quotations about war
All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal.
JOHN STEINBECK
introduction, Once There Was a War
The abolition of war is no longer to be set down as a creation of fancy, a dream of enthusiastic philanthropy. War rests on opinion; and opinion is more and more withdrawing its support. War rests on contempt of human nature; on the long mournful habit of regarding the mass of human beings as machines, or as animals; having no higher use than to be shot at and murdered for the glory of a chief, for the seating of this or that family on a throne, for the petty interests and selfish rivalries which have inflamed states to conflict. Let the worth of a human being be felt, and a main pillar of war will fall.
WILLIAM E. CHANNING
Thoughts
In former days, when wars arose from individual causes, from the policy of a Minister or the passion of a King, when they were fought by small regular armies of professional soldiers, and when their course was retarded by the difficulties of communication and supply, and often suspended by the winter season, it was possible to limit the liabilities of the combatants. But now, when mighty populations are impelled on each other, each individual severally embittered and inflamed--when the resources of science and civilisation sweep away everything that might mitigate their fury, a European war can only end in the ruin of the vanquished and the scarcely less fatal commercial dislocation and exhaustion of the conquerors. Democracy is more vindictive than Cabinets. The wars of peoples will be more terrible than those of kings.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
speech in the House of Commons, May 13, 1901
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 are not clothed.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
speech, April 16, 1953
In war--a country's hopes stagnate,
In war--her strong are slain.
In war--dark evils desecrate
Her council hall and fane.
In war--with wings of omen dark
Her wrongs and debts increase,
Prosperity and progress mark
The golden realm of Peace.
MARTHA LAVINIA HOFFMAN
"The Song of Peace"
The only religion which seems to have a function in time of war is the tribal religion which invokes a God as the exclusive protector of the nation which calls upon him.
JOSEPH ALEXANDER LEIGHTON
The Nation and the Ethics of War and Preparedness: An Address
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, contrary to what you've just seen, war is neither glamorous nor fun. There are no winners, only losers. There are no good wars, with the following exceptions: The American Revolution, World War II, and the Star Wars trilogy. If you'd like to learn more about war, there's lots of books in your local library, many of them with cool, gory pictures. Well, good night, everybody! Peace, man.
BART SIMPSON
"Bart the General", The Simpsons
My opposition to war is not based upon pacifist or non-resistant principles. It may be that the present state of civilization is such that certain international questions cannot be discussed; it may be that they have to be fought out. But the fighting never settles the question. It only gets the participants around to a frame of mind where they will agree to discuss what they were fighting about.
HENRY FORD
My Life and Work
A fighter should not think only of his shete, just because he has a shete in his hand. Everything is a weapon in the warrior's mind.
S. M. STIRLING
The Sunrise Lands
For most of history, war has been a more or less functional institution, providing benefits for those societies that were good at it, although the cost in money, in lives, and in suffering was always significant. Only in the past century have large numbers of people begun to question the basic assumption of civilized societies that war is inevitable and often useful.
GWYNNE DYER
War: The Lethal Custom
War being the greatest of evils, all its accessories necessarily partake of the same character.
HERMAN MELVILLE
Omoo
Those who ignore history's lessons in the ultimate folly of war are forced to do more than relive them ... they may be forced to die by them.
DAN SIMMONS
The Fall of Hyperion
War is behavior with roots in the single cell of the primeval seas. Eat whatever you touch or it will eat you.
FRANK HERBERT
Chapterhouse: Dune
Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
But if war itself is Mars, as speech is Mercury, I wish it were as true that there were no war to be falsely called a god, as it is true that it is not a god.
ST. AUGUSTINE
The City of God
Does it make a difference if warriors go to battle changing their appearance or not? Does it make a difference if they're anonymous, in how they treat their victims? We know in some cultures, they go to war, they don't change their appearance. In other cultures, they paint themselves like "Lord of the Flies." In some, they wear masks. In many, soldiers are anonymous in uniform. So this anthropologist, John Watson, found 23 cultures that had two bits of data. Do they change their appearance? Do they kill, torture, mutilate? If they don't change their appearance, only one of eight kills, tortures or mutilates. The key is in the red zone. If they change their appearance, 12 of 13 -- that's 90 percent -- kill, torture, mutilate. And that's the power of anonymity.
PHILIP ZIMBARDO
TED talk, September 2008
All the entertainment and talk of history is nothing almost but fighting and killing: and the honour and renown that is bestowed on conquerors (who for the most part are but the great butchers of mankind) farther mislead growing youth, who by this means come to think slaughter the laudable business of mankind, and the most heroic of virtues.
JOHN LOCKE
Some Thoughts Concerning Education
In times of war, as everyone knows, who has lived through one, or talked to soldiers when they are allowing themselves to remember the truth, and not the sentimentalities with which we all shield ourselves from the horrors of which we are capable ... in times of war we revert, as a species, to the past, and are permitted to be brutal and cruel. It is for this reason, and of course others, that a great many people enjoy war. But this is one of the facts about war that is not often talked about.
DORIS LESSING
Prisons We Choose to Live Inside
War was return of earth to ugly earth,
War was foundering of sublimities,
Extinction of each happy art and faith
By which the world had still kept head in air.
ROBERT GRAVES
Recalling War
History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.
RONALD REAGAN
Address to the Nation, January 16, 1984