, has expressed itself atheistically. By contrast, theology is not merely under suspicion of talking soullessly about God. Both theology and psychology, in striving for human health, need one another like the right and the left hand.

eugen drewermann

— "Heil und Heilung - Theologie und Psychoanalyse," speech at a conference of therapists in Basel, Switzerland (1977-05-21)

Tags: We, see, 20th, Century, unfortunate, trench, psychoanalysis, struggle, against

Share
twitter

It seems to demonstrate that periods of industrial activity in technical syntheses of principles, data, free energy and energy as "matter," find highest employment by the fear-amassed credits of warfare. Therefore the assumption approaches fact that war promotes the major technical advances of civilization... What has not been clear is that the potential of this emergency-born technology has always accrued to human's prewar individual initiatives taken in a humble but irrepressible progression of assumptions, measurements, deductions, and codifications of pure science. (1947)

buckminster fuller

— Earth, Inc. (1973) In this passage, Fuller begins to explain why technological progress seems to make great gains in war time and states his view that this is a reflection of advances mainly made in peacetime — wars simply force nations to take notice of their advances in the pure science and then they apply those advances to the war effort. Later in the book Fuller will explain why he thinks war is not necessary to bring advances in the pure sciences into actual production. He uses this to advance the notion that humans can very comfortably live at a high standard of living by "doing more with less."

Tags: demonstrate, periods, industrial, activity, technical, principles, data, free, energy

Share
twitter

Anarchy is a word that comes from the Greek, and signifies, strictly speaking, "without government": the state of a people without any constituted authority. Before such an organization had begun to be considered possible and desirable by a whole class of thinkers, so as to be taken as the aim of a movement (which has now become one of the most important factors in modern social warfare), the word “anarchy” was used universally in the sense of disorder and confusion, and it is still adopted in that sense by the ignorant and by adversaries interested in distorting the truth.

errico malatesta

— Anarchy (1891)

Tags: Anarchy, word, Greek, signifies, strictly, speaking, without, government, state

Share
twitter

I don't think we are ever prepared for the level of warfare at which ignorance fights.

steve maraboli

— p. 73 (Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010))

Tags: think, we, prepared, level, ignorance, fights

Share
twitter

Treachery has existed as long as there’s been warfare, and there’s always been a few people that you couldn’t trust.

james mattis

— In response to a question during a congressional hearing about whether the U.S. should modify its Afghan strategy in response to six U.S. soldiers being killed by Afghan soldiers between Feb. 23 and March 1. As quoted in Key commanders have their say on Afghanistan (2012) by Walter Pincus, The Washington Post

Tags: existed, long, theres, been, few, people, you, couldnt, trust

Share
twitter

Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er, Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking; Dream of battled fields no more, Days of danger, nights of waking.

walter scott

— Canto I, stanza 31.

Tags: Soldier, rest, Sleep, breaking, Dream, battled, fields, more, Days

Share
twitter

I was surprised to see that there was indeed religiously sanctioned violence in it , as well as some others things which I found disturbing. But it was all intriguing, because I was entranced by the shorter, poetic chapters. I thought it very striking that this beauty could co-exist with clear mandates for warfare and violence against unbelievers .

robert spencer

— "Jihad will destroy us if we don't act now." at "catholicherald.co.uk, features opinion, 2007

Tags: surprised, see, there, indeed, religiously, sanctioned, violence, others, things

Share
twitter

The third peculiarity of aerial warfare was that it was at once enourmously destructive and entirely indecisive.


— The War in the Air (1907), Ch. VIII, §1

Tags: third, peculiarity, aerial, once, destructive, indecisive

Share
twitter

No man can sit down and withhold his hands from the warfare against wrong and get peace from his acquiescence.


— “A Book Which Reveals Men to Themselves”, Address on the Tercentenary of the Tranlation of the Bible (7 May 1911) in The Politics of Woodrow Wilson, p. 104.

Tags: man, can, sit, down, withhold, hands, against, wrong, peace

Share
twitter

The US has always taken velvet revolution into consideration by promoting Western culture in the society and by causing strife between people and the government through propaganda , organizing certain individuals, psychological warfare and making intentional use of media, intellectual circles, university student's establishments and feminism movements in order to implement its interfering policies.


— Cleric says US seeks velvet revolution, Press TV, 20 Jul 2007

Tags: US, taken, velvet, revolution, consideration, promoting, Western, culture, society

Share
twitter

Conservatives question government programs. War is a government program. If they hope to retain a modicum of philosophical integrity, conservatives will have to include a critique of the state's warfare machine in their case against its welfare apparatus.


— "Praying to the Military Moloch," Economic Policy Journal, June 6, 2014

Tags: Conservatives, question, government, programs, War, program, hope, retain, philosophical

Share
twitter

Logistics is the ball and chain of armored warfare.


— Heinz Guderian, Quoted in "Sword Point" - Page 141 - by Harold Coyle - 1988

Tags: Logistics, ball, chain, armored

Share
twitter

For the helmsman is recognized in the tempest; in the warfare the soldier is proved.


— Treatise VII - On the Mortality

Tags: helmsman, recognized, tempest, soldier, proved

Share
twitter

Anarchy is a word that comes from the Greek, and signifies, strictly speaking, "without government": the state of a people without any constituted authority. Before such an organization had begun to be considered possible and desirable by a whole class of thinkers, so as to be taken as the aim of a movement (which has now become one of the most important factors in modern social warfare), the word “anarchy” was used universally in the sense of disorder and confusion, and it is still adopted in that sense by the ignorant and by adversaries interested in distorting the truth.


— Errico Malatesta, in Anarchy (1891)

Tags: Anarchy, word, Greek, signifies, strictly, speaking, without, government, state

Share
twitter
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • »
  • Dictionary
  • Thesaurus
  • Examples
    • See in a sentence
    • Example articles
  • Quotes
    • Famous Quotes
    • Quote Articles
  • Spanish
    • Spanish-English Translation
    • Reference
  • Reference
    • Education
    • ESL
    • Grammar
    • Abbreviations
    • Biography
    • Books & Literature
    • Examples
    • Foreign Languages
    • Resources
    • Slideshows
  • Word Finder
    • Word Finder
    • 4 Pics 1 Word Answers
    • Anagram Solver
    • Unscramble
    • Word Cookies Cheat
    • Word Game Dictionary
    • Word Unscrambler
    • Words With Friends Cheat
Share
  • Dictionary
  • Thesaurus
  • Examples
    • See in a sentence
    • Example articles
  • Quotes
    • Famous Quotes
    • Quote Articles
  • Spanish
    • Spanish-English Translation
    • Reference
  • Reference
    • Education
    • ESL
    • Grammar
    • Abbreviations
    • Biography
    • Books & Literature
    • Examples
    • Foreign Languages
    • Resources
    • Slideshows
  • Word Finder
    • Word Finder
    • 4 Pics 1 Word Answers
    • Anagram Solver
    • Unscramble
    • Word Cookies Cheat
    • Word Game Dictionary
    • Word Unscrambler
    • Words With Friends Cheat
Share
  • Home
  • Quotes
  • warfare quotes
Word Finder Scrabble® points: 13 More on Word Finder →

Follow YourDictionary

Get our free Amazon Alexa Skills!

Join YourDictionary today

By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Please set a username for yourself.
People will see it as Author Name with your public flash cards.