Wars Quotes
More Wars Quotes
wars not make one great.
Yoda— Voiced by Frank Oz in Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980).
The tragedy of civil wars in countries like Angola and Mozambique is that they left many civilians maimed. Poverty is the reason HIV/AIDS spread so rapidly in the African townships and slums. Poverty is the real killer.
miriam makeba— As quoted in Nkrumah, Gamal (1–7 November 2001)
All interstate wars intensify aggression – maximize it … some wars are even more unjust than others. In other words, all government wars are unjust, although some governments have less unjust claims…
murray rothbard— As quoted in an interview in Reason magazine (February 1973)
But thou shall flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amidst the wars of elements, The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.
joseph addison— Joseph Addison, Cato, A Tragedy (1713), Act V, scene 1.
Those who start wars never fight them, and those who fight wars never like them.
michael franti— Time to Go Home, Yell Fire! (2006)
It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.
harper lee— Pt. 1, ch. 11
— Jean Louise (Scout) Finch
All the wars and strifes between tribes, races, nations, from the beginning until now, have been the result of man's effort to govern himself and the world, rather than to submit to the government of God.
david lipscomb— p. 10 (Civil Government : Its Origin, Mission, and Destiny (1889))
The invasion of Iraq will surely go down in history as one of the most cowardly wars ever fought. It was a war in which a band of rich nations, armed with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world several times over, rounded on a poor nation, falsely accused it of having nuclear weapons, used the United Nations to force it to disarm, then invaded it, occupied it, and are now in the process of selling it.
Arundhati Roy— From a speech accepting the Sydney Peace Prize, November 07, 2004 [7]
When established identities become outworn or unfinished ones threaten to remain incomplete, special crises compel men to wage holy wars, by the cruelest means, against those who seem to question or threaten their unsafe ideological bases.
erik erikson— "The Problem of Ego Identity" (1956), published in Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 4:56-121
History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.
ronald reagan— Address to the nation from the White House (16 January 1984)
It goes without saying that when survival is threatened, struggles erupt between peoples, and unfortunate wars between nations result.
Hideki Tojo— Quoted in "The Journal of Historical Review", by Institute for Historical Review (1992, pg. 34)
"Paint me as I am," said Cromwell, "Rough with age and gashed with wars; Show my visage as you find it, Less than truth my soul abhors."
james thomas fields— James Thomas Fields, On a Portrait of Cromwell. In Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 576-77.
It was somewhere between the interview with the Indian entrepreneur who wanted to do my taxes from Bangalore and the one who wanted to write my software from Bangalore, and the one who wanted to read my x-rays from Bangalore, and the one who wanted to trace my lost luggage from Bangalore...I was realizing that, while I had been sleeping, while I had been off covering the 9/11 wars, I had missed something really fundamental in this globalization story. I had lost the thread, and I found it in Bangalore.
— Thomas Friedman, "The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century".
The consensus is that no more than five to ten people in a hundred who die by gunfire in Los Angeles are any loss to society. These people fight small wars amongst themselves. It would seem a valid social service to keep them well-supplied with ammunition.
jeff cooper— Jeff Cooper, Guns and Ammo Magazine, April 1991.
I have seen men march to the wars, and then I have watched their homeward tread, And they brought back bodies of living men, But their eyes were cold and dead. So, Buddy, no matter what else the fame, No matter what else the prize, I want you to come back thru The Flame With the boy-look still in your eyes!
— Edmund Vance Cooke, The Boy-Look.
wars are fought by teenagers, you realize that. They really ought to be fought by the politicians and old people who start these wars.
james clavell— Interview with Don Swaim of CBS Radio (1986) (RealAudio file)
All of us who served in one war or another know very well that all wars are the glory and the agony of the young.
— Gerald Ford, Address to the 75th annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Chicago, Illinois (19 August 1974)
wars are Spinach. Life in general is the tough part. In war all you have to do is not worry and know how to read a map and co-ordinates.
ernest hemingway— Letter to Marlene Dietrich (27 June 1950)
Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing- fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there.One of the dominant facts in English life during the past three-quarters of a century has been the decay of ability in the ruling class.
— 1941The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, pt.4.
We are facing an external attack against us, which is more dangerous than any other previous wars... We are dealing with those who are extremists, who only know the language of killing and criminality.
bashar al-assad— As quoted by Holly Yan et. al. Al-Assad touts plan for resolution, says enemies of Syria 'will go to hell', CNN (Jan. 17, 2013)
Military power wins battles, but spiritual power wins wars.
george marshall— As quoted in A Toolbox for Humanity: More Than 9000 Years of Thought (2004) by Lloyd Albert Johnson
The expenses of the royal household, wars, and lavish public building were financed by tolls and the profits of the king's foreign trade monopoly, by conscription of labour and heavy taxation. The results were impoverishment of the masses, alienation of land, and the development of a proletariat.
roll, eric, baron roll of ipsden— Chapter I, The Beginnings, p. 25
That was a time when only the dead could smile, delivered from their wars, and the sign, the soul, of Leningrad dangled outside its prison-house...
anna akhmatova— As translated by Stanley KunitzIn those years only the dead smiled,
Glad to be at rest:
And Leningrad city swayed like
A needless appendix to its prisons.Translated by D. M. Thomas
My point is not that religion itself is the motivation for wars, murders and terrorist attacks, but that religion is the principal label, and the most dangerous one, by which a 'they' as opposed to a 'we' can be identified at all.
Richard Dawkins— "Time to Stand Up"
wars are often the cause of further wars because they fuel deep hatreds, create situations of injustice and trample upon people's dignity and rights. wars generally do not resolve the problems for which they are fought and therefore, in addition to causing horrendous damage, they prove ultimately futile. War is a defeat for humanity. Only in peace and through peace can respect for human dignity and its inalienable rights be guaranteed.
— Message for the celebration of XXXIII World Day of Peace, 8 December 1999Source:
All the wars and strifes between tribes, races, nations, from the beginning until now, have been the result of man's effort to govern himself and the world , rather than to submit to the government of God.
— David Lipscomb, in Civil Government : Its Origin, Mission, and Destiny, and the Christian's Relation To It (1889), p. 10
Gold begets in brethren hate; Gold in families debate; Gold does friendship separate; Gold does civil wars create.
Abraham Cowley— Abraham Cowley, Anacreontics, Gold, line 17.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace.
— Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H. (1849), Part CVI.
wars are not favourable to delicate pleasures .
j. r. r. tolkien— "A Secret Vice" (lecture, 1931) published in The Monsters And The Critics And Other Essays (1983), edited by Christopher Tolkien
