quotations about war
Superiority in war ... cannot surely be a proof of justice, since wars are often unjustly undertaken, and successfully, though wickedly, carried on and concluded.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
No one should be surprised at the prominence given to war. We are dealing with early ages: nation-making is the occupation of man in these ages, and it is war that makes nations.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
The line, broken into moving fragments by the ground, went calmly on through fields and woods. The youth looked at the men nearest him, and saw, for the most part, expressions of deep interest, as if they were investigating something that had fascinated them. One or two stepped with overvaliant airs as if they were already plunged into war. Others walked as upon thin ice. The greater part of the untested men appeared quiet and absorbed. They were going to look at war, the red animal--war, the blood-swollen god. And they were deeply engrossed in this march.
STEPHEN CRANE
The Red Badge of Courage
What lackeys men are, who might be such fine fellows!
To be killing each other, unmercifully,
At an order, as though one said, "Bring up the tea."
AMY LOWELL
"A Ballad of Footmen"
War among men defiles this world.
T. S. ELIOT
Murder in the Cathedral
Eventually, you hope. Obviously, we're not in a position at the moment for the eradication of war to seem like anything but a far-off dream. But at one time, the eradication of slave markets in the United States seemed very far off. I mean, people have to begin somewhere. We can change. We can evolve as a species. It's not simple, and it's a very long and drawn-out process, but you can hope.
SUZANNE COLLINS
interview, Hogwarts Professor, August 15, 2010
Fifteen millions of soldiers with popguns and horses
All bent upon killing, because their "of courses"
Are not quite the same.
AMY LOWELL
"A Ballad of Footmen"
We are now in the midst of our first television war ... the television environment [is] total and therefore invisible. Along with the computer, it has altered every phase of the American vision and identity. The television war has meant the end of the dichotomy between civilian and military. The public is now a participant in every phase of the war, and the main actions of the war are now being fought in the American home itself.
MARSHALL MCLUHAN
War and Peace in the Global Village
You wouldn't believe how many I've seen coming up the road here. But precious few going back. Well, that's what war is, I believe. I always try to tell myself they're still there -- I mean, wherever it was they went -- but you know and I know there's a lot that have gone to stay.
GENE WOLFE
The Claw of the Conciliator
The term "just war" contains an internal contradiction. War is inherently unjust, and the great challenge of our time is how to deal with evil, tyranny, and oppression without killing huge numbers of people.
HOWARD ZINN
Terrorism and War
When a war breaks out, people say: "It's too stupid; it can't last long." But though the war may well be "too stupid," that doesn't prevent its lasting. Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves.
ALBERT CAMUS
The Plague
War is not pretty from any angle, and the most vulnerable organ in the body is the brain.
FRANK LAWLIS
PTSD Breakthrough: The Revolutionary, Science-Based Compass RESET Program
While Congress cuts programs for basic human needs, our costs of post-9/11 wars -- including future veteran care -- stand at $4.4 trillion. We've spent $7.6 trillion on defense and homeland security. Yet spending those same dollars on peaceful industry -- education, health care, infrastructure, and renewable energy -- could produce many more and better paying jobs.
DOUG WINGEIER
letter to the Editor, Smoky Mountain News, February 3, 2016
The modern State is by its very nature a military State; and every military State must of necessity become a conquering, invasive State; to survive it must conquer or be conquered, for the simple reason that accumulated military power will suffocate if it does not find an outlet.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
Statism and Anarchy
We may have hell if we have war, and we may have hell if we have peace. But if we have no vision for what we do, we have hell anyway.
GERALD STANLEY LEE
The Air-line to Liberty: A Prospectus for All Nations
It's hard to recapture the horror that earlier generations of Americans felt about preventive war when it was still something that other countries did to the United States and not merely something Americans contemplate doing to others. They viewed it the way some Americans still view torture: as liberation from the moral restraints that human beings require.
PETER BEINART
"How America Shed the Taboo Against Preventive War", The Atlantic, April 21, 2017
War seldom enters but where wealth allures.
JOHN DRYDEN
The Hind and the Panther
Beware the toils of war ... the mesh of the huge dragnet sweeping up the world.
HOMER
The Iliad
War is hell and all that, but it has a good deal to recommend it. It wipes out all the small nuisances of peace-time.
IAN HAY
The First Hundred Thousand
The nation having the strongest war footing can easily find an excuse for going to war.
LEWIS F. KORNS
Thoughts