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Quotes About War

After watching what has happened over the past fifty years in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and seeing the money that is to be made from such ventures, I wonder if the adage should have a corollary: 'Those who understand the lessons of history are only too happy to repeat them.
~ Thomas King
Let dangers go; thy war shall be with me, But such a war, as breaks no bonds of peace. Speak thou fair words, I'll cross them with fair words; Send thou sweet looks, I'll meet them with sweet looks; Write loving lines, I'll answer loving lines; Give me a kiss, I'll countercheck thy kiss. Be this our warring peace, or peaceful war.
~ Thomas Kyd
VICEROY OF PORTUGAL. ...My late ambition hath distain'd my faith; My breach of faith occasion'd bloody wars; Those bloody wars have spent my treasure; And with my treasure my people's blood; And with their blood, my joy and best belov'd My best belov'd, my sweet and only son. O, wherefore went I not to war myself The cause was mine; I might have died for both: My years were mellow, his but young and green; My death were natural, but his was forc'd.
~ Thomas Kyd
It's not right to say that our loss in Vietnam turned out to be a gain. But lessons were learned. And they were the right lessons.
~ Thomas Leo Clancy Jr.
War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.
~ Thomas Mann
Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience.
~ Thomas Merton
The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone,In the ranks of death you'll find him.His father's sword he has girded on,And his wild harp slung behind him.
~ Thomas Moore
Of the eight, seven had served in the war. Two had medals to show for it, including Smith, awarded a Silver Star for carrying two badly burned fellow soldiers out of a demolished tank and through hostile fire. Six had attended college and four, including Boggs, had diplomas (a graduation rate exponentially higher than the white cops').
~ Thomas Mullen
What mighty ills have not been done by woman!Who was 't betrayed the Capitol?—A woman!Who lost Mark Antony the world?—A woman!Who was the cause of a long ten years' war,And laid at last old Troy in ashes?—Woman!Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman!
~ Thomas Otway
War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen and unsupposed circumstances… that no human wisdom can calculate the end. It has but one thing certain, and that is to increase taxes.
~ Thomas Paine
It is the object only of war that makes it honorable. And if there was ever a just war since the world began, it is this in which America is now engaged.
~ Thomas Paine
He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.
~ Thomas Paine
To establish any mode to abolish war, however advantageous it might be to Nations, would be to take from such Government the most lucrative of its branches.
~ Thomas Paine
That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of Nations is as shocking as it is true...
~ Thomas Paine
That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of nations, is as shocking as it is true; but when those who are concerned in the government of a country, make it their study to sow discord and cultivate predjudices between nations, it becomes the more unpardonable.
~ Thomas Paine
He that is the author of war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.
~ Thomas Paine
Could the peaceable principle of the Quakers be universally established, arms and the art of war would be wholly extirpated: But we live not in a world of angels...I am thus far a Quaker, that I would gladly agree with all the world to lay aside the use of arms, and settle matters by negotiation: but unless the whole will, the matter ends, and I take up my musket and thank Heaven He has put it in my power.
~ Thomas Paine
But any war is harvest to such Governments, however ruinous it may be to a nation. It serves to keep up deceitful expectations, which prevent a people looking into the defects and abuses of Government. It is the "lo here!" and the "lo there!" that amuses and cheats the multitude.
~ Thomas Paine
As war is the system of government on the old construction, the animosity which nations reciprocally entertain, is nothing more than what the policy of their governments excites to keep up the spirit of the system. Each government accuses the other of perfidy, intrigue, and ambition, as a means of heating the imagination of their respective nations, and incensing them to hostilities. Man is not the enemy of man, but through the medium of a false system of government.
~ Thomas Paine
The laying of a Country desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring War against the natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling; of which Class, regardless of Party Censure, is
~ Thomas Paine
War is the common harvest of all those who participate in the division and expenditure of public money, in all countries. It is the art of conquering at home; the object of it is an increase of revenue; and as revenue cannot be increased without taxes, a pretence must be made for expenditure.
~ Thomas Paine
There can be no such thing as a nation flourishing alone in commerce: she can only participate; and the destruction of it in any part must necessarily affect all. When, therefore, governments are at war, the attack is made upon a common stock of commerce, and the consequence is the same as if each had attacked his own.
~ Thomas Paine
There are situations that a nation may be in, in which peace or war, abstracted from every other consideration, may be politically right or wrong. When nothing can be lost by a war, but what must be lost without it, war is then the policy of that country; and such was the situation of America at the commencement of hostilities: but when no security can be gained by a war, but what may be accomplished by a peace, the case becomes reversed.
~ Thomas Paine
There is something in a war carried on by invasion which makes it differ in circumstances from any other mode of war, because he who conducts it cannot tell whether the ground he gains be for him, or against him, when her first obtains it.
~ Thomas Paine