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Quotations by Subject |
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War |
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Dalton's records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the
World War II bombing of Manchester. It is not only the living who are killed in
war. -Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (1920-1992) War would end if the dead could return. -Stanley Baldwin, statesman (1867-1947) War is God's way of teaching Americans geography. -Ambrose Bierce, writer (1842-1914) Youth is the first victim of war - the first fruit of peace. It takes 20 years or more of peace to make a man; it takes only 20 seconds of war to destroy him. -Boudewijn I, King of Belgium (1934-1993) War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is
always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by
killing each other's children. Whoever heard of a hundred thousand animals rushing together to butcher each other, as men do everywhere [during war]?" -Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and
multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses. -Thomas Jefferson, author,
architect, and third U.S. president (1743-1826) Every gun that is made, 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. -Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. general and 34th president (1890-1969) Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools. -William Faulkner, novelist (1897-1962) [The Sound and the Fury, 1929] All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers... Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born. -Francois Fenelon, theologian and writer (1651-1715) Night fell again. There was war to the south, but our sector was quiet. The battle was over. Our casualties were some thirteen thousand killed--thirteen thousand minds, memories, loves, sensations, worlds, universes--because the human mind is more a universe than the universe itself--and all for a few hundred yards of useless mud. -John Fowles [The Magus, 1965] A great war leaves the country with three armies - an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves. -German proverb It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to
restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace. -Andre Gide,
author, Nobel laureate (1869-1951) Why of course the people don't want war ... But after all it is the leaders
of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to
drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or
a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ... Voice or no voice, the people can
always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to
do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack
of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on. -Joseph Heller, novelist (1923-1999) War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses. -Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) [The New Dictionary of Thoughts] Often war is waged only in order to show valor; thus an inner dignity is ascribed to war itself, and even some philosophers have praised it as an ennoblement of humanity, forgetting the pronouncement of the Greek who said, "War is an evil in as much as it produces more wicked men than it takes away." -Immanuel Kant, philosopher (1724-1804) War, at first, is the hope that one will be better off; next, the expectation that the other fellow will be worse off; then, the satisfaction that he isn't any better off; and, finally, the surprise at everyone's being worse off. -Karl Kraus, writer (1874-1936) The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions. -Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949) War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace. - Thomas Mann War loses a great deal of romance after a soldier has seen his first battle.
-John Singleton Mosby, confederate colonel in the American Civil War (1833-1916) The fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of the weapons provided for defence against real, pretended, or imaginary dangers from abroad. -James Madison, 4th US president (1751-1836) Love is like war; easy to begin but very hard to stop. -H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956) In war, there are no unwounded soldiers. -Jose Narosky, writer
He that is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of
hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death. -Thomas Paine, philosopher
and writer (1737-1809) You can't say civilization isn't advancing, in every war they kill you in a new way. -Will Rogers, American humorist (1879-1935) People rarely win wars; governments rarely lose them. -Arundhati Roy, writer and activist (1961- ) Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come. -Carl Sandburg, poet and biographer (1878-1967) When the rich make war it's the poor that die. Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat. -Jean-Paul Sartre, writer and philosopher (1905-1980) It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell. -William Tecumseh Sherman, Union General in the American Civil War (1820-1891) In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful. -Leo Tolstoy, author (1828-1910) War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves. -Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910) Did you know that the worldwide food shortage that threatens up to five
hundred million children could be alleviated at the cost of only one day, only
ONE day, of modern warfare. -Peter Ustinov, actor, writer and director
(1921-2004) I am not one of those who believe that a great army is the means of maintaining peace, because if you build up a great profession those who form parts of it want to exercise their profession. -Woodrow Wilson, 28th US president, Nobel laureate (1856-1924) Join the Army, meet interesting people, kill them.
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