Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,808 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

English Italiano Polski עברית Français Português فارسی Español 中文 Русский Deutsch العربية हिन्दी 日本語 Ελληνικά Latina

War

Love Friendship Happiness Hope Fear Courage Death Life Time War Peace Freedom Truth Wisdom Knowledge Science Art Music Nature Money Work Power God Beauty Laughter Family Success and failure Change Dreams Books and reading

“History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.”
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address to the nation from the White House (16 January 1984)
“true wars are never won”
E. E. Cummings (1894–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wars, and the administration of public affairs, are the principal objects of history.”
Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) said by 1794 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Who knows whether, when a comet shall approach this globe to destroy it, as it often has been and will be destroyed, men will not tear rocks from their foundations by means of steam, and hurl mountains, as the giants are said to have done, against the flaming mass?—and then we shall have traditions of Titans again, and of wars with Heaven.”
Lord Byron (1788–1824) said by 1824 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Conversations of Lord Byron with Thomas Medwin (1832).
“Such bickerings to recount, met often in these our writers, what more worth is it than to chronicle the wars of kites or crows flocking and fighting in the air?”
John Milton (1608–1674) first seen 1670 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The History of England (1670), Book IV
“The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years, But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amidst the wars of elements, The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.”
Joseph Addison (1672–1719) said by 1719 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Pippa' Passworthy: This little upset across the water doesn't mean anything. Threatened men live long and threatened wars never occur.”
H. G. Wells (1866–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The hatefulness of a hated person is "real"—in hatred you see men as they are; you are disillusioned; but the loveliness of a loved person is merely a subjective haze concealing a "real" core of sexual appetite or economic association. Wars and poverty are "really" horrible; peace and plenty are mere physical facts about which men happen to have certain sentiments.”
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Alas! alas! who's injured by my love? What merchant's ships have my sighs drown'd? Who says my tears have overflow'd his ground? When did my colds a forward spring remove? When did the heats which my veins fill Add one more to the plaguy bill? Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still Litigious men, which quarrels move, Though she and I do love.”
John Donne (1572–1631) said by 1631 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thereupon the people picked a leader nearer to their mood, Churchill, who was at any rate able to grasp that wars are not won without fighting. Later, perhaps, they will pick another leader who can grasp that only Socialist nations can fight effectively.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People rarely win wars, governments rarely (completely) lose them. People (do completely) get killed.”
Arundhati Roy (born 1961) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Why America must stop the war now (23 October 2001) .
“The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.”
Arundhati Roy (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I can assure you that no kingdom has ever had as many civil wars as the kingdom of Christ.”
Montesquieu (1689–1755) said by 1755 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All, all of a piece throughout: Thy chase had a beast in view; Thy wars brought nothing about; Thy lovers were all untrue. 'Tis well an old age is out, And time to begin a new.”
John Dryden (1631–1700) said by 1700 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The peaceful peasant to the wars is prest, The fields lie fallow in inglorious rest.”
John Dryden (1631–1700) said by 1700 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Would I had been disposer of thy stars, Thou shouldst have had thy wish, and died in wars.”
John Dryden (1631–1700) said by 1700 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And so these men of Hindustan Disputed loud and long, Each in his own opinion Exceeding stiff and strong, Though each was partly in the right And all were in the wrong. So oft in theologic wars, The disputants, I ween, Rail on in utter ignorance Of what each other mean, And prate about an Elephant Not one of them has seen!”
John Godfrey Saxe (1816–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wars are not favourable to delicate pleasures.”
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Secret Vice" (lecture, 1931) published in The Monsters And The Critics And Other Essays (1983), edited by Christopher Tolkien
“Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved vastly more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history.”
Carl Sagan (1934–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fiend-like skill we display in the invention of all manner of death-dealing engines, the vindictiveness with which we carry on our wars, and the misery and desolation that follow in their train, are enough of themselves to distinguish the white civilized man as the most ferocious animal on the face of the earth.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At the height of their madness The night winds pause, Recollecting themselves; But no lull in these wars.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Youth is the time when hearts are large, And stirring wars Appeal to the spirit which appeals in turn To the blade it draws.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Marxism-Leninism is the denial of the exploitation of man by man, that has been precisely the source of crimes, wars, oppressions and calamities that humanity has suffered over millennia.”
Fidel Castro (1926–2016) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech (26 July 1972)
“Then he struggled with the mind; His proud heart he left behind. Now his wars on God begin; At stroke of midnight God shall win.”
William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) said by 1939 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They got money for wars, but can't feed the poor.”
Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The purpose of military is to start wars and change governments and it's not sort of...deter conflict? we're gonna invade countries? and you know, my mind was spinning...”
Wesley Clark (born 1944) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address to Commonwealth Club of California (3 October 2007)
“If in the modern world wars have unfortunately to be fought (and they do, it seems) then they must be stopped at the first possible moment, otherwise they corrupt us, they create new problems and make our future even more uncertain. That is more than morality; it's sense.”
Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview by James Cameron in Picture Post (28 October 1950)
“An end to wars, peace among the nations, the cessation of pillaging and violence — such is our ideal, but only bourgeois sophists can seduce the masses with this ideal, if the latter is divorced from a direct and immediate call for revolutionary action.”
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) first seen 1915 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Question of Peace" (July–August 1915); Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 293.
“Modern monopolist capitalism on a world-wide scale — imperialist wars are absolutely inevitable under such an economic system, as long as private property in the means of production exists.”
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He told of journeys, of where sun and moon go while we stand in dark, of an earth-journey he dreamed he would take some day deeper than roots ... He told of the dreams of man, wars, passions, griefs, and I, a tree, understood words – ah, it seemed my thick bark would split like a sapling's that grew too fast in the spring when a late frost wounds it.”
Denise Levertov (1923–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory.”
George S. Patton (1885–1945) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cavalry Journal (September 1933)
“Wars would be a lot better, I think, if guys would say to themselves sometimes "Jesus — I'm not going to do that to the enemy. That's too much.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I happened to read recently a remark by the American nuclear physicist W. Davidson, who noted that the explosion of one hydrogen bomb releases a greater amount of energy than all the explosions set off by all countries in all wars known in the entire history of mankind. And he, apparently, is right.”
Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address to the United Nations, New York City (September 18, 1959), as reported by The New York Times (September 19, 1959), p. 8. The physicist quoted was eventually found to be William Davidon, associate physicist at Ar…
“We are never going back to a party that wants to give unlimited money to fight foreign endless wars but demands we cut veteran benefits and retirement benefits at home.”
Donald Trump (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We stopped about five wars.”
Donald Trump (born 1946) first seen 2025 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Claimed without providing details or evidence, quoted in "Trump boasts he 'stopped about five wars' while opening new Scotland golf course, vows to work with Netanyahu" FOX News (July 29, 2025)
“When I was 16, I saw six people die horribly in an accident. I walked home holding on to walls and trees. It took me months to begin to function again. So I don't drive. But whether I drive or not is irrelevant. The automobile is the most dangerous weapon in our society — cars kill more than wars do. More than 50,000 people will die this year because of them and nobody seems to notice.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fruits of Christianity were religious wars, butcheries, crusades, inquisitions, extermination of the natives in America, and the introduction of African slaves in their place.”
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) said by 1860 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Monotheistic religions alone furnish the spectacle of religious wars, religious persecutions, heretical tribunals, that breaking of idols and destruction of images of the gods, that razing of Indian temples and Egyptian colossi, which had looked on the sun 3,000 years: just because a jealous god had said, 'Thou shalt make no graven image”
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) said by 1860 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth — and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago.”
Steve Jobs (1955–2011) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Fortune (19 February 1996)
“Friendship is one of the grand fundamental principles of "Mormonism"; [it is designed] to revolutionize and civilize the world, and cause wars and contentions to cease and men to become friends and brothers.”
Joseph Smith Jr. (1805–1844) first seen 1843 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: History of the Church, 5:517 (23 July 1843)
“A cabal of polemicists and public officials seek to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America’s interests.”
Pat Buchanan (born 1938) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Globalist (March 2003).
“The specter of single-issue religious groups is growing over our land. … One of the great strengths of our political system always has been our tendency to keep religious issues in the background. By maintaining the separation of church and state, the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars.”
Barry Goldwater (1909–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What course of action do you favor?” “Me? Why, none. Mary, if there is any one thing I have learned in the past couple of centuries, it’s this: These things pass. Wars and depressions and Prophets and Covenants—they pass. The trick is to stay alive through them.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He was still having trouble readjusting. Wars were something you studied, not something that actually happened.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But I do not willingly involve us in nationalistic wars; the side of the angels is seldom self-evident.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more wars.”
Abbie Hoffman (1936–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I believe that in the 20th century, humanity has learned from many, many experiences. Some positive, and many negative. What misery, what destruction! The greatest number of human beings were killed in the two world wars of this century. But human nature is such that when we face a tremendous critical situation, the human mind can wake up and find some other alternative. That is a human capacity.”
Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama (born 1935) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview in The New York Times (28 November 1993).
“Radical changes of identity, happening suddenly and in very brief intervals of time, have proved more deadly and destructive of human values than wars fought with hardware weapons.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If someone had told us in 1945 that in our lifetime religious wars would rage on virtually every continent, that thousands of children would once again be dying of starvation, we would not have believed it. Or that racism and fanaticism would flourish once again, we would not have believed it.”
Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source