Quotes About War

Once war is declared, he will not waste precious time in waiting for reinforcements, nor will he return his army back for fresh supplies, but crosses the enemy's frontier without delay.

although I have heard of reckless haste in war, I have never seen wise delay.

Lo que es, pues, esencial en la guerra es el triunfo, no las campañas prolongadas. Por este motivo el general que comprende la guerra es el ministro de la fortuna del pueblo y el árbitro de la nación.

Im Frieden bereite dich auf den Krieg vor, im Krieg bereite dich auf den Frieden vor.

He who does not know theevilsof war cannot appreciate its benefits

The tao is the way of humanity and justice; 'laws' are regulations and institutions. Those who excel in war first cultivate their own humanity and justice and maintain their laws and institution. By these means they make their governments invincible.

Victory belongs to a man who can conquer the cunningness of war, of deceit and fairness.

war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.

Without a full understanding of the harm caused by war, it is impossible to understand the most profitable way of conducting it

War is a place of life and death, a path towards survival and destruction.

I heard that in war, rushing is madness, but I've never seen postponing that was wise.

If one man slay another of set purpose, he himself may rightfully be slain. He who relies solely on warlike measures shall be exterminated; he who relies solely on peaceful measures shall perish

War is a matter of vital importance to the State; the province of life or death; the road to survival or ruin. It is mandatory that it be thoroughly studied.

El día en que se declara la guerra, se cierran las fronteras, se rompen los salvoconductos y se impide el paso de emisarios.

The War of Independence was not a heroic enterprise but the result of a political miscalculation.

South Carolina senator James Chestnut facetiously promised to drink all the blood that was shed, since he thought the war woudn't amount to anything serious. "Southern secessionists believed northerners would never mobilize to halt national division or that they would mount nothing more than brief and ineffective resistance," writes Drew Gilpin Faust in her book on the Civil War, This Republic of Suffering.

By the next war, the message will have got through. There will never be another war. There will always be wars. Men couldn't be so stupid, John! After all this? Isn't the only real purpose of our being here to teach them that lesson - how bloody useless and pointless the whole thing is? Men are naturally stupid and they do not learn from experience.

American flag appeared on the screen. "Between 2001 and 2012, nearly sixty-five hundred American soldiers were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. During that same period of time—" the screen shifted to the face of a battered woman clutching two small children "—almost twelve thousand women were murdered by their husbands, boyfriends or a former partner. Even now, three women are murdered every single day by the man who claims to love them.

Now. 1973. Exactly. He tipped back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest. So much changed in the sixties, the war, the rights of women, civil rights, the vote, protest against the war. On and on. I was getting my Ph.D. in Chicago and you were in college but that time was upheaval with a purpose. Now we've drawn back into our shells, wondering what we have done and what do we believe.? And is there any purpose to our lives?

We can't imagine how dreadful, how terrifying war is; and how normal it becomes. Can't understand, can't imagine. That's what every soldier, and every journalist and aid worker and independent observer who has put in time under fire, and had the luck to elude the death that struck down others nearby, stubbornly feels. And they are right.

Enemies are somewhere else, as the fighting is almost always "over there," with Islamic fundamentalism now replacing Russian and Chinese communism as the implacable, furtive menace. And "terrorist" is a more flexible word than "communist." It can unify a larger number of quite different struggles and interests. What this may mean is that the war will be endless---since there will always be some terrorism.

Is there an antidote to the perennial seductiveness of war? And is this a question a woman is more likely to pose than a man? (Probably yes.)

To set their sufferings alongside the sufferings of another people was to compare them (which hell was worse?), demoting Sarajevo's martyrdom to a mere instance.

The memory of war, however, like all memory, is mostly local.