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War

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“Our aim is to achieve a socialist system of society, which, by eliminating the division of mankind into classes, by eliminating all exploitation of man by man and nation by nation, will inevitably eliminate the very possibility of war.”
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“War to the death against the rich and their hangers-on, the bourgeois intellectuals... ‘He who does not work, neither shall he eat’ – this is the practical commandment of socialism... [Our] common aim [is] to clean the land of Russia of all vermin, of fleas – the rogues, of bugs – the rich, and so on and so forth.”
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“About three million must be regarded as middle peasants, while barely two million consist of kulaks, rich peasants, grain profiteers... Ruthless war on the kulaks! Death to them! ... [Class struggle entails] ruthless suppression of the kulaks, those bloodsuckers, vampires, plunderers of the people and profiteers, who batten on famine.”
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Camel caravans bear witness guns to Caesar. Hordes crawl and seep inside the walls. The streets flow stone. Life goes on absorbing war. Violence kills the temple of no sex.”
Jim Morrison (1943–1971) said by 1971 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yet at this moment Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A war is not won if the defeated enemy has not been turned into a friend.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God of Nations, at thy feet, In thy bonds of love we meet, Hear our voices, we entreat, God defend our free land. Guard Pacific's triple star From the shafts of strife and war, Make her presence heard afar, God Defend New Zealand!”
Thomas Bracken (1843–1898) first seen 1876 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: God Defend New Zealand" (circa 1876, now one of the two national anthems of New Zealand)
“Now that they have achieved the capture of Hussein, they should appeal to the UN to come in with a multilateral redevelopment plan. This is all the more reason this war should come to an immediate end.”
Al Sharpton (born 1954) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks following the capture of Saddam Hussein, quoted in "The Capture of Hussein" (15 December 2003) New York Times p. A19.
“You bring me the deepest joy that can be felt by a man whose invincible belief is that Science and Peace will triumph over Ignorance and War, that nations will unite, not to destroy, but to build, and that the future will belong to those who will have done most for suffering humanity.”
Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) first seen 1892 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks at a celebration honoring his seventieth birthday, the Sorbonne, Paris, France (27 December 1892); Vol. 2, p. 297
“Wherever we turn we find that the real obstacles to peace are human will and feeling, human convictions, prejudices, opinions. If we want to get rid of war we must get rid first of all of its psychological causes. Only when this has been done will the rulers of the nations even desire to get rid of the economic and political causes.”
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 9, p. 138 [2012 reprint]
“Christian philosophers have found no difficulty in justifying imperialism, war, the capitalist system, the use of torture, the censorship of the press and ecclesiastical tyrannies of every sort, from the tyranny of Rome to the tyrannies of Geneva and New England.”
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 14, p. 315 [2012 reprint]
“The Bhagavad-Gita is perhaps the most systematic scriptural statement of the Perennial Philosophy. To a world at war, a world that, because it lacks the intellectual and spiritual prerequisites to peace, can only hope to patch up some kind of precarious armed truce, it stands pointing, clearly and unmistakably, to the only road of escape from the self-imposed necessity of self-destruction.”
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Armaments, universal debt and planned obsolescence — those are the three pillars of Western prosperity. If war, waste, and money-lenders were abolished, you'd collapse. And while you people are over-consuming, the rest of the world sinks more and more deeply into chronic disaster.”
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In a radio interview with San Antonio station WOAI on December 5, 2005, Dean said, "The idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea that, unfortunately, is just plain wrong." [29]”
Howard Dean (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was close; but that's the way it is in war. You win or lose, live or die — and the difference is just an eyelash.”
Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) first seen 1942 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To Gen. Richard Sutherland after their flight over Japanese held territory to reach Australia (17 March 1942), as quoted in MacArthur and the War Against Japan (1944) by Frazier Hunt, p. 71
“Could I have but a line a century hence crediting a contribution to the advance of peace, I would gladly yield every honor which has been accorded me in war.”
Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Macarthur and the American Century: A Reader (2001) edited by William M Leary
“The broken image of Man moves in minute by minute and cell by cell.... Poverty, hatred, war, police-criminals, bureaucracy, insanity, all symptoms of The Human Virus. 'The Human Virus can now be isolated and treated.'”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Consider the impasse of a one-God universe. He is all-knowing and all-powerful. He can't go anywhere, since He is already everywhere. He can't do anything, since the act of doing presupposes opposition. His universe is irrevocably thermodynamic, having no friction by definition. So, He has to create friction: War, Fear, Sickness, Death, to keep his dying show on the road.”
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A people under the menace of war and of invasion is very easy to govern. It does not claim social reforms, it does not cavil over armaments or military equipment. It pays without haggling, it ruins itself at it, and that is excellent for the syndicates, the financiers, and the heads of industry to whom patriotic terrors open an abundant source of gain.”
Anatole France (1844–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With impassive gaze, Michael, prince of warriors, measured the extent of the disaster, and his keen intelligence penetrated its causes. The armies of the living God had taken the offensive, but by one of those fatalities in war which disconcert the plans of the greatest captains, the enemy had also taken the offensive, and the effect was evident.”
Anatole France (1844–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“# War is the father and king of all: some he has made gods, and some men; some slaves and some free.”
Heraclitus (535–471 BC) said by 471 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“# War is the father and king of all, and has produced some as gods and some as men, and has made some slaves and some free. (G. T. W. Patrick, 1889)”
Heraclitus (535–471 BC) said by 471 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“#* Hippolytus, Ref. haer. ix. 9 (Fragment 53). Context: "And that the father of all created things is created and uncreated, the made and the maker, we hear him (Heraclitus) saying, 'War is the father and king of all,' etc.”
Heraclitus (535–471 BC) said by 471 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Still on the whole the campaign is the best, cleanest and most satisfactory of the war. I have received the most fulsome praise of all men from the President down, but I fear the world will jump to the wrong conclusion that because I am in Atlanta the work is done. Far from it. We must kill three hundred thousand I have told of so often, and the further they run the harder for us to get them.”
William Tecumseh Sherman (1820–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I would make this war as severe as possible, and show no symptoms of tiring till the South begs for mercy.”
William Tecumseh Sherman (1820–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am satisfied, and have been all the time, that the problem of this war consists in the awful fact that the present class of men who rule the South must be killed outright rather than in the conquest of territory.”
William Tecumseh Sherman (1820–1891) first seen 1864 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Sheridan (November 1864)
“War is Hell.”
William Tecumseh Sherman (1820–1891) first seen 1879 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: This quote originates from his address to the graduating class of the Michigan Military Academy (19 June 1879); but slightly varying accounts of this speech have been published:
“Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.”
William Tecumseh Sherman (1820–1891) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman, 2nd ed., D. Appleton & Co., 1913 (1889) Chapter XXV "Conclusion--Military Lessons Of The War". Reprinted by Project Gutenberg, 2014.
“I don't see why people are so snooty about Channel 5. It has some respectable documentaries about the Second World War. It also devotes considerable airtime to investigations into lap dancing, and other related and vital subjects.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: What has the BBC come to? Toilets, that's what", The Daily Telegraph (14 March 2002), p. 29.
“If Monsieur Hollande wants to administer punishment beatings to anybody who chooses to escape, rather in the manner of some World War Two movie, then I don't think that is the way forward. I think, actually, it's not in the interests of our friends and our partners.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Brexit: Boris Johnson warns against 'punishment beatings'" BBC News (18 January 2017)
“I believe that, once this war is done, once the Ukrainians have won, then yes they should begin the process of induction both to Nato and to the EU.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2023 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From the same speech delivered to the Atlantic Council cited in "Brexit allowed UK to 'do things differently' in supporting Ukraine, says Johnson" The Independent (2 February 2023)
“We're waging a proxy war (Russian invasion of Ukraine), but we're not giving our proxies the ability to do the job. For years now, we've been allowing them to fight with one hand tied behind their backs and it has been cruel.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2024 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Our troops should help defend Ukraine’s border in possible ceasefire, says Boris Johnson (Archived), Telegraph (28 November 2024)
“Statism is a system of institutionalized violence and perpetual civil war. It leaves men no choice but to fight to seize political power -- to rob or be robbed, to kill or be killed. ... Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by production.”
Ayn Rand (1905–1982) said by 1982 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind set if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts, and that we're not really at war. I think that would be a terrible mistake for us.”
Dick Cheney (1941–2025) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speaking about the choice Americans would soon make in the presidential election at a Des Moines, Iowa campaign appearance on September 7, 2004 whitehouse.archives.gov.
“Alas, this industrialized twelve-tone horse, dull on the outside and empty inside, constantly being perfected and dragged to a new Troy in shadow of an ideological war long since fought and won by responsible minds like Schoenberg, with neither systems nor scholarship for armor!”
Luciano Berio (1925–2003) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Composer on His Work : Meditation on a Twelve-Tone Horse", in Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music : A Continuing Symposium (1996) edited by Richard Kostelanetz and Joseph Darby
“This culling poem is a blessing. Why do you think it was created in the first place? It will save millions of people from the slow terrible death we're headed for from disease, from famine, drought, from solar radiation, from war, from all the places we're headed.”
Chuck Palahniuk (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Many of my generation, the career captains, majors, and lieutenant colonels seasoned in that war [Vietnam], vowed that when our turn came to call the shots, we would not quietly acquiesce in halfhearted warfare for half-baked reasons that the American people could not understand.”
Colin Powell (1937–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The world there was the flat world of the ancients; to the east, a cornfield that stretched to daybreak; to the west, a corral that reached to the sunset; between, the conquests of peace, dearer-bought than those of war.”
Willa Cather (1873–1947) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Youth and the Bright Medusa, "A Wagner Matinee" (1920)
“These two enormous forces—truth and meaning—are at war in today's world. … And something sooner or later has to give.”
Ken Wilber (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A criminal who, having renounced reason ... hath, by the unjust violence and slaughter he hath committed upon one, declared war against all mankind, and therefore may be destroyed as a lion or tyger, one of those wild savage beasts with whom men can have no society nor security. And upon this is grounded the great law of Nature, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.”
John Locke (1632–1704) said by 1704 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“'Waterloo was won,'" quoted Rackham, "'on the playing fields of Eton.'" "What the hell does that mean?" asked Carn Carby. "You never even went to Eton." "It was an analogy," said Rackham. "If you hadn't spent your entire childhood playing war games, you'd actually know something. You're all so uneducated.”
Orson Scott Card (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“War was never so careful as to inflict suffering only where it was merited.”
Orson Scott Card (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.”
Thomas Mann (1875–1955) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in This I Believe (1954), by Edward R. Murrow, p. 16
“It is not good when people no longer believe in war. Pretty soon they no longer believe in many other things which they absolutely must believe in if they are to be decent men.”
Thomas Mann (1875–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Survey of Contemporary Literature (1977) by Frank Northen Magill, p. 4263
“For all men of violence, tyrants, those who seek to stupefy and stultify the masses, and all those who are intent upon turning a nation into an unthinking war-machine in order to control free and thinking citizens — these necessarily despise humanity.”
Thomas Mann (1875–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Through the travail of the ages, Midst the pomp and toil of war, Have I fought and strove and perished Countless times upon this star. In the form of many people In all panoplies of time Have I seen the luring vision Of the Victory Maid, sublime.”
George S. Patton (1885–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now in war we are confronted with conditions which are strange If we accept them we will never win. Since being realistic, as in mundane combats fistic We will get a bloody nose and that's a sin.”
George S. Patton (1885–1945) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Stanza 1 of "Absolute War" a poem composed by Patton in July 1944, during Operation Cobra as quoted in The Patton Papers 1940-1945 (1996) edited by Martin Blumenson p. 492
“Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American.”
George S. Patton (1885–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Each man must not think only of himself, but also of his buddy fighting beside him. We don't want yellow cowards in this Army. They should be killed off like rats. If not, they will go home after this war and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed more brave men. Kill off the Goddamned cowards and we will have a nation of brave men.”
George S. Patton (1885–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sure, we want to go home. We want this war over with. The quickest way to get it over with is to go get the bastards who started it. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we can go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin and Tokyo. And when we get to Berlin, I am personally going to shoot that paper hanging son-of-a-bitch Hitler. Just like I'd shoot a snake!”
George S. Patton (1885–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source