Quotes About Conflict

the unexpectedness of war

tears' after he told her simply: 'It's all up.'26 Churchill was the exception. He told Violet Asquith on 22 February 1915: I think a curse should rest on me – because I love this war. I know it's smashing & shattering the lives of thousands every moment – & yet – I can't help it – I enjoy every second

fight over scarce resources (food and fertile women)

Niall Ferguson

The Qing Empire was about to feel the full force of history's most successful narco-state: the British Empire.

The Hollywood version of the War of Independence is a straightforward fight between heroic Patriots and wicked, Nazi-like Redcoats. The reality was quite different. This was indeed a civil war which divided social classes and even families. And the worst of the violence did not involve regular British troops, but was perpetrated by rebel colonists against their countrymen who remained loyal to the crown.

la noción de un «choque de civilizaciones» es tan caricaturesca como la idea de que Estados Unidos solo está interesado en el petróleo de Oriente Próximo. Es

There is no avoiding war, it can only be postponed to the advantage of your enemy.

A prince must not have any other object nor any other thought… but war, its institutions, and its discipline; because that is the only art befitting one who commands.

you ought never to suffer your designs to be crossed in order to avoid war, since war is not so to be avoided, but is only deferred to your disadvantage.

There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.

In peace one is despoiled by the mercenaries, in war by one's enemies.

Never do an enemy a small injury.

The Romans recognized potential difficulties in advance and always remedied them in time. They never let problems develop just so they could escape a war, for they knew that such wars cannot be avoided, only postponed to the advantage of others.

There are many who think a wise prince ought, when he has the chance, to foment astutely some enmity, so that by suppressing it he will augment his greatness.

Men injure either from fear or hatred.

war is not so to be avoided, but is only deferred to your disadvantage

And it will always happen that he who is not your friend will invite you to neutrality, while he who is your friend will call on you to declare yourself openly in arms.

War is the sole art looked for in one who rules...

Between an armed and an unarmed man no proportion holds, and it is contrary to reason to expect that the armed man should voluntarily submit to him who is unarmed, or that the unarmed man should stand secure among armed retainers. For with contempt on one side, and distrust on the other, it is impossible that men should work well together.

Thus the popes, sometimes in zeal for religion, at others moved by their own ambition, were continually calling in new parties and exciting new disturbances.

You must know, then, that there are two methods of fighting, the one by law, the other by force: the first method is that of men, the second of beasts; but as the first method is often insufficient, one must have recourse to the second. It is therefore necessary to know well how to use both the beast and the man.

Without doubt, princes become great when they overcome difficulties and hurdles put in their path. When fortune wants to advance a new prince... She creates enemies for him, making them launch campaigns against him so that he is compelled to overcome them and climb higher on the ladder that they have brought him. Therefore, many judge that a wise prince must skillfully fan some enmity whenever the opportunity arises, so that in crushing it he will increase his standing.

in all cities, these two distinct parties are found, and from this it arises that the people do not wish to be ruled nor oppressed by the nobles, and the nobles wish to rule and oppress the people; and from these two opposite desires there arises in cities one of three results, either a principality, self-government, or anarchy. A