Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,161,747 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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“Germ warfare against the United States would escalate to war against all humanity.”
Yoshijirō Umezu (1882–1949) said by 1949 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "The Second Attack on Pearl Harbor" - Page 201 - by Steve Horn - History - 2005.
“The certain way to victory...lies in making everything on Imperial soil contribute to the war effort...combining the total material and spiritual strength of the nation...”
Yoshijirō Umezu (1882–1949) said by 1949 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "Suicide Squads: Axis and Allied Special Attack Weapons of World War II" - Page 267 - by Richard O'Neill - History - 1981.
“A war minister is able to force the adoption of any measure desired by the Camp or to block any measure that meets his disapproval.”
Sadao Araki (1877–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "Shakai kagaku tokyu" - Page 883 - by Waseda Daigaku Shakai Kagaku Kenkyujo, Waseda Daigaku Ajia Taiheiyo Kenkyu Senta - Social sciences - 1992
“If we have a thousand bamboo spears, there's nothing to worry about a war with the Soviet Union.”
Sadao Araki (1877–1966) first seen 1960 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "Sugamo Diary" - Page 30 - by Yoshio Kodama - 1960
“Defense is the first act of war.”
Byron Katie (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In any democracy, there is always a tug-of-war between policies to achieve equality and policies to promote excellence. I am certain that Canada can achieve both equality and excellence.”
John Turner (1929–2020) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1968 Liberal Party Leadership convention speech, April 5, 1968. ()
“Settle it therefore in your minds, as a maxim never to be effaced or forgotten, that atheism is an inhuman, bloody, ferocious system, equally hostile to every useful restraint and to every virtuous affection; that, leaving nothing above us to excite awe, nor round us to awaken tenderness, it wages war with heaven and with earth: its first object is to dethrone God, its next to destroy man.”
Robert Hall (1764–1831) said by 1831 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The best war is when you can hate both sides.”
John Dolan (writer) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Lo, steel-clad War his gorgeous standard rears ! The red-cross squadrons madly rage, And mow thro' infancy and age”
Samuel Rogers (1763–1855) said by 1855 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To the memory of the Man, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”
Henry Lee III (1756–1818) first seen 1799 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Memoirs of Lee, "Eulogy on Washington", Dec. 26, 1799, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). First presented in a slightly modified form as: "To the memory of the Man, first in war, first in peace…
Also quoted by: Henry Lee
“My mother was a Chinese trapeze artist in pre-war Paris Smuggling bombs for the underground. And she met my father at a fete in Aix-en-Provence; He was disguised as a Russian cadet in the employ of the Axis.”
Colin Meloy (born 1974) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: My Mother was a Chinese Trapeze Artist (5 Songs - 2001)
“We wasted a lot of creative energy in that immediate post colonial era, when there was a struggle between, you know, the Cold War between the capitalism and communism. Many writers just wasted their energy and their talent because they want to be ideologically correct and of course all they produced was propaganda.”
Wole Soyinka (born 1934) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Nobel Prize in Literature 1986
“No. Let me put it this way, turning anything in my life into something other people can watch, pains me. I assisted them in trying to locate a house in which I hid and operated during the civil war. They were looking for something close to one we were using during that period.”
Wole Soyinka (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“ATF, all you tyrannical people will swing in the wind one day for your treasonous actions against the Constitution of the United States. Remember the Nuremberg War Trials.”
Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Timothy McVeigh & Terry Nichols: Oklahoma Bombing" (2010), TruTv.
“We have no proverbial tea to dump, should we instead sink a ship full of Japanese imports? Is a Civil War Imminent? Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system? I hope it doesn't come to that. But it might.”
Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If there is a hell, then I'll be in good company with a lot of fighter pilots who also had to bomb innocents to win the war.”
Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dead Man Talking, The Observer (April 22, 2001)
“With Oklahoma City being a counterattack, I was only fighting by the rules of engagement that were introduced by the aggressor. Waco started this war. Hopefully Oklahoma would end it.”
Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It has come to the point where the North must exterminate us or agree to separation… The war may still go on for a long time. However, we count on the financial exhaustion of the North. I admit to you that we don't understand how the government's credit has been maintained up to now.”
Judah P. Benjamin (1811–1884) first seen 1076 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Conversation with French minister to the United States Baron Henri Mercier, April 1862, from the report subsequently made by Mercier to the Quai d’Orsay. Quoted in Case & Spencer, The United States and France: Civil War…
“A "just war" is hospitable to every self-deception on the part of those waging it, none more than the certainty of virtue, under whose shelter every abomination can be committed with a clear conscience.”
Alexander Cockburn (1941–2012) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: New Statesman and Society (8 February 1991).
“Leland Weston: "Never take a position unless you are certain it can be defended any onslaught. That may sound like good advice to a general, but then, a courtroom is nothing more then a very civilized war.”
Michael Crichton (1942–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Once you abandon strict adherence to what science tells us, once you start arranging the truth in a press conference, then anything is possible. In one context, maybe you will get some mobilization against nuclear war. But in another context, you get Lysenkoism. In another, you get Nazi euthanasia. The danger is always there, if you subvert science to political ends.”
Michael Crichton (1942–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm tired of the moral high ground. We've already got more than our share of Gandhis in "the movement". We need a General Patton. No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor bastard die for HIS country.”
Joey Comeau (born 1980) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In his mind, he could see the ravages of war: destruction, suffering, hunger, and the grotesque faces of men turned beasts by the bitterness of combat.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The result of toppling tyranny in divided countries is usually civil war and ethnic cleansing.”
John Gray (philosopher) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The death of this crackpot creed is nothing to mourn," The Guardian (2007-07-31)
“The irony of the post-Cold War period is that the fall of communism was followed by the rise of another utopian ideology. In American and Britain, and to a lesser extent other Western countries, a type of market fundamentalism became the guiding philosophy. The collapse of American power that is underway is the predictable upshot.”
John Gray (philosopher) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are not two kinds of human being, savage and civilized. There is only the human animal, forever at war with itself.”
John Gray (philosopher) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I always thought being a Shadowhunter meant that I had to approve of what the Clave did. I thought otherwise I wasn't loyal. I made excuses for them. I always have. But I feel like whenever we have to fight, we're fighting a war on two fronts. We fight the enemy and we fight the Clave, too. I don't--I just don't know how I feel anymore.”
Cassandra Clare (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I remember you said this war was a story of Lightwoods and Herondales and Fairchilds, and it is, and Blackthorns and Carstairs as well, and it's amazing to see them. But when I do, it's as if I see the past that stretches out behind them. I watch Jace Herondale play, and I see the ghosts that rise up in the music. Don't you?”
Cassandra Clare (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All societies that have survived have survived based on their ability to prepare their sons to be disposable, in war and at work--and therefore as dads.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For thousands of years, most marriages were in Stage I--survival-focused. After World War II, marriages increasingly flirted with Stage II--a self-fulfillment focus... Love's definition is in a transition.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Veterans of every war suffer Battered Man Syndrome in the form of posttraumatic stress disorder. The emotional consequences are also with them for years. But if a sufferer killed Admiral Zumwalt for ordering the spraying of Agent Orange, he would be convicted for murder. Men who suffer Battered Man Syndrome are not allowed to attack their abuser and call it self-defense.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Societies in which men were unwilling to dispose of themselves in war were societies that usually got disposed of. Societies that were protected were protected by killers, which is why I call the traditional role of men the role of killer-protector.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why did virtually every culture reward its men for enduring violence? So it would have a cadre of people available to protect it in war.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Suicide now takes “more lives than war, murder, and natural disasters combined, stealing more than 36 million years of healthy life” around the world.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Many of the qualities your son develops to kill in war—or be a hero at work—undermine the qualities it takes to love at home.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Especially in the military, hazing helps recruits amputate each other’s individuality because the war machine works best with standardized parts, not with people who say, “I’m special.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He will call back to the right path those who have gone astray; He will cleanse the world from evil, now washing it away with water-floods, now burning it out with fiercest fire, or again expelling it by war and pestilence.”
Apuleius (125–170) said by 170 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was clear to me that the invasion changed the whole possibilities of the outcome of the war.”
Tim Buck (1891–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Less than three months after Japanese capitulation... he discarded all the democratic concepts expressed by his predecessors wartime undertakings... He ditched the Roosevelt thesis and put in first place his declared determination to use the all the power of the government to enable United States imperialism to dominate the post-war world and organize it in its own image.”
Tim Buck (1891–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the facts of history are written Haile Selassie of Abyssinia will go down as a great coward who ran away from his country to save his skin and left the millions of his countrymen to struggle through a terrible war that he brought upon them because of his political ignorance and his racial disloyalty.”
Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Failure of Haile Selassie as Emperor" The Blackman, April, 1937.
“At heart, the issues raised in a work of fantasy are those we face in real life. In whatever guise—our own daily nightmares of war, intolerance, inhumanity; or the struggles of an Assistant Pig-Keeper against the Lord of Death—the problems are agonizingly familiar. And an openness to compassion, love and mercy, is as essential to us here and now as it is to any inhabitant of an imaginary kingdom.”
Lloyd Alexander (1924–2007) first seen 1969 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Newbery Award acceptance speech (1969)
“One of the most important things the United States did in the aftermath of World War II was to help returning veterans with housing. In 1945, in my home state of Oregon, we established the Veterans Home Loan Program, which for over 60 years has provided more than 300,000 loans. This has changed the lives of Oregon veterans and revitalized communities.”
Earl Blumenauer (born 1948) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Earl Blumenauer (December 18, 2007), "House Restores Oregon Veterans Provisions Cut by Senate". Press Release. Congressman Earl Blumenauer's Website, Representing the 3rd Congressional District of Oregon. United States …
“Then think I thus: "Sith such repair, So long time war of valiant men, Was all to win a lady fair, Shall I not learn to suffer then? And think my life well spent to be, Serving a worthier wight than she?”
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516–1547) said by 1547 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You can't fight a war on terror if you're ending a sentence with a preposition.”
John Hodgman (born 1971) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: April 25, 2006
“I am Goya of the bare field, by the enemy's beak gouged till the craters of my eyes gape I am grief I am the tongue of war, the embers of cities on the snows of the year 1941 I am hunger.”
Andrey Voznesensky (1933–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We all originally came from the woods; it is hard to eradicate from any of us the old taste for the tattoo and the war-paint; and the moment money gets into our pockets, it somehow or other breaks out in ornaments on our persons, without always giving refinement to our manners.”
Edwin Percy Whipple (1819–1886) said by 1886 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What message, years of conflagration, have you: madness or hope? On thin cheeks strained by war and liberation bloody reflections still remain.”
Alexander Blok (1880–1921) first seen 1914 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Those Born in Years of Stagnation" (1914); translation from Jon Stallworthy and Peter France (trans.) The Twelve, and Other Poems (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970) p. 139.
“It slowly turns, you let me burn and now We're ashes on the ground. I never meant to start a war, I just wanted you to let me in I guess I should've let you win.”
Miley Cyrus (born 1992) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of armies on the chequer’d field array’d, And guiltless war in pleasing form display’d; When two bold kings contend with vain alarms, In ivory this, and that in ebon arms.”
William Jones (philologist) first seen 1527 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Caïssa: or, The Game at Chess" (wr. 1763), in Poems, Consisting Chiefly of Translations from the Asiatick Languages (1772) pp. 149–70. First two lines quoted in Willard Fiske, The Book of the First American Chess Congre…
“And all now is war Where so lately there was peace, and the sweet brotherhood, the use of tilled fields.”
Charles Olson (1910–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source