Society, Justice & Peace: War Quotes

Explore a curated collection of reflections on war from historians, leaders, soldiers, and poets. These quotations consider conflict's origins, human costs, strategy, and the moral questions that arise in wartime. Context and nuance matter for understanding these lines. Spanning eras and viewpoints, these voices offer perspectives that illuminate responsibility, diplomacy, and accountability, connecting the realities of conflict with broader goals of society, justice, and peace.

Similar topics:Equality Freedom Human Rights Justice Peace

"A war between Europeans is a civil war"

Victor Hugo, Author

Victor Hugo

"In war, whichever side may call itself the victor, there are no winners, but all are losers"

Neville Chamberlain, Politician

Neville Chamberlain

"War does not determine who is right - only who is left"

Bertrand Russell, Philosopher

Bertrand Russell

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake"

Napoleon Bonaparte, Leader

Napoleon Bonaparte

"We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators"

Dick Cheney, Vice President

Dick Cheney

"Between two groups of people who want to make inconsistent kinds of worlds, I see no remedy but force"

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Poet

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

"I don't know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they frighten me"

Duke of Wellington, Royalty

Duke of Wellington

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last"

Winston Churchill, Statesman

Winston Churchill

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse"

John Stuart Mill, Philosopher

John Stuart Mill

"Blood alone moves the wheels of history"

Martin Luther, Professor

Martin Luther

"Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong"

Ronald Reagan, President

Ronald Reagan

"If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism"

Thomas Sowell, Economist

Thomas Sowell

"Nobody ever defended anything successfully, there is only attack and attack and attack some more"

George S. Patton, Soldier

George S. Patton

"All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets"

Voltaire, Writer

Voltaire

"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war"

Albert Einstein, Physicist

Albert Einstein

"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography"

Ambrose Bierce, Journalist

Ambrose Bierce

"War is not an adventure. It is a disease. It is like typhus"

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Novelist

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Saddam was a bastard, but he was our bastard"

Phil Donahue, Entertainer

Phil Donahue

"They've got us surrounded again, the poor bastards"

Creighton W. Abrams, Jr., Soldier

Creighton W. Abrams, Jr.

"You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win"

Ho Chi Minh, Revolutionary

Ho Chi Minh

"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets"

Voltaire, Writer

Voltaire

"The great armies, accumulated to provide security and preserve the peace, carried the nations to war by their own weight"

A. J. P. Taylor, Historian

A. J. P. Taylor

"I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half"

Jack Gould, Journalist

"No kingdom has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ"

Charles de Montesquieu, Philosopher

Charles de Montesquieu

"I don't care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting"

Che Guevara, Revolutionary

Che Guevara

"When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die"

Jean-Paul Sartre, Philosopher

Jean-Paul Sartre

"Despise the enemy strategically, but take him seriously tactically"

Mao Tse-Tung, Leader

Mao Tse-Tung

"I don't know whether war is an interlude during peace, or peace an interlude during war"

Georges Clemenceau, Leader

Georges Clemenceau

"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies"

Winston Churchill, Statesman

Winston Churchill

"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it"

George Orwell, Author

George Orwell

"When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will"

Frederic Bastiat, Economist

"In order to rally people, governments need enemies... If they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us"

Nhat Hanh, Activist

Nhat Hanh

"Violence is always the last option, but if that time comes, it is the only option"

John Gilmour, Politician

"To survive it is often necessary to fight, and to fight you have to dirty yourself"

George Orwell, Author

George Orwell

"Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won"

Duke of Wellington, Royalty

Duke of Wellington

"I used to say of Napoleon that his presence on the field made the difference of forty thousand men"

Duke of Wellington, Royalty

Duke of Wellington

"Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America - not on the battlefields of Vietnam"

Marshall McLuhan, Sociologist

Marshall McLuhan

"A self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war"

Simone Weil, Philosopher

Simone Weil

"Airplanes are interesting toys, but of no military value"

Ferdinand Foch, Soldier

Ferdinand Foch

"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people"

Howard Zinn, Historian

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