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
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatinaNederlands
War
LoveFriendshipHappinessHopeFearCourageDeathLifeTimeWarPeaceFreedomTruthWisdomKnowledgeScienceArtMusicNatureMoneyWorkPowerGodBeautyLaughterFamilySuccess and failureChangeDreamsBooks and reading
“They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for ones country. But in modern war there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today. It's been that way all this year. It's been that way so many times. All of war is that way.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies, Despair, law, chance, hath slain.”
John Donne (1572–1631) said by 1631 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell; And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke.”
John Donne (1572–1631) said by 1631 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The essential job is to get people to recognise war propaganda when they see it, especially when it is disguised as peace propaganda.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of The Men I Killed by Brigadier-General F. P. Crozier, CB, CMG, DSO, in New Statesman and Nation (28 August 1937)
“Adults are only less superstitious than children in proportion as they have more power over their environment. In predicaments where everyone is powerless (eg war, gambling) everyone is superstitious”
George Orwell (1903–1950) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: New Words (1940)
“The choice before human beings, is not, as a rule, between good and evil but between two evils. You can let the Nazis rule the world: that is evil; or you can overthrow them by war, which is also evil. There is no other choice before you, and whichever you choose you will not come out with clean hands.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No, Not One," The Adelphi (October 1941), p. 7-8
“In this war we have one weapon which our enemies cannot use against us, and that is the English language. Several other languages are spoken by larger numbers of people, but there is no other that has any claim to be a world-wide lingua franca.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) first seen 1942 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of The Sword and the Sickle by Mulk Raj Anand, Horizon (July 1942)
“Actually there is little acute hatred of Germany left in this country, and even less, I should expect to find, in the army of occupation. Only the minority of sadists, who must have their "atrocities" from one source or another, take a keen interest in the hunting-down of war criminals and quislings.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Revenge is Sour", Tribune (9 November 1945)
“Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Sporting Spirit", Tribune (14 December 1945)
“The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Second Thoughts on James Burnham". Polemic, (May 1946)
“The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I understand it. It seems to me nonsense, in a period like our own, to think that one can avoid writing of such subjects.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Why I Write," Gangrel (Summer 1946)
“People talk about the horrors of war, but what weapon has man invented that even approaches in cruelty to some of the commoner diseases? "Natural" death, almost by definition, means something slow, smelly and painful.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: How the Poor Die", Now (November 1946)
“He would only drift and sink, drift and sink, like the others of his family; but worse than them - down, down into some dreadful sub-world that as yet he could only dimly imagine. It was what he had chosen when he declared war on money. Serve the money-god or go under; there is no other rule.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everyone always did miss everyone else in this war, whenever it was humanly possible to do so.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[F]inally, a year after the outbreak of war and revolution, there remained a Government composed entirely of Right-wing Socialists, Liberals, and Communists.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Communists had gained power and a vast increase of membership partly by appealing to the middle classes against the revolutionaries, but partly also because they were the only people who looked capable of winning the war.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think the pacifists might find it helpful to illustrate their pamphlets with enlarged photographs of lice. Glory of war, indeed!”
George Orwell (1903–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“During the war of 1914-18 the English working class were in contact with foreigners to an extent that is rarely possible. The sole result was that they brought back a hatred of all Europeans, except the Germans, whose courage they admired. In four years on French soil they did not even acquire a liking for wine.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“War is the greatest of all agents of change. It speeds up all processes, wipes out minor distinctions, brings realities to the surface.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Having defeated your enemy you have to choose (unless you want another war within a generation) between exterminating him and treating him generously.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) first seen 1943 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As I Please," Tribune, (24 December 1943)
“But it takes a war to make map-reading popular.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) first seen 1944 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As I Please," Tribune (11 February 1944)
“We have become too civilized to grasp the obvious. For the truth is very simple. To survive you often have to fight, and to fight you have to dirty yourself. War is evil, and it is often the lesser evil. Those who take the sword perish by the sword, and those who don't take the sword perish by smelly diseases.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Then old Nobodaddy aloft Farted and belched and coughed, And said, "I love hanging and drawing and quartering Every bit as well as war and slaughtering.”
William Blake (1757–1827) said by 1827 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rouze up, O Young Men of the New Age! set your foreheads against the ignorant Hirelings! For we have Hirelings in the Camp, the Court & the University, who would, if they could, for ever depress Mental & prolong Corporeal War.”
William Blake (1757–1827) said by 1827 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My attitude towards peace does not depend on which war we are discussing. I think that words should do the work of bombs”
Margaret Cho (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was not our right to have become the world's bully and start this war in the first place.”
Margaret Cho (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of course America is responsible for the total body count. We started it, we own it, we sow, we reap, but we are also disconnected from the responsibility of our won dirty acts of war.”
Margaret Cho (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How many Americans lives have been lost in this brutal and needless war? How many Iraqi? How many names do we know on either side?”
Margaret Cho (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What can we do? We can hone our memory, we can learn from our history. We can continue to build public opinion until it becomes a deafening roar. We can turn the war on Iraq into a fishbowl of the U.S. government's excesses. We can expose George Bush and Tony Blair-and their allies for the cowardly baby killers, water poisoners, and pusillanimous long-distance bombers that they are.”
Arundhati Roy (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Last year, like many others, I too made the mistake of scoffing at this post-September 11th rhetoric, dismissing it as foolish and arrogant. But I’ve realized...It’s actually a canny recruitment drive for a misconceived, dangerous war.”
Arundhati Roy (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It’s being made out that the whole point of the war was to topple the Taliban regime and liberate Afghan women from their burqas, we are being asked to believe that the U.S. marines are actually on a feminist mission”
Arundhati Roy (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The world is called upon to condemn suicide bombers. But can we ignore the long road they have journeyed on before they have arrived at this destination? September 11, 1922 to September 11, 2002 – eighty years is a long time to have been waging war.”
Arundhati Roy (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So what changed? In 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. His sin was not so much that he had committed an act of war, but that he had acted independently, without orders from his master.”
Arundhati Roy (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The U.S., which George Bush has called “the most peaceful nation on earth”, has been at war with one country or another every year for the last fifty [years].”
Arundhati Roy (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I know a little of navigation: / War, trade, and piracy, allow, / As three in one, no separation.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) said by 1832 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We consider that the Cuban Revolution contributed three fundamental lessons to the conduct of revolutionary movements in America. They are: (1) Popular forces can win a war against the army. (2) It is not necessary to wait until all conditions for making revolution exist; the insurrection can create them. (3) In underdeveloped America the countryside is the basic area for armed fighting.”
Che Guevara (1928–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“War is always a struggle in which each contender tries to annihilate the other. Besides using force, they will have recourse to all possible tricks and stratagems in order to achieve the goal.”
Che Guevara (1928–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We do assert, however, that we must follow the road of liberation even though it may cost millions of nuclear war victims. In the struggle to death between two systems we cannot think of anything but the final victory of socialism or its relapse as a consequence of the nuclear victory of imperialist aggression.”
Che Guevara (1928–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Guerrilla warfare is a people's warfare; an attempt to carry out this type of war without the population's support is a prelude to inevitable disaster.”
Che Guevara (1928–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The people did not talk about reciprocal concessions but demanded liberties and guarantees, which brought inevitably in many sectors a crueler war than the French would have waged otherwise.”
Che Guevara (1928–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When we take our advantage unrelentingly, then we make war.”
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) said by 1894 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To call war the soil of courage and virtue is like calling debauchery the soil of love.”
George Santayana (1863–1952) said by 1952 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
George Santayana (1863–1952) said by 1952 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Plato (misattributed)
“In solitude it is possible to love mankind; in the world, for one who knows the world, there can be nothing but secret or open war.”
George Santayana (1863–1952) said by 1952 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Love and War are the same thing, and stratagems and policy are as allowable in the one as in the other.”
Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) said by 1616 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I do not understand these men who tell me that the prospect of the yonder side of death has never tormented them, that the thought of their own annihilation never disquiets them. For my part I do not wish to make peace between my heart and my head, between my faith and my reason — I wish rather that there should be war between them.”
Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“India wants to avoid a war at all costs but it is not a one-sided affair, you cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.”
Indira Gandhi (1917–1984) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Press conference, New Delhi (October 19, 1971), quoted in "Indian and Pakistani Armies Confront Each Other Along Borders" by Sydney H. Schanberg, The New York Times (October 20, 1971), page 6C.