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“As long as 1911, when I was still a member of the Socialist Party, I wrote that the Gordian knot of Trent could be cut only by the sword. At the same date I declared that war is usually the prelude to revolution. It was therefore easy for me, when the Great War broke out, to predict the Russian and the German revolutions.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1932 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Talks with Mussolini, Emil Ludwig, Boston, MA, Little, Brown and Company (1933), p. 84, Interview took place between March 23 and April 4, 1932
“Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He is weak and he is ineffective. So the only way he figures he is going to be reelected and as sure as you are sitting there, is to start a war with Iran.”
Donald Trump (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Their peace and their war Are like wind and storm.War grows from their peace.”
Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Those at the top say: peace and war" [Die Oberen sagen: Friede und Krieg] from "A German War Primer" [Deutsche Kriegsfibel] (1937), trans. Lee Baxendall in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 288
“The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery.”
Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the American Civil War (1861); as quoted in Afro-American Writing: An Anthology of Prose and Poetry, by Richard A. Long.
“The towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble, along with all hopes for Peace in Our Time, in the United States or any other country. Make no mistake about it: We are At War now — with somebody — and we will stay At War with that mysterious Enemy for the rest of our lives.”
Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Kingdom of Fear" (12 September 2001)
“This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed — for anyone, and certainly not for anyone as baffled as George W. Bush. All he knows is that his father started the war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child-President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it. Now.”
Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: When War Drums Roll" (17 September 2001)
“It is hard to ignore the prima facie dumbness that got us bogged down in this nasty war in the first place. This is not going to be like Daddy's War, old sport. He actually won, and he still got run out of the White House nine months later.. . The whole thing sucks. It was wrong from the start, and it is getting wronger by the hour.”
Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Love in a Time of War" (31 March 2003)
“Stop this war! Shame on you Hobbits! Shame on you! This is a fictitious war! This Lord was not elected by the popular — [a computer-generated Oliphaunt steps on Moore, crushing him].”
Michael Moore (born 1954) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In a humorous sendup of Moore's previous acceptance speech for Best Documentary Feature at the 2003 Oscars. Moore himself delivered the lines in the opening act of the 2004 Oscars, while standing in front of a greenscre…
“The motivation for war is simple. The U.S. government started the war with Iraq in order to make it easy for U.S. corporations to do business in other countries. They intend to use cheap labor in those countries, which will make Americans rich.”
Michael Moore (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the word "peace" was uttered for the first time, there was panic at the stock exchange. They screamed in pain: "We've been earning! Leave us the war! We've earned the war!”
Karl Kraus (writer) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Germans may take Paris, but that will not prevent me from going on with the war. We will fight on the Loire, we will fight on the Garronne, we will fight even in the Pyrenees. And if at last we are driven off the Pyrenees, we will continue the war at sea.”
Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Clemenceau and the Third Republic (1946) by John Hampden Jackson.
“I do not know whether war is an interlude in peace, or whether peace is an interlude in war.”
Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929) first seen 1919 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Senate (11 October 1919), quoted in George Bernard Noble, Policies and Opinions at Paris, 1919 (New York: Macmillan, 1935), p. 353
“If Iraq collapses in chaos and civil war, there will be a ferocious fight in this country over who misled us and who may have lied us, into war. Into the dock will go the neoconservatives whose class project this was.”
Pat Buchanan (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If war is the continuation of politics by other means, terrorism is the continuation of war by other means.”
Pat Buchanan (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As China is the one nation with the size, population, ideology and power to contest the United States for hegemony in Asia, is war inevitable? Answer: No more inevitable than was war between Germany and Great Britain in 1914.”
Pat Buchanan (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If the success of the Bush presidency hinges on the outcome of the war in Iraq, that war is even more critical to the cabal that exploited 9/11 to maneuver us into it... All the neocon eggs are in the Baghdad basket.”
Pat Buchanan (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I told Johnson and old colleagues on Capitol Hill that we had two clear choices. Either win the [[Vietnam War|[Vietnam] war]] in a relatively short time, say within a year, or pull out all our troops and come home.”
Barry Goldwater (1909–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Leninism is warlike from head to foot. War is impossible without cunning, without subterfuge. without deception of the enemy. Victorious war cunning is a constituent element of Leninist politics. But at the same time, Leninism is supreme revolutionary honesty toward the party and the working class. It admits of no fiction, no bubble-blowing, no pseudo-grandeur.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The New Course (1924)
“During war all institutions and organs of the State and of public opinion become, directly or indirectly, weapons of warfare. This is particularly true of the Press. No government carrying on a serious war will allow publications to exist on its territory which, openly or indirectly support the enemy.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In war, where both success and failure are repaid by death, hostile agents who penetrate into the rear are subject to execution. This is inhuman, but no one ever considered war a school of humanity.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(On the American Civil War) "History has different yardsticks for the cruelty of the Northerners and the cruelty of the Southerners in the Civil War. A slave-owner who through cunning and violence shackles a slave in chains, and a slave who through cunning or violence breaks the chains – let not the contemptible eunuchs tell us that they are equals before a court of morality!”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Here's how bizarre the war is that we're in in Iraq, and we should have known this right from the get-go: When we first went into Iraq, Germany didn't want to go. Germany. The Michael Jordan of war took a pass.”
Jon Stewart (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The greatest threat to the war on terrorism isn't the Islamic insurgency — our military can handle the savages. It's traitorous liberals trying to lose the war at home.”
Ann Coulter (born 1961) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: When Will NYT Reveal One of al Qaeda's Secret Programs?" (June 28, 2006).
“Every war results from the struggle for markets and spheres of influence, and every war is sold to the public by professional liars and totally sincere religious maniacs, as a Holy Crusade to save God and Goodness from Satan and Evil.”
Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cosmic Trigger II : Down to Earth (1991)
“In two nights you're going to have the Republican candidates here. They all support the war. They all support the president. They all supported the escalation. Each of us is trying in our own way to bring the war to an end.”
Hillary Clinton (born 1947) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Democratic Presidential Debate, Manchester, New Hampshire, June 3, 2007
“Maybe war is an inevitable product of human nature. Maybe to get rid of war, we have to become something other than human.”
Joe Haldeman (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a growing conviction among workingmen of all countries that, whatever may be accomplished by a national war, however high the supposed moral aim of such a war, there is one inevitable result—an increased standing army, the soldiers of which are non-producers and must be fed by the workers.”
Jane Addams (1860–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Power can win the body count but it cannot win this war. Because the enemy is not human. This is a war against a malicious spirit. Only fools attempt to defeat a spirit with guns and rockets and bombs.”
Gerry Spence (1929–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“First, America must have a strong defense. We must never forget that our national defense is about much more than the land within our borders. Just as we fought and conquered totalitarianism during World War Two — just as we fought and conquered communism during the Cold War — we are defending the idea of freedom itself.”
“One of the Generals in charge of this war policy went on a speaking tour in his spare time to declare before evangelical groups that the US is in a holy war as "Christian Nation battling Satan." This same General Boykin was the person who ordered the officer who was in charge of the detainees in Guantanamo Bay to extend his methods to Iraq detainees, prisoners.”
“In Catch-22, the figure of the black market and the ground of war merge into a monster presided over by the syndicate. When war and market merge, all money transactions begin to drip blood. (p. 211)”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The coverage is the war. If there were no coverage, there'd be no war. Yes, the newsmen and the mediamen around the world are actually the fighters, not the soldiers anymore.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The unformulated message of an assembly of news items from every quarter of the globe is that the world today is one city. All war is civil war. All suffering is our own.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had anger but never hate. Before the war, I was too busy studying to hate. After the war, I thought, What's the use? To hate would be to reduce myself.”
Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview in O : The Oprah Magazine (November 2000)
“None of us is in a position to eliminate war, but it is our obligation to denounce it and expose it in all its hideousness. War leaves no victors, only victims.”
Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[S]hould a French war be our fate, I trust you will concurr with me in the only means of making it successful, the withdrawing the greatest part of them [the troops] from America, and employing them against the French and Spanish settlements; but if we are to be carrying on a land-war against the rebels and against those two powers, it must be feeble in all parts and consequently unsuccessful.”
George III (1738–1820) first seen 1768 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord North (9 February 1778), quoted in The Correspondence of King George the Third with Lord North, From 1768 to 1783, Vol. II, ed. W. Bodham Donne (1867), pp. 153-154
“Rule 1, on page 1 of the book of war, is: "Do not march on Moscow". Various people have tried it, Napoleon and Hitler, and it is no good. That is the first rule. I do not know whether your Lordships will know Rule 2 of war. It is: "Do not go fighting with your land armies in China". It is a vast country, with no clearly defined objectives.”
Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (1887–1976) first seen 1962 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In the House of Lords, 30 May 1962 (Hansard, Col. 227)
“There are hundreds of other [Koranic] psalms and hadiths urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.”
Ruhollah Khomeini (1900–1989) first seen 1942 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Excerpted from "Islam Is Not a Religion of Pacifists" (1942), English translation in Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin, Anti-American Terrorism and the Middle East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 29, 32-36.
“Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat the enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed: War is such a dangerous business that mistakes that come from kindness are the very worst.”
Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) said by 1831 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Action in war is like movement in a resistant element. Just as the simplest and most natural of movements, walking, cannot easily be performed in water, so in war it is difficult for normal efforts to achieve even moderate results.”
Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) said by 1831 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 7, as translated by and (1976)
“Barnes dismissed his own past criticism of the World War II unconditional surrender policy as valid but superficial; for he had learned from General Albert C. Wedemeyer’s book that the murder of Germans and Japanese was the overriding aim of World War II – virtually an Anglo-American scalping party.”
Murray Rothbard (1926–1995) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1968
“[T]his species works intentionally on its own destruction (by war). This, however, does not keep the rational creatures of such a constantly advancing culture, even in the midst of war, from promising to mankind in coming centuries an unequivocal prospect of bliss which will never end.”
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) said by 1804 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Kant, Immanuel (1996), page 185
“I think what the Nobel committee is doing is going beyond war and looking at what humanity can do to prevent war. Sustainable management of our natural resources will promote peace.”
Wangari Maathai (1940–2011) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview in TIME (10 October 2004)
“It is not easy for a free community to organise for war. We are not accustomed to listen to experts or prophets. Our strength lies in an ability to improvise. Yet an open mind to untried ideas is also necessary. No-one can say when the end will come. In the war services it is recognised that the best security for an early conclusion is a plan for long endurance.”
John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The war we are fighting until victory or the bitter end is in its deepest sense a war between Christ and Marx. Christ: the principle of love. Marx: the principle of hate.”
Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I ask you: Do you want total war? If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even yet imagine?”
Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) first seen 1943 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Sportpalast speech, 18 February 1943
“They have not wanted Peace at all; they have wanted to be spared war — as though the absence of war was the same as peace.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the Record", Ladies Home Journal (May 1958)
“All my life I have been a pacifist. All my life I have hated war and loved peace. I have contributed to peace societies, written for peace, spoken for peace, paraded for peace. But today I seriously question whether our ways of seeking peace are not playing directly into the hands of those who love war and intend to pursue it.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No citizen should be permitted to become a member of or contribute to any organization whose members are pledged, or have ever been pledged, to tender prior loyalty to any state other than the United States, or to defend any state other than the United States in case of war, except as in such a war the United States might formally be allied with another power.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The war is over — the rebels are our countrymen again. The war is over, the Rebels are our countrymen again, and the best sign of rejoicing after the victory will be to abstain from all demonstrations in the field.”
Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) first seen 1865 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Upon stopping his men from cheering after Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House (9 April 1865)