Quotes About War

As George Orwell wisely observed a generation later, the only way swiftly to end a war is to lose it.

Machiavelli observed that 'wars begin when you will, but do not end when you please'.

We are readying ourselves to enter a long tunnel full of blood and darkness (Andre Gide, 28 July 1914)

it is a constant of history that nations which start wars find it very hard to stop them.

Haw! Haw! Inconceivable stupidity is just what you're going to get! (Brigadier-General Henry Wilson, on being challenged in 1910 about the likelihood of a European war)

In the course of the war, 168,000 Soviet citizens were formally sentenced to death and executed for alleged cowardice or desertion;

The creative person, the person who moves from an irrational source of power, has to face the fact that this power antagonizes. Under all the superficial praise of the creative is the desire to kill. It is the old war between the mystic and the nonmystic, a war to the death.

I started studying what the nature of a monument is and what a monument should be. And for the World War III memorial I designed a futile, almost terrifying passage that ends nowhere.

It was a requirement by the veterans to list the 57 000 names. We're reaching a time that we'll acknowledge the individual in a war on a national level.

When I was building the Vietnam Memorial, I never once asked the veterans what it was like in the war, because from my point of view, you don't pry into other people's business.

You mean the War of Colonial Aggression?

Rat je surova ali poštena borba, kao me?u životinjama. Život u miru je surova borba, ali nepoštena, kao me?u ljudima. Razlika je ogromna.

Nepovratno se ose?am kao besku?nik. Nije to sasvim loše, nemam obaveza ni ograni?enja, samo je pomalo prazno. Svejedno mi je kuda ?u po?i kada završim posao. Uvijek sam želio tu potpunu slobodu, a nikud ne polazim, nijednu mogu?nost ne iskoriš?ujem, niti zapravo znam kakve su. Hodamo bez cilja, tražimo se, a kad se na?emo, govorimo o ratu.

War's a cruel but honest struggle, as between animals. Life in peace is cruel struggle, but a dishonest one, as between men.

Može biti r?avo kad ?ovjek ne osje?a da je vrijeme dugo. U ratu nije dosadno, ni u nesre?i, ni u muci. Kad je teško, nije dosadno.

The real truth is that the war didn't have much to do with it except that it provided a perfect limbo in which two people who were too young and too related could start kissing without anything or anyone making us stop.

Minden háború történetének van fordulópontja, és minden emberének is.

I spent some of my endless hours of leisure learning how to shoot a gun, which I thought might come in handy someday, if not in the war then back on the streets of New York.

Potevi amare qualcuno più di te stesso e la paura per il fatto che ti trovavi nel mezzo di una guerra e rischiavi di finire ammazzata si trasformava nella premura di tenere in vita questo qualcuno.

but I can't remember much about life before the war anyway so it doesn't count in my book, which this is.

That's what people never understand: They see us hard little pretty things, brightly lacquered and sequin-studded, and they laugh, they mock, they arouse themselves. They miss everything. You see, these glitters and sparkle dusts and magicks? It's war paint, it's feathers and claws, it's blood sacrifice.

That's what people never understand: They see us hard little pretty things, brightly lacquered and sequin-studded, and they laugh, they mock, they arouse themselves. They miss everything. You see, these glitters, and sparkle dusts and magicks? It's war paint, it's feathers and claws, it's blood sacrifice.

As Margaret would later write, Europe had come to seem "my America," an unsettled territory where liberty was at hand, while the New World she had left behind had grown "stupid with the lust of gain, soiled by crime in its willing perpetuation of slavery, shamed by an unjust war," the imperialist conflict with Mexico over the annexation of Texas.

There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared. It is the great venture. It can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to mistrust, and this mistrusts in turn brings forth war.