WAR QUOTES VIII

quotations about war

War among men defiles this world.

T. S. ELIOT

Murder in the Cathedral

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War has been the most convenient pseudo-solution for the problems of twentieth-century capitalism. It provides the incentives to modernisation and technological revolution which the market and the pursuit of profit do only fitfully and by accident, it makes the unthinkable (such as votes for women and the abolition of unemployment) not merely thinkable but practicable.... What is equally important, it can re-create communities of men and give a temporary sense to their lives by uniting them against foreigners and outsiders. This is an achievement beyond the power of the private enterprise economy ... when left to itself.

ERIC J. HOBSBAWM

London Observer, May 26, 1968

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NIXON: The only place where you and I disagree ... is with regard to the bombing. You're so goddamned concerned about civilians and I don't give a damn. I don't care. KISSINGER: I'm concerned about the civilians because I don't want the world to be mobilized against you as a butcher.

RICHARD NIXON & HENRY KISSINGER

attributed, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers


The nation having the strongest war footing can easily find an excuse for going to war.

LEWIS F. KORNS

Thoughts

Tags: Lewis F. Korns


A long war like this makes you realise the society you really prefer, the home, goats chickens and dogs and casual acquaintances. I find myself not caring at all for gardens flowers or vegetables cats cows and rabbits, one gets tired of trees vines and hills, but houses, goats chickens dogs and casual acquaintances never pall.

GERTRUDE STEIN

Wars I Have Seen


Weakness and ambivalence lead to war.

GEORGE H. W. BUSH

RNC acceptance speech, August 18, 1988

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War is hell and all that, but it has a good deal to recommend it. It wipes out all the small nuisances of peace-time.

IAN HAY

The First Hundred Thousand

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So far, war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until an equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that war must have its way.

WILLIAM JAMES

The Moral Equivalent of War

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Eventually, you hope. Obviously, we're not in a position at the moment for the eradication of war to seem like anything but a far-off dream. But at one time, the eradication of slave markets in the United States seemed very far off. I mean, people have to begin somewhere. We can change. We can evolve as a species. It's not simple, and it's a very long and drawn-out process, but you can hope.

SUZANNE COLLINS

interview, Hogwarts Professor, August 15, 2010

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We are now in the midst of our first television war ... the television environment [is] total and therefore invisible. Along with the computer, it has altered every phase of the American vision and identity. The television war has meant the end of the dichotomy between civilian and military. The public is now a participant in every phase of the war, and the main actions of the war are now being fought in the American home itself.

MARSHALL MCLUHAN

War and Peace in the Global Village

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War seldom enters but where wealth allures.

JOHN DRYDEN

The Hind and the Panther

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All we've ever done is fight. Fight for freedom. Fight for justice. All we have to do is forgive.

ASHLYN RYAN

"War is bad -- why not talk out our problems?", The Altamont Enterprise, February 4, 2016


Fifteen millions of soldiers with popguns and horses
All bent upon killing, because their "of courses"
Are not quite the same.

AMY LOWELL

"A Ballad of Footmen"

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The line, broken into moving fragments by the ground, went calmly on through fields and woods. The youth looked at the men nearest him, and saw, for the most part, expressions of deep interest, as if they were investigating something that had fascinated them. One or two stepped with overvaliant airs as if they were already plunged into war. Others walked as upon thin ice. The greater part of the untested men appeared quiet and absorbed. They were going to look at war, the red animal--war, the blood-swollen god. And they were deeply engrossed in this march.

STEPHEN CRANE

The Red Badge of Courage

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The modern State is by its very nature a military State; and every military State must of necessity become a conquering, invasive State; to survive it must conquer or be conquered, for the simple reason that accumulated military power will suffocate if it does not find an outlet.

MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

Statism and Anarchy

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History shows that wars are divided into two kinds, just and unjust. All wars that are progressive are just, and all wars that impede progress are unjust. We Communists oppose all unjust wars that impede progress, but we do not oppose progressive, just wars. Not only do we Communists not oppose just wars; we actively participate in them.

MAO ZEDONG

"On Protracted War", May 1938

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War is a beastly business, it is true, but one proof we are human is our ability to learn, even from it, how better to exist.

M. F. K. FISHER

introduction to revised edition, How to Cook a Wolf

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While Congress cuts programs for basic human needs, our costs of post-9/11 wars -- including future veteran care -- stand at $4.4 trillion. We've spent $7.6 trillion on defense and homeland security. Yet spending those same dollars on peaceful industry -- education, health care, infrastructure, and renewable energy -- could produce many more and better paying jobs.

DOUG WINGEIER

letter to the Editor, Smoky Mountain News, February 3, 2016


All wars of interference, arising from an officious intrusion into the concerns of other states; all wars of ambition, carried on for the purposes of aggrandizement; and all wars of aggression, undertaken for the purpose of forcing an assent to this or that set of religious opinions; all such wars are criminal in their very outset, and have hypocrisy for their common base.

CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Lacon


When a war breaks out, people say: "It's too stupid; it can't last long." But though the war may well be "too stupid," that doesn't prevent its lasting. Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves.

ALBERT CAMUS

The Plague

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