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
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“He smelleth the battle afar off.”
The Bible (active around 812) bartlett, Public domain source
“The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.”
The Bible (active around 812) bartlett, Public domain source
“Africa's development depends on it. I fight this battle for all African women”
Mariama Mamane wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Red Army has been created by the workers for the struggle with the White Army of capital. The Red Army issued out the civil war; it will disappear when a complete victory has been gained in the war, when class has been abolished when the dictatorship of the proletariat has lapsed.”
Nikolai Bukharin (1888–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no pattern to who lives and who dies in war . . . In war, people die because they do. - Dr Ahmet Talzani”
Scott Anderson (novelist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was sad. It's war. Many others died, too. It's war.”
Wilhelm Frick (1877–1946) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: About the death of his son, to Leon Goldensohn, March 10, 1946, "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn - History - 2007
“That's why the peoples have to die -- so that the Jew can live. He drives the peoples to war to make a profit from the fratricide of the white race. In the World War II million gentiles had to die. The Jew was the winner.”
Julius Streicher (1885–1946) first seen 1932 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 20 May 1932, speech in the Hercules Hall in Nuremberg ("Kampf dem Weltfeind", Stürmer publishing house, Nuremberg, 1938)
“War is possible only if you have a lot of enemies. If all the enemies get together and form one front - if you cut down the number of enemies - there would be no war.”
Albert Kesselring (1885–1960) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To Leon Goldensohn, February 4, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004.
“I hope that this execution is the last act of the tragedy of the Second World War, and that the lesson taken from this world war will be that peace and understanding should exist between peoples. I believe in Germany.”
Arthur Seyss-Inquart (1892–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Last words, 10/16/46. Quoted in "Justice at Nuremberg" - Page 506 - by Robert E. Conot - History - 1984
“Germany could not win this war because it was in league with the devil. This war would not have ended without revolution.”
Erich von dem Bach (1899–1972) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To Leon Goldensohn (14 February 1946) from The Nuremberg Interviews (2004) by Leon Goldensohn and Robert Gellately
“Recently I was discharged from the German army while in this prison and was informed that I am on the so-called war criminal list number seven. I haven't the faintest idea of what war crime I could have committed. The main thing is that I have a clear conscience.”
Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist (1881–1954) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To Leon Goldensohn (12 June 1946). Quoted in "The Nuremberg Interviews", Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellatel (2004).
“Living in your pre-war apartment Soon to be your post-war apartment”
Regina Spektor (born 1980) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In my opinion, a war between England and Germany was a war between brothers. In my inner self I admired the English government and political system.”
Walter Schellenberg (1910–1952) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To Leon Goldensohn (13 March 1946). Quoted in "The Nuremberg Interviews" - by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
“We will do all we can to insure peace... but if war is imposed upon us we will be together shoulder to shoulder as in the last war to strive for the happiness of mankind.”
Georgy Zhukov (1896–1974) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "Odd World: A Photo-reporter's Story" - Page 299 - by John Phillips - 1959
“Here they found real war, but they were not ready for it. They were used to easy victories. This deprived them of flexibility on the one hand, of tenacity on the other. For them, war was merely maneuvers. They have neither cavalry nor skiers, their tanks cannot pass over the snow.”
Georgy Zhukov (1896–1974) first seen 1944 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "The Tempering of Russia" - Page 120 - by Alexander Samuel Kaun - 1944
“We are in no position to withstand a prolonged static war. Wherever the allies concentrate their forces they will break through. For us there can be no question of military victory or of winning the war. Our only hope is to hold on long enough to allow some development on the political front to save Germany from complete collapse.”
Gerd von Rundstedt (1875–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "Hitler's last gamble: the Battle of the Bulge" - Page 61 - by Jacques Nobécourt - History - 1967
“Citizens of Israel, we are at war – not in an operation, not in rounds – at war.”
Benjamin Netanyahu (born 1949) first seen 2023 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Assertion after Hamas had launched a major attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip in which at least 1,300 Israelis died, as cited in "Netanyahu says Israel is ‘at war’ as Palestinian militants launch surprise air and grou…
“We are embarking on a long and difficult war. The war was forced upon us by a murderous attack by Hamas.”
Benjamin Netanyahu (born 1949) first seen 2023 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Israel suspends supply of electricity, fuel, and goods to Gaza" by Zika Klein and Tovah Lazaroff, in Jerusalem Post (8 October 2023)
“Today, the picture is more black. War would riot only mean a threat to our independence, it may mean the end of civilisation and even of human life. There is a force loose in the world whose potentiality for evil no man truly knows. Even in practice and rehearsal for war the effects may well be building up into something of unknown horror.”
Sukarno (1901–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The colossus of World War II seemed to be like a pyramid turned upside down, and for the moment the whole burden of the war rested on the few hundred German fighter pilots on the Channel coast.”
Adolf Galland (1912–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We hear warmongering every day, every day we hear threats and attempts to scare us... We don’t want war and never wanted, but at that time [i.e. during Nagorno-Karabakh war] we had to defend our Motherland. If the time comes again, this time our blow will be final and deadly.”
Serzh Sargsyan (born 1954) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: President Serzh Sargsyan speaks after the military exercises (November 11, 2010)
“What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such … That is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”
Francis Fukuyama (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Chechens had humiliated the might of Russia in the First Chechen War (1994–6), which [[Boris Yeltsin|[Boris] Yeltsin]] had started in a drunken rage. The Russian Army had fought the war with great brutality and greater incompetence. The Chechens fought them to a kind of stalemate, partly because Yeltsin, when he had sobered up, realized that he had been stupid and cruel.”
John Sweeney (journalist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The chances of civil war are high because, after the Prigozhin fireball, everybody knows that any deal, any promise backed by the word of Vladimir Putin has no value. In the long run, Navalny's prophecy from his dog kennel, of civil war, of a catastrophic failure of the Russian state, are more likely to come true than not.”
John Sweeney (journalist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Pity the planet, all joy gone from this sweet volcanic cone; peace to our children when they fall in small war on the heels of small war—until the end of time to police the earth, a ghost orbiting forever lost in our monotonous sublime.”
Robert Lowell (1917–1977) said by 1977 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[I]f within a decade and a half you massacre ten million people in war and another ten million in civil war, it is not easy after that to return to a morality that regards it as wrong to pocket a salt-spoon.”
Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957) said by 1957 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The war has now moved from China to South Eastern Asia, and is about to enter the stage of the war for all Asia.”
Toshio Shiratori (1887–1949) first seen 1944 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "Why We Lost Singapore" - Page 61 - by Dorothy Crisp - 1944.
“I said I would write a introduction on one condition, that you people don't send me emails telling me liking war is a sign of unhealthiness or some psychoanalytical crap. I'm a war nerd. A backseat sergeant. I know what I am.”
John Dolan (writer) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Owê war sint verswunden alliu mîniu jâr ist mir mîn leben getroumet oder ist ez wâr.”
Walther von der Vogelweide (1170–1230) said by 1230 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I haven't heard the president say that we are at war, and that's why I too am not knowing, do we use this, the term "intervention"? Do we use "war"? Do we use "squirmish"? What is it?”
Sarah Palin (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“War is war. The strong will always crush the weak. The only difference is that in the process some have made a lot of money and others a lot of misery.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sir, it is true that republics have often been cradled in war, but more often they have met with a grave in that cradle. Peace is the interest, the policy, the nature of a popular Government. War may bring benefits to a few, but privation and loss are the lot of the many. An appeal to arms should be the last resort, and only by national rights or national honor can it be justified.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) first seen 1846 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Debate in the House of Representatives, (6 February 1846).
“Who causes war? War is caused by our primal fear of not surviving. This is a two-sex fear. And because the fear is so primal, we are easily seduced into exaggerating the evil intent of anyone [who] might threaten our survival. Why? One mistake of underestimating a threat could leave everyone wiped out; many mistakes of overestimating would just leave men wiped out.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When we train men for war, we lose some part of every man we train -- even if we win the war. When we train men to be better nurturers, even men who fail the course will have won. And so will every child they ever meet. Training men to love is a nation’s best investment.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(on soccer) Americans don't need a metaphor for war. We have war.”
John Hodgman (born 1971) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: June 8, 2006
“We are against war and the sources of war. We are for poetry and the sources of poetry. They are everyday, these sources, as the sources of peace are everyday, infinite and commonplace as a look, as each new sun.”
Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What have the Aldermen, the Common-Council, or indeed all People of any Substance to do with the War, but to pay Taxes? The Hardships and Fatigues of War that are personally suffer'd, fall upon them that bear the Brunt of every Thing, the meanest Indigent Part of the Nation, the working slaving People.”
Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733) said by 1733 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We make war and revolution at the same time. Militiamen are fighting for the conquest of the land, the factories, bread, and culture … the pickaxe and the shovel are as important as the rifle. Comrades, we will win the war!”
Buenaventura Durruti (1896–1936) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview (3 October 1936), as quoted in Durruti in the Spanish Revolution (1996) by Abel Paz, as translated by Chuck W. Morse (2007), p. 536
“War was a masculine art, but when you started attacking women, you’d stopped engaging in war. You deserved anything that happened to you after that point.”
Brandon Sanderson (born 1975) first seen 1165 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter 111, “Unchained” (p. 1165)
“The laws of war do not apply only to the suspected criminals of vanquished nations. There is no moral or legal basis for immunizing victorious nations from scrutiny. The laws of war are not a one-way street.”
Telford Taylor (1908–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It wasn’t a city anymore, it was a collection of broken places separated by war without politics or acquisition so not war at all really but something more pathological.”
China Miéville (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Money was the crux. Raising money to pay the cost of war was to cause more damage to 14th century society than the physical destruction of war itself.”
Barbara Tuchman (1912–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The real reason for his attitude lay deeper. Essentially, Gloucester and the barons of his party were opposed to peace because they felt war to be their occupation. Behind them were the poorer knights and squires and archers of England, who, unconcerned with rights or wrongs, were “inclined to war such as had been their livelihood.”
Barbara Tuchman (1912–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The only time Republicans will shake fists and point fingers is over a war delayed, one that isn't led by the US, or a war waged without the necessary conviction (read collateral damage).”
Ilana Mercer first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On The War Path With Samantha Power,” Economic Policy Journal, June 7, 2013.
“He who saves you from war is better than he who sends you to war.”
Ilana Mercer first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Proof Is In The Putin" Barely A Blog, September 14, 2013.
“Yankees are fond of citing Confederacy officials in support of slavery and a war for slavery. Most Southerners, however, were not slaveholders. All Southerners were sovereigntists, fighting a 'War for Southern Independence.' They rejected central coercion. Southerners believed a union that was entered voluntarily could be exited in the same way.”
Ilana Mercer first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Yankee Supremacists Trash South’s Heroes," Praag.org June 26, 2015.
“To comprehend the hysterical mass contagion that is the war on Trump it's essential to trace the contours of that other war, 'Operation Iraqi Freedom,' and the way it was peddled to the American public.”
Ilana Mercer first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Beware The Atavistic Dynamics Undergirding Two American Wars," The Ludwig von Mises Centre For Property and Freedom, June 21, 2017.
“The 20th century has been a badly written drama, from the beginning. The opposite of a Greek drama. Act one: Greed and hypocrisy leading to a genocidal world war, a boom, a crash, totalitarianism. Act two: Greed and hypocrisy leading to a genocidal world war, a boom, a crash, totalitarianism. Act three: Greed and hypocrisy … I don't dare continue.”
Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science follows the evidence wherever it leads, but Darwinism does not. So the present controversy over evolution is not a war between science and religion. It is primarily a war between Darwinism and evidence--and the evidence will win.”
Jonathan Wells (1942–2024) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Problem Of Evidence, 2009.
“Poetry will never win the war on terror But neither will error abetted by error We girly men are not afraid Of uncertainty or reason or interdependence We think before we fight, then think some more Proclaim our faith in listening, in art, in compromise So be a girly man & sing this gurly song Sissies & proud That we would never lie our way to war”
Charles Bernstein (born 1950) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Ballad of the Girlie Man", Milk Magazine, no. 6, 2005. Anthologized in Girlie Man (2006), .