Wars Quotes
More Wars Quotes
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)
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".
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.
wars not make one great.
Yoda— Voiced by Frank Oz in Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980).
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]
All wars are accordingly so many attempts (not in the intention of man, but in the intention of Nature) to establish new relations among states, and through the destruction or at least the dismemberment of all of them to create new political bodies, which, again, either internally or externally, cannot maintain themselves and which must thus suffer like revolutions; until finally, through the best possible civic constitution and common agreement and legislation in external affairs, a state is created which, like a civic commonwealth, can maintain itself automatically.
Immanuel Kant— Seventh Thesis
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.
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)
All, all of a piece throughout; Thy chase had a beast in view; Thy wars brought nothing about; Thy lovers were all untrue. 'Tis well an old age is out, And time to begin a new.
john dryden— 1700 The Secular Masque, l.92-7.
I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again, your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.
franklin delano roosevelt— 1940 Speech in Boston, 30 Oct.
In looking back, with our present experience, we are driven to the melancholy conclusion that, instead of diminishing the number of wars, ecclesiastical influence has actually and very seriously increased it. We may look in vain for any period since Constantine, in which the clergy, as a body, exerted themselves to repress the military spirit, or to prevent or abridge a particular war, with an energy at all comparable to that which they displayed in stimulating the fanaticism of the crusaders, in producing the atrocious massacre of the Albigenses, in embittering the religious contests that followed the Reformation.
william edward hartpole lecky— Chapter 5 (3rd edition p.254)
If in the modern world wars have unfortunately to be fought (and they do, it seems) then they must be stopped at the first possible moment, otherwise they corrupt us, they create new problems and make our future even more uncertain. That is more than morality; it's sense.
jawaharlal nehru— Interview by James Cameron in Picture Post (28 October 1950)
From the accession of Henry the Seventh to the breaking out of the civil wars, England enjoyed much greater exemption from war, foreign and domestic, than for a long period before, and during the controversy between the houses of York and Lancaster. These years of peace were favorable to commerce and the arts. Commerce and the arts augmented general and individual knowledge; and knowledge is the only fountain, both of the love and the principles of human liberty.
Daniel Webster— Page 93. (On the Completion of the Bunker Hill Monument (1843))
He was a quiet, gentle man, a man who loved peace (his country had suffered much from the wars of his predecessor), he behaved graciously toward everyone, humble and great alike. Never high-handed, he always sought advice in the kingdom’s affairs from serious, experienced people. Just why his nephew killed him was never precisely explained.
constantine p. cavafy— King Claudius (inspired by the story of Hamlet by William Shakespeare)
If there is a sectarian war in Iraq today, or perhaps several sectarian wars, we have to understand that this was latent in the country, and in the state, and in the society all along. It was not the only possible outcome, because it had to be willed and organized, but it was certainly high on the list of probabilities.
christopher hitchens— "Appointment in Mesopotamia", Slate (2007-02-05): On Iraq
And so these men of Hindustan Disputed loud and long, Each in his own opinion Exceeding stiff and strong, Though each was partly in the right And all were in the wrong. So oft in theologic wars, The disputants, I ween, Rail on in utter ignorance Of what each other mean, And prate about an Elephant Not one of them has seen!
john godfrey saxe— "The Blindmen and the Elephant".
wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change.
— Muhammad Ali, in Don't Stop Believin': Pop Culture and Religion from Ben-Hur to Zombies, Westminster John Knox Press, 2012, p.35
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)
Seventeen years after its intial release, The Empire Strikes Back is still as thrilling and involving as ever. Because of the high quality of the original product, it doesn't show a hint of dating. Neither [ Star wars Episode IV: A New Hope nor Star wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi ] were able to match the narrative scope of Empire , which today remains one of the finest and most rousing science fiction tales ever committed to the screen.
james berardinelli— Review of Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
