Quotes About War

But it seemed so wrong, so scandalous, somehow so unreligious for a dead man to have to keep on fighting - or running, anyhow - that it made me sick at my stomach. I didn't want to have any more to do with the war if this was the way it was going to be

I could see their faces then, and the army became what it really was: forty thousand men—they were young men mostly, lots of them even younger than myself, and I was nineteen just two weeks before—out on their first march in the crazy weather of early April, going from Mississippi into Tennessee where the Union army was camped between two creeks with its back to a river, inviting destruction.

Political correctness is the enforcement arm of poetic truth. It coerces people into suspending their own judgment on matters of racial equality, women's rights, war, and the environment in deference to some prescribed "correct" view on these matters that will distance them from the stigma of America's sinful past.

Some conservatives are surprised to find people on the Left supporting the war in Afghanistan. It's not surprising at all…It is hard for the government to prosecute a war and not expand…Conservatives may think they can support war and oppose the expansion of the state, but that is like trying to square the circle. What makes them think they can contain the expansion?

By portraying war as an opportunity for virtuous acts, the politicians romanticize evil.

First off, it's not junk," Arthur said, his voice rising. "It started on an island in World War II. With things from an island. It started with Death and War.

We are always running, and it has become a habit. We struggle all the time, even during our sleep. We are at war with ourselves, and we can easily start a war with others.

By that time [1966], we did begin to get some protests [against Vietnam War]. But not from liberal intellectuals; they never opposed the war.

The Gulf War may not have occurred in the actual global space, but it did occur in global time. And this thanks to CNN and The Pentagon.

The real war poets are always war poets, peace or any time.

And some day well remember so much that well build the biggest goddam steamshovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in and cover it up.

readiness,' far far from assuring peace, has at all times and in all countries been instrumental in precipitating armed conflicts.

...spend my time warring and whoring, that's what I was made for.

"In a time of war, the president must have the power he needs to make the tough decisions, including, if need be, the decision to grant himself even more power."

Sometimes I'm frustrated. Rarely surprised. Sometimes I'm happy, you know. But war is not a time of joy.

If the next time our governments propose to make war on a helpless civilian population we were to uncover our grief and guilt instead of our anger, how much difference might we make?

For some years I have spent my time on exactly these questions - both in thinking about ways to prevent war, and in thinking about how to fight, survive, and terminate a war, should it occur.

The only time Republicans will shake fists and point fingers is over a war delayed, one that isn't led by the US, or a war waged without the necessary conviction (read collateral damage).

Wait a minute! Wait a minute! I figured this out. I know what's wrong with what we've done in Iraq. We've been following time as it goes forward. What a classic mistake. Linear time is so pre-9-11.

The mosquitos were gone from the porch, and surely when they abandoned the conflict the war with Time was really done, there was nothing for it but that humans also forsake the battleground.

In time of war the laws are silent.

Vietnam was a palpable failure. And of course, in retrospect, it was even more clearly a disaster and a failure than maybe people understood at the time.

If we destroy the biosphere, then mankind will die. We all waste our time worrying about stupid wars and petty jealousy and greed, and all the time, we're sitting on a time bomb.

Arms and laws do not flourish together.