1. R. Buckminster Fuller
Either war is obsolete or men are.
2. Eleanor Roosevelt
We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together and if we are to live together we have to talk.
3. Issac Asimov
Violence is the first refuge of the incompetent.
4. Herbert Hoover
Older men declare war. But it's the youth who must fight and die!
5. Jeannette Rankin, First Woman Member of Congress
You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.
6. General Omar Bradley
In war there is no prize for the runner-up.
7. Winston Churchill
When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.
8. Albert Einstein
The pioneers of a warless world are the youth that refuse military service.
9. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.
10. Ernest Hemmingway
They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.
"I speak in the name of the entire German people when I assure the world that we all share the honest wish to eliminate the enmity that brings far more costs than any possible benefits... It would be a wonderful thing for all of humanity if both peoples would renounce force against each other forever. The German people are ready to make such a pledge."
Adolf Hitler - 14th October 1933
"The assertion that it is the intention of the German Reich to coerce the Austrian State is absurd"
Adolf Hitler - 30th January 1934
"Germany neither intends nor wishes to interfere in the internal affairs of Austria, to annex Austria, or to conclude an Anschluss."
Adolf Hitler - 21st May 1935
"Germany has concluded a Non-Aggression Pact with Poland... We shall adhere to it unconditionally... we recognize Poland as the home of a great and nationally conscious people."
Adolf Hitler - 21st May 1935
"National Socialist Germany wants peace because of its fundamental convictions. And it wants peace also owing to the realization of the simple primitive fact that no war would be likely essentially to alter the distress in Europe... The principal effect of every war is to destroy the flower of the nation... Germany needs peace and desires peace!"
Adolf Hitler - 21st May 1935
"Germany has solemnly recognized and guaranteed France her frontiers as determined after the Saar plebiscite... We thereby finally renounced all claims to Alsace-Lorraine, a land for which we have fought two great wars."
Adolf Hitler - 21st May 1935
"Germany neither intends nor wishes to interfere in the internal affairs of Austria, to annex Austria, or to conclude an Anschluss."
Adolf Hitler - 21st May 1935
"The League of Nations is still strong enough by its collective actions to avert or arrest aggression... There is no room for bargaining or compromise."
Foreign Commissar Litvinoff - 21st September 1938
"I have no further interest in the Czecho-Slovakian State, that is guaranteed. We want no Czechs"...
Adolf Hitler - 26th September 1938
"In the course of my life I have very often been a prophet, and have usually been ridiculed for it. During the time of my struggle for power, it was in the first instance only the Jewish race that received my prophecies with laughter when I said that I would one day take over the leadership of the state and with it that of the whole nation and that I would then among other things settle the Jewish problem...but I think that for some time now they have been laughing on the other side of their face. Today I will once more be a prophet: if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevising of the earth and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!".
Adolf Hitler - Speech to the Reichstag - 30th January 1939
"Czechoslovakia has ceased to exist"
Adolf Hitler - 15th March 1939
"In the event of any action which clearly threatened Polish independence and which the Polish Government accordingly considered it vital to resist with their national forces, His Majesty's Government would feel themselves bound at once to lend the Polish Government all support in their power. They have given the Polish Government an assurance to this effect. I may add that the French Government have authorized me to make it plain that they stand in the same position in this matter."
Neville Chamberlain - 31st March 1939
“This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you that no such understanding has been received and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.”
Neville Chamberlain - 3rd September 1939
"This is a sad day for all of us, and to none is it sadder than to me. Everything that I have worked for, everything that I have believed in during my public life, has crashed into ruins. There is only one thing left for me to do: That is, to devote what strength and powers I have to forwarding the victory of the cause for which we have to sacrifice so much... I trust I may live to see the day when Hitlerism has been destroyed and a liberated Europe has been re-established."
Neville Chamberlain - 3rd September 1939
"My strength has now been reduced to the equivalent of 36 squadrons...we should be able to carry on the war single-handed for some time if not indefinitely."
Sir Hugh Dowding - RAF Fighter Command - May 1940
"We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. War's are not won by evacuations."
Winston Churchill - To Parliament - 4th June 1940
"Dunkirk has fallen... with it has ended the greatest battle of world history. Soldiers! My confidence in you knew no bounds. You have not disappointed me."
Adolf Hitler - Order of the Day - 5th June 1940
"Mussolini is quite humiliated because our troops have not moved a step forward. Even today they have not succeeded in advancing and have halted in front of the first French fortification which put up some resistance."
Count Ciano - Italian Foreign Minister (written in his diary) - 21st June 1940
"My Luftwaffe is invincible...And so now we turn to England. How long will this one last - two, three weeks?"
Hermann Goring - June 1940
"Like so many of our people, we have now had a personal experience of German barbarity which only strengthens the resolution of all of us to fight through to final victory."
King George VI - September 1940
"Never has a military operation been undertaken so much against the will of the commanders."
Count Ciano - Italian Foreign Minister (Commenting on the Italian Advance into Egypt) - September 1940
"Never in the field of human conflict, has so much, been owed by so many, to so few!"
Winston Churchill - September 1940
"Once more a red fire blows steeply upwards...the factory will do no more work for Herr Churchill...tomorrow morning Coventry will lie in smoke and ruins."
Josef Goebbels - Ministry of Propaganda - September 1940
"Fuhrer, we are on the march! Victorious Italian troops crossed the Greco-Albanian frontier at dawn today!"
Benito Mussolini - (to Adolf Hitler) 28th October 1940
"Nothing would please me better than if they would give me three months and then attack here."
General Douglas Macarthur - Supreme Allied Commander of South-West Pacific - (Speaking of the Philippines) 5th December 1940
"Singapore... could only be taken after a siege by an army of at least 50,000 men... its not considered possible that the Japanese...would embark on such a mad enterprise."
Winston Churchill - 1940
"In my opinion the limit of endurance has been reached by the troops under my command...our position here is hopeless"
Major General Freyberg VC - (Shortly before the evacuation of Crete) - May 1941
"We did not intend to fight enemy warships...but we took up the fight. The crew have behaved magnificently. we shall win or die."
Admiral Lütjens - Commander of the Bismarck's Naval Squadron - 25th May 1941
"I should like to pay the highest tribute for the most gallant fight put up against impossible odds"
Admiral Tovey - (After the sinking of the Bismarck) - 27th May 1941
"I've had my fill of Hitler. These conferences called by a ringing of a bell are not to my liking; the bell is rung when people call their servants. And besides, what kind of conferences are these? For five hours I am forced to listen to a monologue which is quite fruitless and boring."
Benito Mussolini - (To his son in law) - 10th June 1941
"This war is not an ordinary war. It is the war of the entire Russian people. Not only to eliminate the danger hanging over our heads, but to aid all people groaning under the yoke of Fascism"
Josef Stalin - 22nd June 1941
"The Red Army and Navy and the whole Soviet people must fight for every inch of Soviet soil, fight to the last drop of blood for our towns and villages...onward, to victory!"
Josef Stalin - July 1941
"We secured peace for our country for one and a half years, as well as an opportunity of preparing our forces for defense if fascist Germany risked attacking our country in defiance of the pact. This was a definite gain to our country and a loss for fascist Germany."
Josef Stalin - 3rd July 1941 - (Speaking of the 1939 non-aggression pact between the USSR and Germany)
"The Russian colossus...has been underestimated by us...whenever a dozen divisions are destroyed the Russians replace them with another dozen."
General Franz Halder - Army Chief of Staff - August 1941
"A gigantic fleet... has massed in Pearl Harbor. This fleet will be utterly crushed with one blow at the very beginning of hostilities...Heaven will bear witness to the righteousness of our struggle."
Rear-Admiral Ito - Chief of Staff of the Combined Fleet - November 1941
"As a result of the cold, the machine-guns were no longer able to fire...the result of all this was a panic...The battle worthiness of our infantry is at an end"
General Heinz Guderian - November 1941
"Oh merciful lord… crown our effort with victory… and give us faith in the inevitable power of light over darkness, of justice over evil and brutal force… Of the cross of Christ over the Fascist swastika… so be it, amen."
Sergei - Archbishop of Moscow - 27th November 1941
"The fate of the Empire rests on this enterprise every man must devote himself totally to the task in hand."
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto - Commander in Chief of the Japanese Navy - 7th December 1941
"Yesterday, December 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan...As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense...With confidence in our armed forces - with the unbounded determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God."
President F.D. Roosevelt - 8th December 1941
"Before we're through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell.!
Admiral Halsey - December 1941
"With Malta in enemy hands, the Mediterranean route would be completely closed to us...this tiny island was a vital feature in the defence of our Middle East position."
General Hastings Ismay - 1942
"The assault on Malta will cost us many casualties...but...I consider it absolutely essential for the future development of the war. If we take Malta, Libya will be safe."
Count Ugo Cavallero - Italian Chief of Staff 1940-1943
"You are doomed... you have already cut rations by a half...but your prestige and honour have been upheld"
General Homma - Speaking of General MacArthur - January 1942
"I'll come back as soon as I can with as much as I can. In the meantime, you've got to hold."
General MacArthur - Speaking to General Wainwright - March 1942
"My attack on Singapore was a bluff, a bluff that worked... I was very frightened that all the time the British would discover our numerical weakness and lack of supplies and force me into disastrous street fighting"
General Yamashita - 1942
"On the European Front, the most important development of the past year has been the crushing German offensive against the great armies of Russia"
President Franklin D. Roosevelt - 29th April 1942
"The fruits of victory are tumbling into our mouths too quickly."
Emperor Hirohito (On his Birthday) - 29th April 1942
"Japan...is operating in the Pacific in the hope of extending her hold over New Guinea...from such a position she...could carry out raids on Australia...whilst awaiting our final defeat by Germany"
General Alan Brooke - 5th May 1942
"To every man of us, Tobruk was a symbol of British resistance, and we were now going to finish with it for good."
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel - June 1942
"Am sending mobile troops out tonight. Not possible to hold tomorrow... Will resist to the last man and last round."
Major General Hendrik Klopper - (Commander of the Tobruk Garrison to General Ritchie) - 21st June 1942
"Our citizens can now rejoice that a momentous victory is in the making. Perhaps we will be forgiven if we claim we are about midway to our objective."
Admiral Chester Nimitz - June 1942
"Just as the defending force has gathered valuable experience from...Dieppe, so has the assaulting force...He will not do it like this a second time."
Field Marshal von Rundstedt - August 1942
"The Russian convoys are and always have been an unsound operation of this war"
Rear Admiral L.H.K Hamilton - September 1942
"The battle is going very heavily against us. We're being crushed by the enemy weight...We are facing very difficult days, perhaps the most difficult that a man can undergo."
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel - 3rd November 1942
"Never in history has the navy landed an army at the planned time and place. But if you land us anywhere within 50 miles of Fedela and within 1 week of D-Day. I'll go ahead and win."
Major General George Patton - November 1942 (Commenting of the North Africa Landings)
"Most of the men are stricken with dysentery...Starvation is taking many lives and it is weakening our already extended lines. We are doomed. "
Major-General Kensaku Oda (Referring to the state of Japanese troops on Guadalcanal)- 12th January 1943
"Goddam it, you'll never get the Purple Heart hiding in a foxhole! Follow me!"
Captain Henry P. Jim Crowe - 13th January 1943 - (Guadalcanal)
"The defeat of the enemy in the Battle of El Alamein, the pursuit of his beaten army and the final capture of Tripoli...has all been accomplished in three months. This is probably without parallel in history."
Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery - 23rd January 1943
"The troops of the Don Front at 4pm on the 2nd February 1943 completed the rout and destruction of the encircled group of enemy forces in Stalingrad. Twenty two division have been destroyed or taken prisoner."
Lieutenant General Rokossovski - February 1943
"Even without the allied offensive, I should have had to capitulate by the 1st June at the latest as I had no more to eat."
General Oberst von Arnim - May 1943 - (Commenting after the Axis surrender in Tunisia)
"…Our losses…have reached an intolerable level. The enemy air force played a decisive role in inflicting these high losses."
Grand Admiral Carl Donitz - C-in-C of the German Navy - 24th May 1943
"The heavy casualties inflicted on the enemy have greatly affected his morale and will prove to be a turning point in the battle of the Atlantic."
Admiral Sir Max Horton - May 1943 - Commander of the Western Approaches
"The disaster of Stalingrad profoundly shocked the German people and armed forces alike...Never before in Germany's history had so large a body of troops come to so dreadful an end."
General Siegfried von Westphal - 1943
"No amphibious attack in history had approached this one in size. Along miles of coastline there were hundreds of vessels and small boats afloat and ant-like files of advancing troops ashore."
General Dwight Eisenhower - July 1943 (Sicily)
"Soldiers of the Reich! This day you are to take part in an offensive of such importance that the whole future of the war may depend on its outcome."
Adolf Hitler - 5th July 1943
"It would have been easier to fight alone with inadequate forces than to have to accept...responsibility for our ally's lack of fighting qualities and dubious loyalty."
Field Marshal Albert Kesselring - August 1943 (After the German evacuation of Sicily)
"The Germans may claim with some justification to have won if not a victory at least an important success over us."
General Alexander - September 1943
"They (the Americans) are, I think, a bit unwarrantably cock-a-hoop as a result of their limited experience to date. But they are setting about it in a realistic and business-like way...I have a feeling that they will do it..."
Air Vice-Marshal Sir John Slessor - 1943
"The enemy knows that he must wipe out our fighters. Once he has done that, he will be able to play football with the German people."
Field Marshal Erhard Milch - 1943
"The 2nd Marine Division has been especially chosen by the High Command for the assault on Tarawa...what you do there will set a standard for all future operations in the central pacific area."
Major General Julian C. Smith - Commander of the U.S. 2nd Marine Division - November 1943
"Casualties many; Percentage of dead not known; Combat efficiency; we are winning."
Colonel David M. Shoup - (Tarawa) - 21st November 1943
"I say that the bombing of the Abbey...was a mistake...It only made our job more difficult, more costly in terms of men, machines and time"
Lieutenant General Mark Clark - Commander of the U.S. Fifth Army - 1944 (After the bombing of Monte Cassino)
"Had Clark given more heed to Juin's views...the savage battles of Cassino would probably never have been fought and the venerable house of St Benedict would have been unscathed"
Rudolf Böhmler - 1st Fallschirmjäger Division - 1944 (After the bombing of Monte Cassino)
"(Wingate was) and absolute born genius with a mystical fire about him."
Earl Mountbatton of Burma - Speaking after the death of Brigadier Orde Wingate - March 1944
"The enemy must be annihilated before he reaches our main battlefield...We must stop him in the water...destroying all his equipment while it is still afloat"
Field Marshall Erwin Rommel - 22nd April 1944
"At Sevastopol stands the Seventeenth Army, and at Sevastopol, the Soviets will bleed to death."
General Jaenicke – Commander of the Seventeenth Army - May 1944
"Permit me, in the name of the Front Command, to present you with the keys to the Crimea."
Marshall Biryuzov - Commander of the 4th Ukrainian Front to Marshall Vasilevski - May 1944
"Sure, we want to go home. We want this war over with. The quickest way to get it over with is to go get the bastards who started it. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we can go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin and Tokyo. And when we get to Berlin, I am personally going to shoot that paper hanging son-of-a-***** Hitler. Just like I'd shoot a snake!"
General George S. Patton - (addressing to his troops before Operation Overlord) - 5th June 1944
"We want to get the hell over there. The quicker we clean up this Goddamned mess, the quicker we can take a little jaunt against the purple pissing Japs and clean out their nest, too. Before the Goddamned Marines get all of the credit."
General George S. Patton - (addressing to his troops before Operation Overlord) - 5th June 1944
"Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely"
General Dwight Eisenhower - 6th June 1944
"At the present time, it is still too early to say whether this is a large-scale diversionary attack or the main effort"
German C-in-C West - Morning Report for the 6th June 1944
"Hell is on us."
Mamoru Shigemitsu - Japanese Foreign Minister's comments at the capture of Saipan - June 1944
"In spite of intense efforts, the moment has drawn near when this front, already so heavily strained, will break. I consider it my duty to bring these conclusions to your notice,...my fuhrer."
Field Marshal Gunther von Kluge - C-in-C West - July 1944
"For the first time a British force had met, held and decisively defeated a major Japanese attack, and followed this up by driving the enemy out of the strongest possible natural positions."
General Bill Slim - Commander of the British Fourteenth Army (Commenting on the Second Battle of Arakan) - July 1944
"I have always considered Saipan the decisive battle of the Pacific offensive…(it was) the naval and military heart and brain of the Japanese defence strategy."
Lieutenant General Holland M. Smith - Commander of the US Fleet Marine Force in the Pacific - July 1944
"Attended thanksgiving service…for liberation of Paris…hearing the Marseillaise gave me a great thrill. France seemed to wake again after being knocked out for five years."
General Sir Alan Brooke - 28th August 1944
"Defend Paris to the last, destroy all bridges over the Seine and devastate the city."
Adolf Hitler - August 1944
"We shall solve this problem, and afterwards Warsaw as the Capital and the pool of intelligentsia of that nation will be destroyed."
Heinrich Himmler - August 1944
"In all my years as a soldier, I have never seen me fight so hard."
Lieutenant General Wilhelm Bittrich - Commander of II SS Panzer Korps - (Commenting on the British Paratroopers at Arnhem) - September 1944
”I will break into Leyte Gulf and fight to the last man…would it not be shameful to have the fleet remaining intact while our nation perishes?”
Vice-Admiral Takeo Kurita - 1944
”In case opportunity for destruction of a major portion of the enemy fleet is offered, or can be created, such destruction becomes the primary task.”
Admiral Chester Nimitz - In his order to Halsey, prior to the Battle of Leyte Gulf - October 1944
”The only words I spoke to the British commander in the negotiations for the surrender of Singapore were ‘All I want to hear from you is yes or no’. I expected to put the same question to MacArthur.”
General Yamashita - Manila – 10th October 1944
”Let the indomitable spirit of Bataan and Coregidor lead on…In the name of your sacred dead, strike! Let no heart be faint. Let every arm be steeled.”
General Douglas MacArthur – On the beach at Palo, broadcasting his return – 24th October 1944
"The losses were heavy, but all ranks would willingly undertake another operation under similar conditions…We have no regrets."
Major General Robert Urquhart - Commander of 1st British Airborne Division - (Commenting on the British defeat at Arnhem) - January 1945
"The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years."
James Forrestal - Secretary of the Navy - 23rd February 1945
"Among the men who fought on Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue."
Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz - 16th March 1945
"Attacks on cities are strategically justified in so far as they tend to shorten the war and so preserve the lives of allied soldiers."
Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris - 29th March 1945
"It is on this beautiful day that we celebrate the Fuhrers birthday and thank him for he is the only reason why Germany is still alive today"
Josef Goebbels - Ministry of Propaganda - 26th April 1945
"In the burning and devastated cities, we daily experienced the direct impact of war. It spurred us to do our utmost...the bombing and the hardships that resulted from them (did not) weaken the morale of the populace."
Albert Speer - Chief of the German War Economy (Speaking after the War)
"The battle of Kursk... the forcing of the Dnieper... and the liberation of Kiev, left Hitlerite Germany facing catastrophe."
General Vasili I. Chuikov - Commander of the 8th Guards Army - (Speaking after the war)
"I have returned many times to honour the valiant men who died…every man who set foot on Omaha Beach was a hero."
Lieutenant General Omar Bradley - Commander of the US First Army - (Speaking after the war)
"Hitler's large-scale demands for the Mediterranean meant that...the plans for...an 'Eastern Wall' were overtaken by the increasingly rapid advance of the Red Army"
Lieutenant General Warlimont - (Speaking after the war)
A country cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
Albert Einstein
A lot of wonderful people love their country and hate the military.
Bill Clinton
A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.
Napoleon Bonaparte
All men are brothers, like the seas throughout the world; So why do winds and waves clash so fiercely everywhere?
Emperor Hirohito
All they that take the sword, shall perish with the sword.
The Bible
Matthew
All war represents a failure of diplomacy.
Tony Benn
All warfare is based on deception.
Sun Tzu
The Art of War
An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind.
Mahatma Gandhi
An unjust peace is better than a just war.
Cicero
Are bombs the only way of setting fire to the spirit of a people? Is the human will as inert as the past two world-wide wars would indicate?
Gregory Clark
As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure.
Jacques Chirac
As soon as war is looked upon as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.
Oscar Wilde
Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonor. They chose dishonor. They will have war.
Winston Churchill
Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know I can see through your masks.
Bob Dylan
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Either war is obsolete or men are.
R. Buckminster Fuller
England has been offered a choice between war and shame. She has chosen shame and will get war.
Winston Churchill
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.
Voltaire
History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.
Ronald Reagan
History teaches us that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.
Ronald Reagan
I ain't got no quarrel with the Vietcong.
Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay)
I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.
John Wayne
I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.
Thomas Jefferson
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
Albert Einstein
I love the smell of Napalm in the morning.
Apocalypse Now, movie
I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.
Edmund Burke
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
Mother Teresa
I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.
George McGovern
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, what did they produce? The cuckoo clock.
Orson Welles
In war there is no prize for the runner-up.
General Omar Bradley
In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity.
Winston Churchill
It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.
General Douglas MacArthur
It is only the dead who have seen the end of war.
Plato
It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.
Robert E. Lee
Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object.
Abraham Lincoln
"Let someone else get killed!"
"Suppose everyone on our side felt that way?"
"Well then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?"
"Englishmen are dying for England, American's are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can all be worth dying for?"
"Anything worth living for," said Nately, "is worth dying for."
"And anything worth dying for," answered the old man, "is certainly worth living for."
Joseph Heller
Catch 22
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'
Winston Churchill
Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel . . . And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of man" - with his mouth.
Mark Twain
Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.
John F. Kennedy
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
Winston Churchill
Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. Ask the infantry and ask the dead.
Ernest Hemingway
No one ever goes into battle thinking God is on the other side.
Terry Goodkind
Of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship . . . Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. (at the Nuremberg Trials, shortly before being sentenced to death)
Hermann Goering
Older men declare war. But it's the youth who must fight and die!
Herbert Hoover
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our English dead! In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility; But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger: Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.
William Shakespeare
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Plato
Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed.
Mao Zedong
Put your trust in God; but be sure to keep your powder dry.
Oliver Cromwell
Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima . . . The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East. (First announcement of the atomic bomb, August 6, 1945)
Harry S Truman
The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving.
Ulysses S Grant
The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.
Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.
Josef Stalin
The Lord is a man of war.
Bible, Exodus
The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
George S. Patton, Jr.
The only winner in the War of 1812 was Tchaikovsky.
Solomon Short
The purple testament of bleeding war.
William Shakespeare
The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.
Adolf Hitler
The War That Will End War.
H. G. Wells
The whole art of war consists of guessing at what is on the other side of the hill.
Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords.
Bible, Psalms
Their sword will become our plow, and from the tears of war the daily bread of future generations will grow.
Adolf Hitler
There never was a good war or a bad peace.
Benjamin Franklin
They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.
Ernest Hemmingway
To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.
George Washington
To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.
Winston Churchill
Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They were wrong.
Ronald Reagan
Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.
Winston Churchill
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
Isaac Asimov
War can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun.
Mao Zedong
War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
Bertrand Russell
War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts.
George S. Patton, Jr.
War is hell.
William Tecumseh Sherman
"War is Peace" "Freedom is Slavery" "Ignorance is Strength."
George Orwell
Nineteen Eighty-Four
War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men.
Georges Clemenceau
War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.
Jimmy Carter
War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.
John F. Kennedy
We have the finest food, the finest equipment, the best spirit, and the best men in the world. Why, by God, I actually pity those poor sons-of-bitches we're going up against. By God, I do.
George S. Patton, Jr.
We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together and if we are to live together we have to talk.
Eleanor Roosevelt
We live in a time where fictitious election results give us a fictitious president. We are now fighting a war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fiction of duct tape or the fictitious 'Orange Alerts,' we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And, whenever you've got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up.
Michael Moore
We make war that we may live in peace.
Aristotle
We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France. We shall fight on the seas and oceans. We shall fight, with growing confidence and strength in the air. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.
Winston Churchill
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?
Gandhi
When engaged in combat, the vanquishing of thine enemy can be the warrior's only concern...
This is the first and cardinal rule of combat...
Suppress all human emotion and compassion...
Kill whoever stands in thy way, even if that be Lord God, or Buddha himself...
This truth lies at the heart of the art of combat. Once it is mastered... Thou shall fear no one... Though the devil himself may bar thy way...
Kill Bill, Vol. 1, movie
When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
When the enemy advances, withdraw; when he stops, harass; when he tires, strike; when he retreats, pursue.
Mao Zedong
When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die.
Jean-Paul Sartre
When war is declared, Truth is the first casualty.
Arthur Ponsonby
When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.
Winston Churchill
You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.
Jeannette Rankin
You can't say that civilization don't advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way.
Will Rogers
1. There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but boys, it is all hell. You can bear this warning voice to generations yet to come. I look upon war with horror.
--William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891), U.S. general. From a speech, Columbus, Ohio, August 11, 1880.
2. All counter-revolutionary wars are unjust, all revolutionary wars are just.
--Mao Zedong (1893-1976), Chinese statesman. From On Protracted War (1938).
3. All wars are popular for the first thirty days.
--Attributed to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. (1917- ), U.S. historian.
4. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother.
--William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright and poet. From Henry V (1598?).
5. War is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.
--Karl Marie von Clausewitz (1780-1831), Prussian general. Often misquoted as "War is nothing but a continuation of politics by other means."
From On War (1833).
6. It has long been noted that some conquerors prefer enemies as fierce as tigers and brave as eagles, for only then can they savor the true joy of victory.
--Lu Xun (1881-1936), Chinese writer. From "The True Story of Ah Q" (1918).
7. It is well that war is so terrible; else we would grow too fond of it.
--Robert E. Lee (1807-1870), U.S. general. Said to another general during the battle of Fredericksburg (1862).
8. Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill each other if it is not done.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish playwright. From Major Barbara (1905).
9. Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America—not on the battlefields of Vietnam.
--Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980), Canadian sociologist. In the Montreal Gazette, 1975.
10. The guerrilla fights the war of the flea, and his military enemy suffers the dog's disadvantages: too much to defend; too small, ubiquitous, and agile an enemy to come to grips with.
--Robert Taber (1928- ), U.S. writer. From War of the Flea (1965).
11. A war regarded as inevitable or even probable, and therefore much prepared for, has a very good chance of being fought.
--George F. Kennan (1904- ), U.S. diplomat and scholar. From The Cloud of Danger (1977).
12. War is capitalism with the gloves off.
--Tom Stoppard (1937- ), British playwright and screenwriter. From Travesties (1974).
13. You no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.
--Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973), U.S. legislator.
14. Do not let us speak of darker days; let us rather speak of sterner days. These are not dark days: these are great days--the greatest days our country has ever lived.
--Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British prime minister and writer. From a speech, October 29, 1941.
15. Blood alone moves the wheels of history.
--Attributed to Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), Italian dictator.
Well, I have considered myself to be very fortunate in that I have been able to do mostly only that which my inner self told me to do… I am also aware that I do receive much criticism from the outside world for what I do and some people actually get angry at me. But this does not really touch me because I feel that these people do not live in he same world as do I.
In the course of heir careers in the American schools of today, most students take hundreds, if not thousands, of tests. They develop skill to a highly calibrated degree in an exercise that will essentially become useless immediately after their last day in school.
Now intelligence seemed quantifiable. You could measure someone's actual or potential height, and now, it seemed, you could also measure someone's actual or potential intelligence. We had one dimension of mental ability along which we could array everyone... The whole concept has to be challenged; in fact, it has to be replaced.
When two or more people coordinate in a spirit of harmony and work toward a definite objective or purpose, they place themselves in a position, through the alliance, to absorb the power directly from the great storehouse of Infinite Intelligence.
Adults gifted with perceptivity are those who can hear the flowers singing within others not yet aware of their own gifts… [They are able to] understand the meaning of personal symbols and to see beyond the superficiality of a situation to the person beneath... People who are gifted at "seeing" often seem to have a touch of magic about them... Jane Austen, Langston Hughes, Anne Hutchinson, William Shakespeare, and Henry David Thoreau are all examples.
A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.
George S. Patton, General (1885-1945)
A pint of sweat, saves a gallon of blood.
George S. Patton, General (1885-1945)
All the survivors of the war had reached their homes and so put the perils of battle and the sea behind them.
Homer , The Odyssey, line 1
Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed.
Winston Churchill, Sir (1874-1965)
Before a war military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war it seems more like astrology.
Rebecca West
Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it.... You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week.
Will Rogers (1879-1935)
Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive.
Ayn Rand
I don't know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war.
Pentagon official, on why US military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War