War famous quotes
Last updated: Sep 5, 2024
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All my life I've been aware of the Second World War humming in the background. I was born 10 years after it was finished, and without ever seeing it. It formed my generation and the world we lived in. I played Hurricanes and Spitfires in the playground, and war films still form the basis of all my moral philosophy. All the men I've ever got to my feet for or called sir had been in the war.
-- A. A. Gill -
A broadsheet obituarist once pointed out to me that veteran soldiers die by rank. First to go are the generals, admirals and air marshals, then the brigadiers, then a bit of a gap and the colonels and wing commanders and passed-over majors, then a steady trickle of captains and lieutenants. As they get older and rarer, so the soldiers are mythologised and grow ever more heroic, until finally drummer boys and under-age privates are venerated and laurelled with honours like ancient field marshals. There is something touching about that.
-- A. A. Gill -
To be nonviolent to human beings and to be a killer or enemy of the poor animals is Satan's philosophy. In this age there is always enmity against poor animals, and therefore the poor creatures are always anxious. The reaction of the poor animals is being forced on human society, and therefore there is always strain of cold or hot war between men, individually, collectively or nationally.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
It is said about Lord Buddha sadaya-hrdaya darsita-pasu-ghatam. He saw the whole human race going to hell by this animal killing. So he appeared to teach ahimsa, nonviolence, being compassionate on the animals and human beings. In the Christian religion also, it is clearly stated, 'Thou shall not kill'. So everywhere animal killing is restricted. In no religion the unnecessary killing of animals is allowed. But nobody is caring. The killing process is increasing, and so are the reactions. Every ten years you will find a war. These are the reactions.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
Father was an atheist; he had even joined the Skeleton Army - a club of men who went about in masks or black faces, with ribald placards and a brass band, to make war upon the Salvation Army.
-- A. E. Coppard -
Here dead lie we because we did not choose to live and shame the land from which we sprung. Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose; but young men think it is, and we were young.
-- A. E. Housman -
To the Parisians, and especially to the children, all Americans are now 'heros du cinema.' This is particularly disconcerting to sensitive war correspondents, if any, aware, as they are, that these innocent thanks belong to those American combat troops who won the beachhead and then made the breakthrough. There are few such men in Paris.
-- A. J. Liebling -
We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war, we have to attack that way of life.
-- A. J. Muste -
The problem after a war is with the victor. He thinks he has just proved that war and violence pay. Who will now teach him a lesson?
-- A. J. Muste -
War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life.
-- A. J. Muste -
Violence begets violence by whomever used. War is a dirty business and entails the use of degrading means, whoever wages it.
-- A. J. Muste -
The great armies, accumulated to provide security and preserve the peace, carried the nations to war by their own weight.
-- A. J. P. Taylor -
No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.
-- A. J. P. Taylor -
Though the object of being a Great Power is to be able to fight a Great War, the only way of remaining a Great Power is not to fight one.
-- A. J. P. Taylor -
Bismarck fought 'necessary' wars and killed thousands, the idealists of the twentieth century fight 'just' wars and kill millions.
-- A. J. P. Taylor -
No war is inevitable until it breaks out.
-- A. J. P. Taylor -
The God of Battles will throw the dice that decide...
-- A. J. P. Taylor -
Lenin was the first to discover that capitalism 'inevitably' caused war; and he discovered this only when the First World War was already being fought. Of course he was right. Since every great state was capitalist in 1914.
-- A. J. P. Taylor -
This book has been a catalogue of mistakes by politicians, moral and practical disasters which led to wars, enslavement and wretchedness on a scale which no previous age could have dreaded or dreamed of.
-- A. N. Wilson -
Well, fancy giving money to the Government! Might as well have put it down the drain. Fancy giving money to the Government! Nobody will see the stuff again. Well, they've not idea what money's for- Ten to one they'll start another war. I've heard a lot of silly things, but, Lor'! Fancy giving money to the Government!
-- A. P. Herbert -
Make wars unprofitable and you make them impossible.
-- A. Philip Randolph -
Winning Democracy for the Negro is winning the war for Democracy
-- A. Philip Randolph -
What to paint was a problem for the war artist... the old heroics, the death and glory stuff, were gone forever... the impressionistic technique I had developed was now ineffective, for visual impressions were not enough.
-- A. Y. Jackson -
Even if my country remains in war with yours. . .remember. . . i am not your enemy.
-- A.J. Cronin -
My mind leaps to my theory about presidents - that there are two kinds, ones who have a lot of sex and the others who start wars. In short - and don't quote me, because this is an incomplete expression of a more complex premise - I believe blow jobs prevent war.
-- A.M. Homes -
Ennui and lethargy are waging a war inside me.
-- Aaron Allston -
War is death. If we are to engage in war, then we should have to stare it straight in the face and call it by its rightful name.
-- Aaron Huey -
More Medals of Honor were given for the indiscriminate slaughter of women and children than for any battle in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan.
-- Aaron Huey -
Film doesn't have to worry. Movies are awesome. There's no war going on, theaters aren't going to lose.
-- Aaron Sorkin -
I do know that I've read somewhere that it's been statistically proven that in times of war, horror films are much more popular. I don't know why that is. You'd think it'd be the opposite. You'd think people would want to escape from it.
-- Aaron Stanford -
I think Islam has been hijacked by the idea that all Muslims are terrorists; that Islam is about hate, about war, about jihad - I think that hijacks the spirituality and beauty that exists within Islam. I believe in allowing Islam to be seen in context and in its entirety and being judged on what it really is, not what you think it is.
-- Aasif Mandvi -
History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.
-- Abba Eban -
I think that this is the first war in history that on the morrow the victors sued for peace and the vanquished called for unconditional surrender.
-- Abba Eban -
Our intention to regard the closing of the Straits as a casus belli was communicated...to the foreign ministers of those states which had supported international navigation in the Straits in 1957 and thereafter. There can be no doubt that these warnings reached Cairo. One thing was now clear. If Nasser imposed a blockade, the explosion would ensue not from 'miscalculation', but from an open-eyed and conscious readiness for war.
-- Abba Eban -
After the war, prompted by the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, I entered Parliament so that a priest could speak out for the poor, as canon law at that time still permitted.
-- Abbe Pierre -
It's true that humanity has seen a succession of crises, wars and atrocities, but this negative side is offset by advances in technology and cultural exchanges.
-- Abbe Pierre -
Become an internationalist and learn to respect all life. Make war on machines. And in particular the sterile machines of corporate death and the robots that guard them.
-- Abbie Hoffman -
I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more wars.
-- Abbie Hoffman -
What if when they called a war, no one went?
-- Abbie Hoffman -
Patience will benefit you in every hour, every time and every opportunity. It helps you to overcome your opponent, howsoever strong he may be. It will help you in times of distress and hardships, in battles and in war and peace.
-- Abd al-Karim Qasim -
I don't think the Middle East could afford another war.
-- Abdallah II -
When you get billions in aid and your weapons resupplied and your ammunition stock resupplied, you don't learn the lesson that war is bad and nobody wins.
-- Abdallah II -
Turkish-American relations are based on very strong foundations. Currently, we have a war in the region, which could not be prevented, unfortunately. We hope it is a short war ... with minimum casualties.
-- Abdullah Gul -
I used to be someone who would not even tread on an ant. But this is a war for honor and self-defense. A 100 percent elimination policy (by Ankara of the Kurds) has forced me to defense and it has become a glorious defense of a people.
-- Abdullah Ocalan -
In beloved Iraq, blood is flowing between brothers, in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation, and abhorrent sectarianism threatens a civil war.
-- Abdullah of Saudi Arabia -
We are living in an era in which billions of people are grappling to promote communication, tolerance, and understanding over the more destructive forces of war, terrorism, and political chaos that have characterized the beginning of the 21st Century.
-- Aberjhani -
Never advise anyone to go to war or to get married.
-- Abigail Van Buren -
As to my Title, I know not yet whether it will be honourable or dishonourable, the issue of the War must Settle it. Perhaps our Congress will be Exalted on a high Gallows.
-- Abraham Clark -
Gold begets in brethren hate; Gold in families debate; Gold does friendship separate; Gold does civil wars create.
-- Abraham Cowley -
Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education... no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both.
-- Abraham Flexner -
The new naval treaty permits the United States to spend a billion dollars on warships-a sum greater than has been accumulated by all our endowed institutions of learning in their entire history. Unintelligence could go no further! ... In Great Britain, the situation is similar. ... Until the figures are reversed, ... nations deceive themselves as to what they care about most.
-- Abraham Flexner -
Sixty years after the end of the war, the time has come to make this information available. With the number of survivors and witnesses diminishing by the day, and the reality that the Holocaust is fading into the pages of history and memory, we should not have to wait any longer.
-- Abraham Foxman -
Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
I can make more generals, but horses cost money.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. So while we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
Let the people know the truth and the country is safe.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races: that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
I have stepped out upon this platform that I may see you and that you may see me, and in the arrangement I have the best of the bargain.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
It is not merely for to-day, but for all time to come that we should perpetuate for our children's children this great and free government, which we have enjoyed all our lives.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
I am greatly obliged to you, and to all who have come forward at the call of their country.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
There is really no crisis except an artificial one...If the great American people will only keep their temper, on both sides of the line, the trouble will come to an end.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
War, at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and in its duration, is one of the most terrible.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not...the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army...our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms....
-- Abraham Lincoln -
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. We cannot escape history. We will be remembered in spite of ourselves. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honour or dishonour, to the last generation. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, our last best hope of Earth.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
I have never studied the art of paying compliments to women; but I must say that if all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice for their conduct during this war.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
Fondly do we hope, ferverently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
As President, I have no eyes but constitutional eyes; I cannot see you.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
I am not in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
I sincerely wish war was a pleasanter and easier business than it is, but it does not admit of holidays.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father's child has.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
My God! My God! What will the country say?
-- Abraham Lincoln -
You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
[Uniting workers should not] lead to a war upon property, or the owners of property.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
One of the absolute rules I learned in the war was, don't know anything you don't need to know, because if you ever get caught they will get it out of you.
-- Abraham Pais -
I knew all the time I was going to get through the war. It was completely irrational, a silly idea, but I was not going to lie down and get myself killed. I was going to get out of it.
-- Abraham Pais -
We never had planned to hijack a ship. We never thought of any war plans outside the Palestinian lands. We wished that the program had not failed and then the warriors could have achieved their goals.
-- Abu Abbas -
Jihad should be waged in places where there is war. Bombings in places where there is no war is not a good thing.
-- Abu Bakar Bashir -
We have declared a bitter war against the principle of democracy and all those who seek to enact it.
-- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -
Crime is fast destroying the moral fabric of South African cities, and is becoming a major threat to South African democracy as well as the prominent manifestation of a "class war" that is largely a continuation of the "race war" of yesterday.
-- Achille Mbembe -
Someday, I have no doubt, the dead from today's wars will be seen with a similar sense of sorrow at needless loss and folly as those millions of men who lie in the cemeteries of France and Belgium - and tens of millions of Americans will feel a similar revulsion for the politicians and generals who were so spendthrift with others' lives.
-- Adam Hochschild -
The first World War in so many ways shaped the 20th century and really remade our world for the worse.
-- Adam Hochschild -
I consider that 9/11 was the day when war was started against my own work and against myself. Even though we are not sure of the links, Iraq was one of the countries that did not lower its flags in mourning on 9/11.
-- Adam Michnik -
When I finally got up to Industrial Light And Magic to work on the 'Star Wars' movies as a model-maker, it felt like dying and going to heaven.
-- Adam Savage -
Americans are blessed with great plenty; we are a generous people and we have a moral obligation to assist those who are suffering from poverty, disease, war and famine.
-- Adam Schiff -
The war in Iraq has been extremely divisive here at home, and has also divided the world community.
-- Adam Schiff -
In fact, the converse is true: At a time when the United States has been called on for a level of moral leadership, vision and inspiration not seen since World War II, we cannot afford to dissemble about crimes against humanity.
-- Adam Schiff -
It is now conventional wisdom that Americans do not care why we went to war in Iraq, that it is enough that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein.
-- Adam Schiff -
The new century has brought on its own terrible dangers, which although not reaching the apocalyptic potential of the Cold War, still have the capacity to shake our world.
-- Adam Schiff -
Some argue that recognition of the genocide has become even more problematic now, when the world is at war with terrorism and the United States cannot afford to offend the sensibility of our Turkish ally.
-- Adam Schiff -
Winning the war on terrorism will also require a level of moral clarity that can provide a vision for struggling people and nations everywhere.
-- Adam Schiff -
Wars--and what is war except crime on a mass scale?--destroy rather than produce. The vandal that destroys a window causes not only the owner to bear the costs of replacing it, but costs those whom he planned on using that money to buy from. The same goes for wars. The warlords--of war and peace--destroyed so much, not only what existed, but all those new things that could have existed, if only individuals were left in peace.
-- Adam Young -
Take up the weapons of the glorious army for the salvation of many thousands.
-- Adela of Normandy -
Security wins many battles but loses the security war. We are definitely going backwards in computer security.
-- Adi Shamir -
Here, in the dread tribunal of last resort, valor contended against valor. Here brave men struggled and died for the right as God gave them to see the right.
-- Adlai Stevenson I
