Famous quotes
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“The decisions that I made in 2010 were made out of a concern for my country and the world that we live in. Since the tragic events of 9/11, our country has been at war. We've been at war with an enemy that chooses not to meet us on any traditional battlefield, and due to this fact we've had to alter our methods of combating the risks posed to us and our way of life.”
Chelsea Manning (born 1987) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I believe leaders of the business community, with few exceptions, have chosen to wage a one-sided class war today in our country—a war against working people, the unemployed, the poor, the minorities, the very young and the very old, and even many in the middle class of our society.”
Douglas Fraser (1916–2008) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Resignation letter from National Committee of Labor-Management Group, July 17, 1978; Published in: North Country Anvil, Nr. 28, (1978) p. 22
“The reality is this is a war. These people are waging war on us. This has gone on for 1,400 years. This is nothing new. And the whole time while this goes on, the police leaders or political leaders want to invite more! They want to invite more!”
Tommy Robinson (born 1982) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Former EDL leader Tommy Robinson arrives at scene of London terror attack", The Telegraph (22 March 2017)
“The division of the world into two mutually exclusive camps - the City of War and the City of Faith - lies at the heart of Islam's traditional view of existence. Places where Islam rules supreme and its laws are strictly obeyed are known as Dar al-Iman or the City of Faith. The rest of the world is signified under the title of Dar al-Harb or the City of War.”
Amir Taheri (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“From a distance you look like my friend Even though we are at war From a distance I just cannot comprehend What all this war is for.”
Julie Gold (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For eight years I have believed war to be impractical and a denial of our Hebrew-Christian tradition. The social teachings of Jesus are: (1) respect for personality; (2) service the "sumumbonum"; (3) overcoming evil with good; and (4) the brotherhood of man. Those principles as I see it are violated by participation in war.”
Bayard Rustin (1912–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The lesson from the Cold War is, if you give in to totalitarian impulses once, new demands follow... The West prevailed in the Cold War because we stood by our fundamental values and did not appease totalitarian tyrants.”
Flemming Rose (born 1958) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Editor at centre of Mohammed cartoons controversy in Denmark nominated for Nobel Prize", in The Daily Telegraph (4 February 2015)
“The renunciation of war indemnities, which has been greatly lauded in some quarters here, does not appear to me only in the shining light of the conciliation it will lead to, but, as a citizen, I also see it in the light of the colossal burdens to which Germany will be exposed if this struggle ends without war indemnities.”
Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If one wants to avoid war in Europe for a long time, then one must remove the things which are unsettling to a certain extent, and they include the separation of Germany from East Prussia which in my opinion is unpolitical and is seen as oppressive. But it is not at all an immediate question and certainly not a question of war.”
Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Rauscher (8 March 1924), quoted in Jonathan Wright, Gustav Stresemann: Weimar's Greatest Statesman (Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 269
“Ah, gentlemen, if we had only been a little more dependent on this capital during the war, perhaps the world would have had different ideas as to how the war must end!”
Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Reichstag (6 June 1924) on foreign loans to Germany, quoted in W. M. Knight-Patterson, Germany. From Defeat to Conquest 1913-1933 (1945), p. 348
“Foreign debt and inflation have nothing to do with my decision. Indeed, I can assure you that [the Falklands war is] not going to alleviate inflation or debt. It is true that the Falklands have served to unite Argentines. But I swear and repeat that the idea of solving these issues through war has never crossed my mind.”
Leopoldo Galtieri (1926–2003) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reportaje de Oriana Fallaci a Leopoldo F. Galtieri, Revista El porteño, August 1982
“Our people are going to war to perpetuate slavery, but the war will be its death knell.”
Sam Houston (1793–1863) said by 1863 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Revering Sam Houston, anti-Confederate patriot" (18 March 2016), by Michael Zak, Grand Old Partisan
“Today, the UK acts as Ukraine’s ally, providing it with military aid in the form of equipment and specialists, i.e., de facto, is leading an undeclared war against Russia. That being the case, any of its public officials (either military, or civil, who facilitate the war) can be considered as a legitimate military target.”
Dmitry Medvedev (born 1965) first seen 2023 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dmitry Medvedev: UK officials 'legitimate targets' in war on Ukraine", The National (1 June 2023)
“The art of politics is judging what circumstances permit and what they forbid. Look at the reputation of, say, John Brown and the abolitionists before the Civil War. Lincoln had very harsh things to say about John Brown in 1859. The Civil War vindicated John Brown.”
Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anytime the western countries go to war in the Middle East, it becomes a religious war.”
Rosie Malek-Yonan (born 1955) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "For Iraqi Christians, Money Bought Survival" (26 June 2008), by Andrew E. Kramer, The New York Times, New York: Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., p. 1.
“The experiences of the war changed both Baruch’s and Wilson’s attitude toward the large firm. Following the war their anti-firm rhetoric was replaced with praise for the large firm’s patriotism and contribution to progress.”
Neil Fligstein (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Democracy is a great spiritual force evolving itself from men, utilizing each, completing his incompleteness by weaving together all in the many-membered community life which is the true Theophany. The world today is growing more spiritual, and I say this not in spite of the Great War, but because of all this war has shown us of the inner forces bursting forth in fuller and fuller expression.”
Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In fact, Yalta left the truly important issue—arrangements for post-war Germany—off the table precisely because it was so important and intractable. And it is unlikely that the Western leaders could have got a better deal out of Stalin during these last months of the war, even if it had occurred to them to try.”
Tony Judt (1948–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It should be clear from this narrative that there is little to be gained from asking 'who started the Cold War?' To the extent that the Cold War was about Germany, the final outcome—a divided country—was probably preferred by all parties to a Germany united against them. No one planned this outcome in May 1945, but few were deeply discontented with it.”
Tony Judt (1948–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A Holy War," Longstreet said. He shook his head. He did not think much of the Cause. He was a professional: the Cause was Victory. It came to him in the night sometimes with a sudden appalling shock that the boys he was fighting were boys he had grown up with. The war had come as a nightmare in which you chose your nightmare side. Once chosen, you put your head down and went on to win.”
Michael Shaara (1928–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I've been thinking on your theories of defensive war, and look, Pete, if you don't mind the opinion of an aging military genius, just this once? Technically, by God, you're probably right. Hell, you're undoubtable right. This may be a time for defensive war. But, Pete, this aint the army for it. We aren't bred for the defense.”
Michael Shaara (1928–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You wanna know who lost World War Z? Whales. I guess they never really had a chance, not with several million hungry boat people and half the world's navies converted to fishing fleets. [...] So the next time someone tries to tell you about how the true losses of this war are "our innocence" or "part of our humanity"... Whatever, bro. Tell it to the whales.”
Max Brooks (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For the average person, all problems date to World War II; for the more informed, to World War I; for the genuine historian, to the French Revolution.”
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1909–1999) said by 1999 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The United States of America fought a horrific civil war that ended slavery. Yes, slavery was the reason for the Civil War.”
Dennis Prager (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“War against men are known to fewer and fewer of us. Mandatory conscription for the Vietnam War ended the year before I was born. Since then, the United States has effectively created a class of professional contract soldiers who do the government's fighting in faraway lands. Average men know more about collegiate basketball than they know about a given overseas conflict.”
Jack Donovan (born 1974) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Once, the men who ruled the world commissioned great works of art and public statues of bronze and marble to honor war heroes as exemplars of virtue- masculine virtue. Today's warriors are merely memorialized as victims of war, so that they can be regarded sympathetically by a society in which victimhood is a marker of moral purity and victory is morally suspect.”
Jack Donovan (born 1974) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[The civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo has] probably claimed more lives than any other conflict since the Second World War”
Jeremy Corbyn (born 1949) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Has Jeremy Corbyn ever supported a war?, BBC News (17 April 2018).
“There is always war,” said Dakkar, coldly. “There will always be war, whilst empires oppress and distort human potential.”
Adam Roberts (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They declared the war on drugs like a war on terror”
Killer Mike (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“War crimes are only committed by defeated powers. (But as the Nazis learned in 1945, unemployed war criminals can usually find work with the new hegemonic power.)”
Kevin Carson (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Foreign war is a very useful tool for manipulating the popular mind and keeping the domestic population under control. War is the easiest way to shift vast, unaccountable new powers to the State. People are most uncritically obedient at the very time they need to be most vigilant.”
Kevin Carson (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The multicultural policy has, at times, tended to emphasize the rights of ethnic minorities at the expense of the majority of Australians, thus unnecessarily encouraging divisions and weakening social cohesion. It has tended to be anti-British, and yet the people from the United Kingdom and Ireland form the dominant class of pre-war immigrants and the largest single group of post-war immigrants.”
Geoffrey Blainey (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The First World War shook the scaffolding of progress because it was deadly and unexpectedly long: it showed that technology could be two-faced. The war delivered one other insidious attack on the idea of progress by raising a moral question which the believers in progress had taken for granted: had the morality of Europeans improved during the long era of 'progress'?”
Geoffrey Blainey (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If, on the eve of the war, a fortune teller had pointed to all the Australian men between the ages of 20 and 30, and had predicted that a number equal to 60 per cent of that age group would be killed or permanently disabled in the coming war, she would have been ridiculed but she would have been correct.”
Geoffrey Blainey (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yes, the US military should leave Iraq and Afghanistan. But it should leave not because it is impossible for a modern military to defeat a bunch of tribal warriors. It should leave because it is fighting an American civil war by proxy. One, this is just sick. And two, the right place to fight a civil war is always at home.”
Curtis Yarvin (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To a good many southerners the events of 1861–1865 have been known as 'The War of Northern Aggression'. Never mind that the South took the initiative by seceding in defiance of an election of a president by a constitutional majority. Never mind that the Confederacy started the war by firing on the American flag. These were seen as preemptive acts of defense against northern aggression.”
James M. McPherson (born 1936) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: James M. McPherson. "The War of Southern Aggression" (19 January 1989), The New York Review of Books
“Foreigners assume that because of the war, the two sides must dislike each other more than West and East Germans did. The opposite is the case. Some of my students say, “The North would never attack us, we’re the same people,” as if the war never happened. And North Korea would now be just as committed to unification if it hadn’t.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The part of the U.S. Navy alone in this war was stupendous. And I wish here to acknowledge our debt not only to the men and women of the United States Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and their several Women's Reserves, but also to those innumerable civilians who aided the Navy's war effort.”
Ernest King (1878–1956) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From King's Foreword in Battle Stations! Your Navy In Action (1946) by Admirals of the U.S. Navy, p. 10
“The war against the self is the internalization of the war against nature. We have been taught that we need an act of will to overcome our base natures. But when we try too hard to be good, we only separate ourselves from others.”
Charles Eisenstein (born 1967) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Charles Eisenstein, Oral presentation in Baltimore, MD March 2012
“War is chaos. It always has been. But technology makes it worse. It changes the fear. At the Institute, I feared men. I feared what Titus and the Jackal could do to me. You see death coming there and can at least struggle against it. Here, you don't have such luxury. Modern war is fearing the air, the shadows, fearing the silence. Death will come and I won't even see it.”
Pierce Brown (born 1988) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What about the 200-year record of prominent Democrats who didn't bother with code words? They were openly and explicitly for slavery before the Civil War, supported lynching and 'Jim Crow' laws after the war, and regularly defended segregation and white supremacy throughout most of the 20th century.'”
Bruce Bartlett (born 1951) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bruce Bartlett, "Whitewash" (December 2007), The Wall Street Journal
“Korea was my first experience of fighting a shooting war and a conference table war at the same time. But I had two years of head-knocking with the Russians to teach me what it is that the Communists respect: FORCE.”
Mark W. Clark (1896–1984) said by 1984 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“World War II was an era in which America came of age as a world power. We had and we still have many lessons to learn. It was not surprising, perhaps, that we celebrated a victory when in reality we had not won the war. We had stopped too soon. We had been too eager to go home. We welcomed the peace, but after more years of effort and expenditure, we found that we had won no peace.”
Mark W. Clark (1896–1984) said by 1984 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“... marijuana in our country is already legal for privileged people ... the war on drugs has been a war on black and brown people.”
Cory Booker (born 1969) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: During the 5th Democratic debate (20 November 2019) Nick Corasaniti, Cory Booker Jokes Biden ‘Might Have Been High’ When He Made Marijuana Comments. The New York Times. 2019-11-20
“[A]nybody who has served in combat in any way understands that words are weapons. And I'm in a war. The war hasn't stopped. I've always used the books as a blunt instrument.”
Andrew Vachss (1942–2021) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dan Webster interview, originally published June 19, 2005, by the Spokesman Review,
“We need a robust but targeted military approach. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no war-monger. I opposed the Iraq war and worked for a decade as an Oxfam aid worker – but this isn’t Iraq. This is a humanitarian crisis.”
Jo Cox (1974–2016) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Jo Cox: Syria is not Iraq – we must take action now (10 September 2015)
“War is the health of the State and it is during war that one best understands the nature of that institution.”
Randolph Bourne (1886–1918) said by 1918 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: ¶2. Published under "The Development of the American State," The State (Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press, 1998), p. 27.
“Armenian crimes against humanity and war crimes against the Ottoman Turkish and Kurdish populations of eastern and southern Anatolia during World War I and its aftermath have been forgotten amidst congressional preoccupation with placating the vocal and richly financed Armenian lobby.”
Bruce Fein (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the Armistice came back no one took time to tell us about it; November 11 was just another day of drilling on the Plain. I found out that the war was over only by courtesy of our "barrack policemen", the janitor who looked after the division of the old South Barracks where my "beast" company was quartered, who reported the war's end a couple of days after the fact.”
Maxwell D. Taylor (1901–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Peace has been as bad as war. Peace has killed as many people as war. Peace is as bad. Peace is as bad...”
Gabrielle Roy (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source