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. 1,159,190 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
War
LoveFriendshipHappinessHopeFearCourageDeathLifeTimeWarPeaceFreedomTruthWisdomKnowledgeScienceArtMusicNatureMoneyWorkPowerGodBeautyLaughterFamilySuccess and failureChangeDreamsBooks and reading
“The people who invaded and destroyed Iraq and have murdered more than a million Iraqi people by sanctions and war will burn in Hell in the hell-fires, and their name in history will be branded as killers and war criminals for all time. Fallujah is a Guernica, Falluajah is a Stalingrad, and Iraq is in flames as a result of the actions of these criminals.”
George Galloway (born 1954) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview on Abu Dhabi TV (20 November 2004).
“So nature does indeed need protection from man; but man, too, needs protection from his own acts, for he is part of the living world. His war against nature is inevitably a war against himself. His heedless and destructive acts enter into the vast cycles of the earth, and in time return to him.”
Rachel Carson (1907–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The vanquished know war. They see through the empty jingoism of those who use the abstract words of glory, honor, and patriotism to mask the cries of the wounded, the senseless killing, war profiteering, and chest-pounding grief.”
Chris Hedges (born 1956) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: War: Realities and Myths (11 June 2005)
“'The wall had come down,' Cohen said of the 1989 collapse of East Germany and the fall of the Berlin Wall. 'Germany was reunifying. The question became ‘where would a united Germany be?’ The West wanted Germany in NATO. For Gorbachev, this was an impossible sell. Twenty-seven point five million Soviet citizens had died in the war against Germany in the Second World War on the eastern front.”
Chris Hedges (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How naive we were. The war industry did not intend to shrink its power or its profits. It set out almost immediately to recruit the former Communist Bloc countries into the European Union and NATO... The expansion of NATO swiftly became a multi-billion-dollar bonanza for the corporations that had profited from the Cold War.”
Chris Hedges (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“America's two ruling parties depend on campaign funds from the war industry and are pressured by weapons manufacturers in their states or districts, who employ constituents, to pass gargantuan military budgets. Politicians are acutely aware that to challenge the permanent war economy is to be attacked as unpatriotic and is usually an act of political suicide.”
Chris Hedges (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everyone of you is old enough to have been a rifleman in Vietnam. A number of you are old enough to have been platoon leaders, or company commanders, depending on the situation, and how rapidly you move up in rank. This is the same business, we're just lucky, in this country, we don't use bullets, we use ballots instead. You're fighting a war. It is a war for power.”
Newt Gingrich (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When our nation struggled and fought against the Shah's regime, in actuality it was a revolt against America. … The imposed Iran–Iraq War is an example of America's attempted meddling against this revolution. We do not doubt that this war occurred at America's behest. As long as America's policies are based on domination and aggression, there will be no relations with America.”
Ali Khamenei (1939–2026) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Yvette Hovsepian-Bearce, The Political Ideology of Ayatollah Khamenei: Out of the Mouth of the Supreme Leader of Iran, London: Routledge, 2016, p. 82.
“The war may present or force a subject; it may bring out a poet, or shock him onto a sensibility of silence. It may kill him. Or germinate the best war poems for exfoliation years after the event.”
Richard Eberhart (1904–2005) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The War Poets ed. Oscar Williams. New York 1945
“Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.”
James Lovelock (1919–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“China is now suffering from poverty, not from unequal distribution of wealth. Where there are inequalities of wealth, the methods of Marx can, of course, be used; a class war can be advocated to destroy the inequalities. But in China, where industry is not yet developed, Marx's class war and dictatorship of the proletariat are impracticable.”
Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Capital and the State (1924)
“The American elite does not have any real image of peace — other than as an uneasy interlude existing precariously by virtue of the balance of mutual fright. The only seriously accepted plan for peace is the full loaded pistol. In short, war or a high state of war-preparedness is felt to be the normal and seemingly permanent condition of the United States.”
C. Wright Mills (1916–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Religion, virtually without fail, provides the army at war with its blessings, and recruits from among its officials the chaplain, who in military costume counsels and consoles and stiffens the morale of men at war.”
C. Wright Mills (1916–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some men want war for sordid, others for idealistic, reasons; some for personal gain, others for impersonal principle. But most of those who consciously want war and accept it, and so help to create its "inevitability," want it in order to shift the locus of their problems.”
C. Wright Mills (1916–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“War isn't civilized. War is failure. It's the ultimate result of a breakdown in public policy, and soldiers are the machines that handle that breakdown. In warfare, you're taught to do whatever you have to, to stay alive.”
Jesse Ventura (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And it's the same when there's a war on: it's the men who go to fight Women and children are civilians, when they're killed it's not right Men kill men in uniform, its the way war goes When they run they're cowards, when they stay they are heroes.”
Loudon Wainwright III (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Gestern war Concert Spirituel. Die Symphonie von Haydn war allerliebst und die Exekution vorzüglich gut. Mlle Wendling und ein welscher Tenorist Giuliano wurden ausgepfiffen. Danner und ein andrer welscher Geiger Giuliani wurden allgemein beklatscht. Eine Symphonie concertante von den Gebrüdern und Söhnen Thonberg [Romberg] fand Beifall. Das Konzert auf dem Fagotte von Devienne so so.”
Joseph Martin Kraus (1756–1792) first seen 1785 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter dated Paris, 3rd February 1785. To pater Roman Hofstetter in Amorbach, in: Irmgard Leux-Henschen, Joseph Martin Kraus in seinen Briefen, Stockholm 1978.
“Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die. And it is youth who must inherit the tribulation, the sorrow and the triumphs that are the aftermath of war.”
Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) first seen 1944 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Chicago, Illinois to the 23rd Republican national convention (27 June 1944)
“In the large sense the primary cause of the Great Depression was the war of 1914-1918. Without the war there would have been no depression of such dimensions. There might have been a normal cyclical recession; but, with the usual timing, even that readjustment probably would not have taken place at that particular period, nor would it have been a "Great Depression.”
Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whenever you have a possibility of going in two ways, either for peace or for war, for peaceful methods of for military methods, in the present age there is a strong prejudice for the peaceful ones. War seldom ever leads to good results.”
George F. Kennan (1904–2005) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "George Kennan Speaks Out About Iraq" at History News Network (26 September 2002)
“His petty syllabi, the sounds that stick, Inevitably modulating, in the blood. And war for war, each has its gallant kind. How simply the fictive hero becomes the real; How gladly with proper words the solider dies, If he must, or lives on the bread of faithful speech.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Many Franks of the sixteenth generation were killed in the muck of the trenches, he died not once but many times, developing an obsessive dread of war which never left him. By the time the Americans entered the war, he was turning his many thoughts to politics.”
Brian Aldiss (1925–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have said, and we will always say again, that we are opposed to the intervention of foreign military forces. But which was the lesser evil? Chaos, civil war, counter-revolution, and a new world war, or an intervention by Soviet troops? … I say clearly that the first alternative was the worst thing that could have occurred, and the second, the intervention of Soviet troops, was a necessary evil.”
Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Tito on the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, as quoted in Jasper Ridley, Tito: A Biography (Constable and Company Ltd., 1994), p. 342.
“If the Lord sends us war, we have got to face it like men, but God forbid we should manufacture war, and use it as an escape from our domestic difficulties. You can't expect a blessing on that.”
John Buchan (1875–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It seems to me that age, growing old, is a war between wisdom and bitterness. I’m not sure how I’ll come out of that war myself, assuming I get so far. Maybe some things are more important than life itself. But what?”
Stephen Baxter (born 1957) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was a war that was inevitable because it was a war that everybody wanted.”
Stephen Baxter (born 1957) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For he was a merciful man, who loved not slaughter, although his fierce faith drove him from war to war.”
H. Rider Haggard (1856–1925) first seen 1904 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Brethren (1904), PROLOGUE
“[W]e must recognise a new threat to the peace of the nations, indeed to the very fabric of society. We have seen in the last few years the growth of a cult of political violence, preached and practised not so much between states as within them. It is a sombre thought but it may be that in the 1970s civil war, not war between nations, will be the main danger we will face.”
Edward Heath (1916–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[On the Iraq War] I am against the war, but I do support our white troops. [laughter, long pause] No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I'm not a Republican. I'm not a member of the party of inclusion. Wonderful, tolerant, rational human beings they are...”
David Cross (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“War has been with us ever since the dawn of civilization. Nothing has been more constant in history than war.”
Robert Aumann (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We can't ignore the fact that ahead of us is a great war and this war is going to need significant preparation.”
Ahad Ha'am (1856–1927) said by 1927 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The friend, enemy, and combat concepts receive their real meaning precisely because they refer to the real possibility of physical killing. War follows from enmity. War is the existential negation of the enemy.”
Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was OK, us being Reds during the war, because we were all on the same side. But then the Cold War started. Almost overnight we became enemies of people who were close friends — they crossed the street to avoid us.”
Doris Lessing (1919–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hate begets hate, violence engenders violence, hypocrisy is answered by hypocrisy, war generates war, and love creates love.”
Pitirim Sorokin (1889–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am opposed to war; but war can only be avoided by exerting to the utmost the defensive forces of the State.”
Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) said by 1941 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We accept that there are legitimate casus belli: acts or situations "provoking or justifying war". The present debate feels off-centre, and faintly unreal, because the US and the UK are going to war for a new set of reasons (partly undisclosed) while continuing to adduce the old set of reasons (which in this case do not cohere or even overlap).”
Martin Amis (1949–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Disunion and civil war are at hand; and yet I fear disunion and war less than compromise. We can recover from them. The free States alone, if we must go on alone, will make a glorious nation.”
Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary (4 January 1861)
“Strikes and boycotting are akin to war, and can be justified only on grounds analogous to those which justify war, viz., intolerable injustice and oppression.”
Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary (6 April 1886)
“We must in our assumptions start from this axiom that the war will be global and lasting. All means of annihilation will be implemented, without any restriction. Preparing for real war must not be reduced to intervention and the improvement of a super-weapon. [...]”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In every war zone that I've been in, there has been a reality and then there has been the public perception of why the war was being fought. In every crisis, in every confrontation that has come my way, the issues have been far more complex than the public has been allowed to know.”
John le Carré (1931–2020) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Master of the Secret World: John le Carré on Deception, Storytelling and American Hubris" by Andrew Ross, in Salon (21 October 1996), also in Conversations with John Le Carré (2004), edited by Matthew J. B…
“I think that if anything has happened to Europe since 1945 that defines it, it is collectively Europeans do not believe in war anymore, until it comes as an absolute last resort, and then they’re going to do it rather badly. The United States, I think, still sees war as a necessary part of its existence..”
John le Carré (1931–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The threat of mutually assured destruction worked for the United States during the Cold War because it had proved its willingness to drop nuclear bombs on enemy cities at the end of World War II. It might work less well for Israel, because the Israeli Air Force has never deliberately targeted a large civilian population center, and its leaders have said its morality would not permit it do so.”
Alan Dershowitz (born 1938) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Preemption: A knife that cuts both ways, p. 100 (published 2007-2-17).
“If the general government should persist in the measures now threatened, there must be war. It is painful enough to discover with what unconcern they speak of war and threaten it. They do not know its horrors. I have seen enough of it to make me look upon it as the sum of all evils.”
Stonewall Jackson (1824–1863) first seen 1839 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Comments to his pastor (April 1861) as quoted in Memoirs of Stonewall Jackson by His Widow Mary Anna Jackson (1895), Ch. IX : War Clouds — 1860 - 1861, p. 141; This has sometimes been paraphrased as "War is the sum of a…
“Why is it relatively easy for a few armament makers to persuade 'men to go to war, to give their lives; and quite impossible for the much larger group who would benefit by another form of general destruction to persuade men to destroy their property? It is broadly, of course, because the folly of burning down houses is plain; the folly of the policies which lead to war is not so plain.”
Norman Angell (1872–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The parties, Fascist, or other, which bring about dictatorship want dictatorship. But John Smith who insists on certain policies which produce war does not want war. The first is the result of conscious intention duly carried into effect. The second is the result of an intention which miscarries, miscarries because of certain current errors and fallacies.”
Norman Angell (1872–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...most of the people in a war never fight for even a minute — though they bear for years and die forever. They do not fight, but only starve, only suffer, only die: the sum of all this passive misery is that great activity, War.”
Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The real war poets are always war poets, peace or any time.”
Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Poetry in War and Peace," Partisan Review (Winter 1945), p. 129
“Yes I'm talking about this war dance A patriotic romance And I know all you poets Have seen it all before About the stirring of those young hearts Back in the first world war”
Colin Moulding (born 1955) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“War and culture, those are the two poles of Europe, her heaven and hell, her glory and shame, and they cannot be separated from one another. When one comes to an end, the other will end also and one cannot end without the other. The fact that no war has broken out in Europe for fifty years is connected in some mysterious way with the fact that for fifty years no new Picasso has appeared either.”
Milan Kundera (1929–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But I respectfully suggest, Major, that the responsibility is slightly above your pay grade, to decide whether to take the nation to war alone, or to take the nation to war part way, or to take the Nation to work half-way. That is a real tough decision.”
Joe Biden (born 1942) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To Scott Ritter, in hearings about the disarmament process, before the Senate Committee on Armed Services (September 1998), quoted in