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War Quotes

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War Quotes

“I have never seen an adequate description anywhere of the amazement, the uncomprehending horror of the bulk of the American people which preceded the firing of that gun at Sumter. Politicians or far-sighted leaders on both sides knew what was coming. And it is they who have written histories of the war. But to the easy-going millions, busied with their farms or shops, the onrushing disaster was as inexplicable as an earthquake. Their protest arose from sea to sea like the clamor of a gigantic hive of frightened bees.”

PeopleWarEasySidesLeaderMillionsWrittenSeaPoliticianHorrorGunDisasterCivil WarShopsDescriptionProtestFrightenedFarmsBeesBoth SidesAdequateEarthquakesAmazementInexplicableFiringClamorHivesEasy GoingWritten History
Author:Rebecca Harding Davis
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“War is the admission of defeat in the face of conflicting interests: by war the issue is left to chance, and the tacit assumption that the best man will win is not at all justified. It might equally be argued that the worst, the most unscrupulous man will win, although history will continue the absurd game by finding him after all the best man.”

MenWarMightFacesGamesWinningLeftInterestChanceIssuesWorstFindingsDefeatAbsurdAssumptionJustifiedAdmissionAll The BestTacit
Book:the female eunuch
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“War is the matter which fills all history; and consequently the only, or almost the only, view in which we can see the external of political society is in a hostile shape: and the only actions to which we have always seen, and still see, all of them intent, are such as tend to the destruction of one another.”

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Book:Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches
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“The desire for magic cannot be eradicated. Even the most supposedly rational people attempt to practice magic in love and war. We simultaneously possess the most primitive of brain stems and the most sophisticated of cortices. The imperatives of each coexist uneasily.”

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Book:What Do Women Want?: Essays by Erica Jong
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“Our first and most pressing problem is how to do away with warfare as a method of solving conflicts between national groups or between groups within a society who have different views about how the society is to be run. If you look back, you will see that warfare was an invention, just as ways of handling government or taxes are inventions. You will see, too, that once people use an invention they go on using it until they find another which they think is superior.”

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Book:PEOPLE AND PLACES
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“No technological achievements can mitigate the disappointment of modern man, his loneliness, his feeling of inferiority, and his fear of war, revolution and terror. Not only has our generation lost faith in Providence but also in man himself, in his institutions and often in those who are nearest to him.”

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Book:Aspects of I.B. Singer
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“While the poet entertains he continues to search for eternal truths, for the essence of being. In his own fashion he tries to solve the riddle of time and change, to find an answer to suffering, to reveal love in the very abyss of cruelty and injustice. Strange as these words may sound I often play with the idea that when all the social theories collapse and wars and revolutions leave humanity in utter gloom, the poet--whom Plato banned from his Republic--may rise up to save us all.”

TryingMayIdeasWarPlaySufferingHumanitySocialSoundAnswersFashionStrangePoetTheoryRevolutionEternalEssenceInjusticeSolveCrueltyRepublicCollapsePlatoAbyssGloomRiddleBannedTime And ChangeSocial Theory
Book:Aspects of I.B. Singer
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“Neurotics, who cause less distress to themselves and their neighbours than those in the other category, are at war with their own natures. Their right hands are in conflict with their left. Psychotics, and it is those who commit purposeless crimes and prefer death to life, are at war with their environment. Right and left hands strike against the womb that carries them.”

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Book:The meaning of treason
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“To try to stop war by placing before men's eyes the terrible suffering involved will never succeed, because men are willing (in their thoughts and imaginations at least) to face any kind of suffering when motivated by noble aims like the vague and tremendous concept of freedom ... Or, in their humility (or sloth - who knows?) men are quite willing to leave decisions to others 'who know more about it than we do.”

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Author:Dorothy Day
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“The century would seek to dominate nature as it had never been dominated, would attack the idea of war, poverty and natural catastrophe as never before. The century would create death, devastation and pollution as never before. Yet the century was now attached to the idea that man must take his conception of life out to the stars.”

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Book:Of A Fire On The Moon
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“If we could learn how to utilize all the intelligence and patent good will children are born with, instead of ignoring much of it - why - there might be enough to go around! There might be enough to solve our alarming human problems, to put an end to poverty, to stop waging wars.”

IfsHumansChildrenWarEndsEnoughProblemMightBornPovertySolveGood WillPatentsHuman ProblemsWaging War
Book:Vermont Tradition: The Biography of an Outlook on Life
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“All disasters stem from us. Why is there a war? Perhaps because now and then I might be inclined to snap at my neighbour. Because I and my neighbour and everyone else do not have enough love. Yet we could fight war and all its excrescences by releasing each day, the love which is shackled inside us, and giving it a chance to live.”

GivingWarEnoughMightFightingChanceDisasterEach DayNow And ThenStemNeighbourSnapsEnough Love
Book:An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943
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“In the sex-war, thoughtlessness is a weapon of the male, vindictiveness of the female. Both are reciprocally generated, but a woman's desire for revenge outlasts all other emotion. Yet when every unkind word about women has been said, we have still to admit, with Byron, that they are nicer than men. They are more devoted, more unselfish and more emotionally sincere. When the long fuse of cruelty, deceit and revenge is set alight, it is male thoughtlessness which has fired it.”

MenLongHas BeensSaidStillsWarDesireSexWomenEmotionWeaponsFemaleMalesRevengeCrueltyDeceitSincereDevotedUnkindUnselfishKind WordsFuseByronThoughtlessnessVindictivenessUnkind Words
Author:Cyril Connolly
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“It is a well-settled principle of the international code that where one nation owes another a liquidated debt which it refuses or neglects to pay the aggrieved party may seize on the property belonging to the other, its citizens or subjects, sufficient to pay the debt without giving just cause of war.”

GivingWellsMayWarNationsCausesPartyPayPrinciplesSubjectsCitizensPropertyInternationalRefuseDebtCodeSufficientNeglectBelongingCauses Of War
Book:Messages ...: With a Short Sketch of His Life
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“Historians differ on when the consumer culture came to dominate American culture. Some say it was in the twenties, when advertising became a major industry and the middle class bought radios to hear the ads and cars to get to the stores. ... But there is no question that the consumer culture had begun to crowd out all other cultural possibilities by the years following World War II.”

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Book:FEAR OF FALLING
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“The war with Iraq ... had to be one of the greatest non sequiturs in military history. Attacked by a gang composed largely of Islamic militants from Saudi Arabia, the United States countered by invading an unrelated country, and one of the most secular in the Middle East at that.”

WarCountryStatesUnitedUnited StatesMiddleMilitaryIraqEastIslamicMiddle EastSecularGangArabiaSaudi ArabiaSaudisInvadingMilitary History
Book:Going to Extremes: Notes from a Divided Nation
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