Quotes About War

So long as there is war there will be warlords. Leaders. What makes a man follow a leader? Success. A warrior wants victory, he wants silver, he wants land, and he looks to his lords for all those things.

Uhtred of Steapa - He might be dumb as a parsnip but he knows how to fight.

And we screamed. We screamed our war cry, our shout of slaughter, our joy of being men in battle who are driven by terror.

I decided to start a war, father, I said, cheerfully, it's so much more interesting than peace.

They gave death with impunity as they followed a war-maddened Scotsman down an enemy wall that was sticky with blood.

Frederick the Great once said that the greatest crime in war is not to make the wrong decision, but to make no decision.' Again the Prince gestured at Sharpe with the brandy glass. 'You should remember that axiom, Sharpe!' Sharpe did not even know what an axiom was, but he nodded respectfully. 'I will, sir.

il y a toute cette autre pensée de la guerre, non pas virile, exaltante, source de grandeur ou d'accomplissement de soi, mais tout simplement nécessaire car l'alternative à cette guerre ce ne serait pas la paix mais l'enfer...(ch. 5 La nostalgie de la guerre)

Je n'ai jamais compris comment les guerres pouvaient faire tant de morts quand les chocs frontaux y sont finalement si rares. Je n'ai jamais plus admiré un récit de guerre qu'Hommage à la Catalogne de George Orwell parce qu'il raconte, justement, cette loi de l'attente et de la patience qui est la loi no 1 des combattants. (ch. 12 Les mots de la guerre)

c'est (...) l'un des paradoxes de cette guerre : le côté irréprochable du gouvernement de Colombo qui, dans les zones qu'il a perdues, et ne serait-ce que pour ne pas s'avouer vaincu et avoir à prendre acte de la sécession, continue d'assurer les services publics, de payer les fonctionnaires, fussent-ils désignés par les Tigres et à leur botte.

Patriots always talk of dying for their country but never of killing for their country.

I hate the world and almost all the people in it. I hate the Labour Congress and the journalists who send men to be slaughtered, and the fathers who feel a smug pride when their sons are killed, and even the pacifists who keep saying human nature is essentially good, in spite of all the daily proofs to the contrary. I hate the planet and the human race—I am ashamed to belong to such a species.

To discover a system for the avoidance of war is a vital need for our civ ilisation; but no such system has a chance while men are so unhappy that mutual extermination seems to them less dreadful than continued endurance of the light of day

War grows out of ordinary human nature.

In time of war there is a unification of interests, especially if the war is fierce; but in time of peace the clash may be very great between the interests of one class and those of another.

Religion prevents our children from having a rational education; religion prevents us from removing the fundamental causes of war; religion prevents us from teaching the ethic of scientific co-operation in place of the old fierce doctrines of sin and punishment. It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.

Heraclitus believes in war. "War," he says, "is the father of all and the king of all; and some he has made gods and some men, some bond and some free.

expressed itself not only in politics, but also in art, romance, chivalry, and war. It expressed itself very little in the intellectual world, because education was almost wholly confined to the clergy. The explicit philosophy of the Middle Ages is not an accurate mirror of the times, but only of what was thought by one party. Among ecclesiastics, however--especially among the Franciscan friars --a certain

It was so obvious to him that war between nation states was unnecessary, and therefore deeply stupid, that he found it hard to believe that anything could explain it other than a passion for destruction and a desire by the combatants to inflict suffering on others at no matter what price in suffering for themselves.

If wars are eliminated and production is organized scientifically, it is probable that four hours' work a day will suffice to keep everybody in comfort

The war showed conclusively that, by the scientific organization of production, it is possible to keep modern populations in fair comfort on a small part of the working capacity of the modern world.

In the Second World War he took no public part, having escaped to a neutral country just before its outbreak. In private conversation he was wont to say that homicidal lunatics were well employed in killing each other, but that sensible men would keep out of their way while they were doing it. Fortunately this outlook, which is reminiscent of Bentham, has become rare in this age, which recognizes that heroism has a value independent of its utility. The Last Survivor of a Dead Epoch

A skilful orator, when he wishes to stimulate warlike feeling, produces in his audience two layers of belief: a superficial layer, in which the power of the enemy is magnified so as to make great courage seem necessary, and a deeper layer, in which there is a firm conviction of victory. Both are embodied in such a slogan as 'right will prevail over might'.

It is only those in whom the desire to think truly is itself a passion who will find this desire adequate to control the passions of war. Only passion can control passion, and only a contrary impulse or desire can check impulse. Reason, as it is preached by traditional moralists, is too negative, too little living, to make a good life. It is not by reason alone that wars can be prevented, but by a positive life of impulses and passions antagonistic to those that lead to war.

I think that, if we are to feel at home in the world after the present war, we shall have to admit Asia to equality in our thoughts, not only politically, but culturally. What changes this will bring about, I do not know, but I am convinced that they will be profound and of the greatest importance. 1