Motivational Quotes

War

Man gives every reason for his conduct save one, every excuse for his crimes save one, every plea for his safety save one; and that one is his cowardice.

- Shaw, George Bernard

Best Quotes about War

Cry havoc! and let slip the dogs of war, that this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men, groaning for burial.

Shakespeare, William

A cowardly cur barks more fiercely than it bites.

Rufus, Quintus Curtius

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

Reagan, Ronald

The chief reason warfare is still with us is neither a secret death-wish of the human species, nor an irrepressible instinct of aggression, nor, finally and more plausibly, the serious economic and social dangers inherent in disarmament, but the simple fact that no substitute for this final arbiter in international affairs has yet appeared on the political scene.

Arendt, Hannah

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

Thoreau, Henry David

The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.

Agatha Christie

That strange feeling we had in the war. Have you found anything in your lives since to equal it in strength? A sort of splendid carelessness it was, holding us together.

Coward, Noel

Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else.

Heller, Joseph

10.

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

Andrews, C. D.

11.

Wars are carried out by large organizations; Peace is brought one by one.

Manor, Rachel

12.

Vice is its own reward. It is virtue which, if it is to be marketed with consumer appeal, must carry Green Shield stamps.

Crisp, Quentin

13.

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

Westcott, Bishop

14.

If the frontline people do count, you couldn't prove it by examining the reward systems in most organizations.

Albrecht, Karl

15.

It is the coward who fawns upon those above him. It is the coward who is insolent whenever he dares be so.

Junius

16.

Wars teach us not to love our enemies, but to hate our allies.

W. L. George

17.

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

18.

Morality is contraband in war.

Gandhi, Mahatma

19.

War begets quiet, quiet idleness, idleness disorder, disorder ruin; likewise ruin order, order virtue, virtue glory, and good fortune.

Raleigh, Sir Walter

20.

All war represents a failure of diplomacy.

Benn, Tony

21.

Fear has its use but cowardice has none.

Gandhi, Mahatma

22.

Keep on sowing your seed, for you never know which will grow -- perhaps it all will.

Einstein, Albert

23.

Our young people have come to look upon war as a kind of beneficent deity, which not only adds to the national honor but uplifts a nation and develops patriotism and courage. That is all true. But it is only fair, too, to let them know that the garments of the deity are filthy and that some of her influences debase and befoul a people.

Davis, Rebecca Harding

24.

Every gun that is fired, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

25.

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

Penn, William

26.

There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.

Twain, Mark

27.

He who wishes to secure the good of others has already secured his own.

Confucius

28.

War is not nice.

Barbara Bush

29.

O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief... for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

Twain, Mark

30.

The real trouble with war (modern war) is that it gives no one a chance to kill the right people.

Pound, Ezra

31.

The cowards never started -- and the weak died along the way.

32.

Not in rewards, but in the strength to strive, the blessing lies.

Towbridge, J. T.

33.

A coward is one who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.

Bierce, Ambrose

34.

The idea of thanking staff should mean giving them something that they would never buy for themselves.

Crook, Jayne

35.

The idea of all-out nuclear war is unsettling.

Walter Goodman

36.

Of course in war all madnesses come out in a man, that is the fault of war not of a man or a nation.

Lawrence, Frieda

37.

War has always been the grand sagacity of every spirit which has grown too inward and too profound; its curative power lies even in the wounds one receives.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

38.

It is well that war is so terrible - otherwise we would grow too fond of it.

Robert E. Lee

39.

I had supposed until that time that it was quite common for parents to love their children, but the war persuaded me that it is a rare exception. I had supposed that most people liked money better than almost anything else, but I discovered that they liked destruction even better. I had supposed that intellectuals frequently loved truth, but I found here again that not ten per cent of them prefer truth to popularity.

Russell, Bertrand

40.

The only winner in the War of 1812 was Tchaikovsky.

Solomon Short

41.

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

42.

War-making is one of the few activities that people are not supposed to view realistically; that is, with an eye to expense and practical outcome. In all-out war, expenditure is all-out, unprudent -- war being defined as an emergency in which no sacrifice is excessive.

Sontag, Susan

43.

A coward is a hero with a wife, kids, and a mortgage.

Kitman, Marvin

44.

War -- what a waist of time. It's all about great achievements for the very few but hideous losses for the very many.

45.

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

46.

How many feasible projects have miscarried through despondency, and been strangled in their birth by a cowardly imagination.

Collier, Jeremy

47.

It is better to be killed than frightened to death.

Surtees, Robert S.

48.

War is the trade of Kings.

Dryden, John

49.

The cross of the Legion of Honor has been conferred on me. However, few escape that distinction.

Twain, Mark

50.

Those who dare to interpret God's will must never claim Him as an asset for one nation or group rather than another. War springs from the love and loyalty which should be offered to God being applied to some God substitute, one of the most dangerous being nationalism.

Runcie, Robert