Motivational Quotes

War

Unless they are immediate victims, the majority of mankind behaves as if war was an act of God which could not be prevented; or they behave as if war elsewhere was none of their business. It would be a bitter cosmic joke if we destroy ourselves due to atrophy of the imagination.

- Gellhorn, Martha

Best Quotes about War

My valor is certainly going, it is sneaking off! I feel it oozing out as it were, at the palms of my hands!

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

The most persistent sound which reverberates through man's history is the beating of war drums.

Koestler, Arthur

How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.

Kraus, Karl

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

Reagan, Ronald

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

The triumphs of peace have been in some proximity to war. Whilst the hand was still familiar with the sword-hilt, whilst the habits of the camp were still visible in the port and complexion of the gentleman, his intellectual power culminated; the compression and tension of these stern conditions is a training for the finest and softest arts, and can rarely be compensated in tranquil times, except by some analogous vigor drawn from occupations as hardy as war.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

War is a contagion.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

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

Carl Sandburg

It is better to be killed than frightened to death.

Surtees, Robert S.

10.

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

11.

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

Sewell, George

12.

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

13.

From the happy expression on their faces you might have supposed that they welcomed the war. I have met with men who loved stamps, and stones, and snakes, but I could not imagine any man loving war.

Asquith, Margot

14.

Suppose they gave a war, and no one came?

Parrish-Bach, Leslie

15.

I think the mark of a great ruler, is not his ability to make war but to achieve peace.

Monica Fairview

16.

What vast additions to the conveniences and comforts of living might mankind have acquired, if the money spent in wars had been employed in works of public utility; what an extension of agriculture even to the tops of our mountains; what rivers rendered navigable, or joined by canals; what bridges, aqueducts, new roads, and other public works, edifices, and improvements might not have been obtained by spending those millions in doing good, which in the last war have been spent in doing mischief.

Franklin, Benjamin

17.

People in general are scared to death of the war and all the exhibition have been a failure, because the rich - don't want to buy anything.

Frida Kahlo

18.

Do you know the only thing that gives me pleasure? It's to see my dividends coming in.

Rockefeller, John D.

19.

War is not its own end, except in some catastrophic slide into absolute damnation. It's peace that's wanted. Some better peace than the one you started with.

Lois McMaster Bujold

20.

Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind. War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.

Kennedy, John F.

21.

Faint heart never won fair lady.

Cervantes, Miguel De

22.

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

23.

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.

Housman, A. E.

24.

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

25.

War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of politics by other means.

Clausewitz, Karl Von

26.

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

Einstein, Albert

27.

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

Manor, Rachel

28.

So you think you can tell heaven from hell blue skies from pain. Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail, a smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell? Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts hot ashes for trees, hot air for a cool breeze, cold comfort for change? Did you exchange a walk on part in a war for a lead role in a cage?

Waters, R.

29.

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

Twain, Mark

30.

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

31.

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

32.

America is addicted to wars of distraction.

Ehrenreich, Barbara

33.

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

Towbridge, J. T.

34.

War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.

King Jr. Martin Luther

35.

All men would be cowards if they could.

Rochester, Earl

36.

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

Andrews, C. D.

37.

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

38.

A cowardly cur barks more fiercely than it bites.

Rufus, Quintus Curtius

39.

The effects of our actions may be postponed but they are never lost. There is an inevitable reward for good deeds and an inescapable punishment for bad. Meditate upon this truth, and seek always to earn good wages from Destiny.

Fu Wu Ming

40.

War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.

Thomas Mann

41.

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

Confucius

42.

War is much too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military.

Georges Clemenceau

43.

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

44.

The coward threatens when he is safe.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

45.

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

46.

Dishonesty, cowardice and duplicity are never impulsive.

Knight, George A.

47.

The war is dreadful. It is the business of the artist to follow it home to the heart of the individual fighters -- not to talk in armies and nations and numbers -- but to track it home.

Lawrence, D. H.

48.

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

49.

The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession, but carrying a banner.

Twain, Mark

50.

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