Motivational Quotes

War

Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die.

- Hoover, Herbert Clark

Best Quotes about War

Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.

Sir Winston Churchill

A self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war.

Weil, Simone

The more prosperous and settled a nation, the more readily it tends to think of war as a regrettable accident; to nations less fortunate the chance of war presents itself as a possible bountiful friend.

Lapham, Lewis H.

I see that old flagpole still stands. Have your troops hoist the colors to its peak, and let no enemy ever haul them down.

Macarthur, Douglas

Those who actually set out to see the fall of a city or those who choose to go to a front line, are obviously asking themselves to what extent they are cowards. But the tests they set themselves -- there is a dead body, can you bear to look at it? -- are nothing in comparison with the tests that are sprung on them. It is not the obvious tests that matter (do you go to pieces in a mortar attack?) but the unexpected ones (here is a man on the run, seeking your help -- can you face him honestly?).

Fenton, James

Neither enemy faces, nor the mothers that love them, come to mind when one is thinking of nothing but endeavouring to survive. Philosophising about war is useless under fire.

Linda Berdoll

The most terrible job in warfare is to be a second lieutenant leading a platoon when you are on the battlefield.

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

Everyone in our culture wants to win a prize. Perhaps that is the grand lesson we have taken with us from kindergarten in the age of perversions of Dewey-style education: everyone gets a ribbon, and praise becomes a meaningless narcotic to soothe egoistic distemper.

Early, Gerald

When the adulation of life is gone, the coward sneaks to his death, but the brave live on.

Sewell, George

10.

There is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one side stands more or less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction.

Orwell, George

11.

The cannon thunders... limbs fly in all directions... one can hear the groans of victims and the howling of those performing the sacrifice... it's Humanity in search of happiness.

Baudelaire, Charles

12.

There are two things which will always be very difficult for a democratic nation: to start a war and to end it.

Tocqueville, Alexis De

13.

To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.

Benjamin, Walter

14.

War seems to be one of the most salutary phenomena for the culture of human nature; and it is not without regret that I see it disappearing more and more from the scene.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

15.

A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.

Huxley, Aldous

16.

O can't you see, brother -- Death's a congested road for fighters now, and hero a cheap label.

Andrews, C. D.

17.

I don't believe that the big men, the politicians and the capitalists alone are guilty of the war. Oh, no, the little man is just as keen, otherwise the people of the world would have risen in revolt long ago! There is an urge and rage in people to destroy, to kill, to murder, and until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change, wars will be waged, everything that has been built up, cultivated and grown, will be destroyed and disfigured, after which mankind will have to begin all over again.

Frank, Anne

18.

As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have it's fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.

Wilde, Oscar

19.

Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.

Reagan, Ronald

20.

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

Sun Tzu

21.

War is the supreme drama of a completely mechanized society.

Mumford, Lewis

22.

The savage in man is never quite eradicated.

Thoreau, Henry David

23.

Greater even than the pious man is he who eats that which is the fruit of his own toil; for scripture declares him twice-blessed.

Talmud, The

24.

A coward gets scared and quits. A hero gets scared, but still goes on.

25.

A cowardly cur barks more fiercely than it bites.

Rufus, Quintus Curtius

26.

What the horrors of war are, no one can imagine. They are not wounds and blood and fever, spotted and low, or dysentery, chronic and acute, cold and heat and famine. They are intoxication, drunken brutality, demoralization and disorder on the part of the inferior... jealousies, meanness, indifference, selfish brutality on the part of the superior.

Nightingale, Florence

27.

If we justify war, it is because all peoples always justify the traits of which they find themselves possessed, not because war will bear an objective examination of its merits.

Benedict, Ruth

28.

He that does good for good's sake seeks neither paradise nor reward, but he is sure of both in the end.

Penn, William

29.

War alone brings up to their highest tension all human energies and imposes the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to make it.

Mussolini, Benito

30.

Open-mindedness should not be fostered because, as Scripture teaches, Truth is great and will prevail, nor because, as Milton suggests, Truth will always win in a free and open encounter. It should be fostered for its own sake.

Rorty, Richard

31.

It takes twenty years or more of peace to make a man; it takes only twenty seconds of war to destroy him.

Baudouin I

32.

It is open to a war resister to judge between the combatants and wish success to the one who has justice on his side. By so judging he is more likely to bring peace between the two than by remaining a mere spectator.

Gandhi, Mahatma

33.

God's delays are not God's denials.

Schuller, Robert H.

34.

It is far easier to make war than to make peace.

Clemenceau, Georges

35.

War is like love, it always finds a way.

Brecht, Bertolt

36.

It is better to be the widow of a hero than the wife of a coward.

Ibarruri, Dolores

37.

I have a deep sympathy with war, it so apes the gait and bearing of the soul.

Thoreau, Henry David

38.

War is thus divine in itself, since it is a law of the world. War is divine through its consequences of a supernatural nature which are as much general as particular. War is divine in the mysterious glory that surrounds it and in the no less inexplicable attraction that draws us to it. War is divine by the manner in which it breaks out.

Maistre, Joseph De

39.

Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come.

Carl Sandburg

40.

One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once'The Unnecessary War'.

Sir Winston Churchill

41.

What are we hoping to get out of it, what's it all in aid of -- is it really just for the sake of a gloved hand waving at you from a golden coach?

Osborne, John

42.

Hence that general is skilful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skilful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack.

Sun Tzu

43.

Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.

Hazlitt, William

44.

Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men.

Westcott, Bishop

45.

War is the trade of Kings.

Dryden, John

46.

To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.