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War Quotes

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War Quotes

“Either the State for ever, crushing individual and local life, taking over in all fields of human activity, bringing with it its wars and its domestic struggles for power, its palace revolutions which only replace one tyrant by another, and inevitably at the end of this development there is ... death! Or the destruction of States, and new life starting again in thousands of centers on the principle of the lively initiative of the individual and groups and that of free agreement.The choice lies with you!”

HumansWarEndsStatesLyingChoicesIndividualPrinciplesStruggleGroupsFieldsRevolutionDevelopmentActivityDestructionStartingLocalsCrushAgreementTyrantsInitiativeNew LifePalacesLivelyHuman Activity
Author:Peter Kropotkin
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“There comes a terrible moment to many souls when the great movements of the world, the larger destinies of mankind, which have lain aloof in newspapers and other neglected reading, enter like an earthquake into their own lives--when the slow urgency of growing generations turns into the tread of an invading army or the dire clash of civil war, and grey fathers know nothing to seek for but the corpses of their blooming sons, and girls forget all vanity to make lint and bandages which may serve for the shattered limbs of their betrothed husbands.”

KnowsWorldMayWarSoulMomentsTurnsGirlReadingFatherForgetDestinyGrowingGenerationsMankindMovementSonTerribleHusbandArmyNewspapersVanityCivil WarGreyLimbsNeglectedCorpsesClashEarthquakesUrgencyShatteredBloomingAloofInvadingBandages
Book:Daniel Deronda
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“Firebugs dragging their gasoline bottles are approaching the Academy of Arts, with a grin. And so, instead of embracing them, let us demand the freedom of the elbow to knock the bottles out of their filthy hands. Even the most blockheaded bureaucrat, provided he loves peace, is a greater lover of the arts than any so-called art-lover who loves the arts of war.”

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Author:Bertolt Brecht
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“Wherever we turn we find that the real obstacles to peace are human will and feeling, human convictions, prejudices, opinions. If we want to get rid of war we must get rid first of all of its psychological causes. Only when this has been done will the rulers of the nations even desire to get rid of the economic and political causes.”

IfsWantFirstsHumansHas BeensWarRealDoneFeelingsPoliticalDesireTurnsNationsCausesOpinionEconomicPrejudiceConvictionObstaclesPsychologicalRulersHuman Will
Book:Ends and Means: An Inquiry into the Nature of Ideals
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“Even the alleged benefits of war, so far as more than alleged, spring from the fact that conflict of peoples at least enforces intercourse between them and thus accidentally enables them to learn from one another, and thereby to expand their horizons. Travel, economic and commercial tendencies, have at present gone far to break down external barriers; to bring peoples and classes into closer and more perceptible connection with one another.”

WarFactsClassBreakGoneEconomicConflictBenefitsSpringConnectionsTendenciesBarriersHorizonBreaking DownIntercourse
Book:Democracy And Education
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“Man makes one journey all his living days, Down through the realms of music and of art; Down through the halls of fame and glorious praise; Down through the tears and triumphs of the heart To some sweet woman waiting some place there. For her he builds his cities and makes war, Seeks gold and glorious wealth to store.”

MenHeartArtWarWaitingWomenWealthCitiesJourneyTearsSweetFameGoldPraiseStoresTriumphRealmsGloriousHallsMen WomenHall Of Fame
Author:John Updike
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“One of the many, many things I hate about war is how it trivializes the personal. The big themes, the broad sweep, the emergency measures, the national identity, all the things that a particular kind of man with a particular kind of power urge adores, these are the things that become important. War gives the lie to the personal, drowns it in meetings, alarms, sacrifices. The personal is only allowed to return as death.”

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Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“Poetry, even when apparently most fantastic, is always a revolt against artifice, a revolt, in a sense, against actuality. It speaks of what seems fantastic and unreal to those who have lost the simple intuitions which are the test of reality; and, as it is often found at war with its age, so it makes no account of history, which is fabled by the daughters of memory.”

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Book:Delphi Complete Works of James Joyce (Illustrated)
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“For the sake of humanity it is devoutly to be wished that the manly employment of agriculture and the humanizing benefits of commerce would supersede the waste of war and the rage of conquest; and the swords might be turned into ploughshares, the spears into pruning-hooks, and as the Scripture expresses it, "the nations learn war no more.”

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Book:Maxims of George Washington: Political, Military, Social, Moral, and Religious
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“The art of war is at once comprehensive and complicated; ... it demands much previous study; and ... the possession of it, in its most improved and perfect state, is always a great moment to the security of a nation. This, therefore, ought to be a serious care of every government; and for this purpose, an academy, where a regular course of instruction is given, is an obvious expedient, which different nations have successfully employed.”

ArtDifferentWarStatesMomentsGovernmentCarePurposeCoursesGivenNationsPerfectStudySecuritySeriousOughtDemandObviousPossessionComplicatedInstructionEmployedArt Of WarAcademyComprehensiveGreat Moments
Book:The speeches, addresses and messages, of the several presidents of the United States, at the openings of Congress and at their respective inaugurations: Also, the Declaration of independence, the Constitution of the United States, and Washington's farewell address to his fellow-citizens
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“War is the sure result of the existence of armed men. That country which maintains a large standing army will sooner or later have a war. The man who prides himself on fisticuffs is going, some day, to meet a man who considers himself the better man, and they will test the issue.”

MenWarCountryResultsExistenceIssuesHe ManPrideStandingTestsArmySooner Or LaterBetter Man
Book:Selected Writings of Elbert Hubbard ...
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“To overcome in battle, and subdue Nations, and bring home spoils with infinite Man-slaughter, shall be held the highest pitch Of human glory.”

MenHumansWarHomeNationsBattleHighestGloryOvercomingInfiniteSpoilSlaughter
Book:The Poetical Works of John Milton: With Notes of Various Authors; and with Some Account of the Life and Writings of Milton, Derived Principally from Original Documents in Her Majesty's State-paper Office
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“Before the Second World War I believed in the perfectibility of social man; that a correct structure of society would produce goodwill; and that therefore you could remove all social ills by a reorganisation of society. .... but after the war I did not because I was unable to. I had discovered what one man could do to another... I must say that anyone who moved through those years without understanding that man produces evil as a bee produces honey, must have been blind or wrong in the head...”

MenWorldYearsHas BeensWarEvilSocialUnderstandingProduceBlindMovedStructureWar Of The WorldsRemoveOne ManHoneyWorld War IBeesGoodwillSecond World WarReorganisation
Author:William Golding
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“Is it not tragic, for example, that while in the last World War almost everyone believed it was the war to end all wars and wanted to make it so, now in this Second World War almost no writer that I have read dares even suggest that this is the war to end all wars, or act on that belief? We have lost the courage to hope.”

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Book:Between Tears and Laughter
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