Sayings about War
To win a war quickly takes long preparation. ~ Latin Proverbs
Where there are weapons, there will be wars. ~ Mexican Proverbs
War is to a man what bed is to a woman. ~ Indian Proverbs
Many heroes appear after the war. ~ Romanian Proverbs
When war begins the devil makes hell bigger. ~ Spanish Proverbs
To call war the soil of courage and virtue is like calling debauchery the soil of love. ~ German Proverbs
In love and war don’t seek counsel. ~ French Proverbs
We won the war, but lost peace. ~ Serbian Proverbs
War is much too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military. ~ French Proverb
All is fair in love and war. ~ Traditional Proverb
Peace pays what war wins. ~ Serbian Proverb
Let war be waged in the house of him who wants it. ~ Serbian Proverb
Love is like war: you begin when you like and leave off when you can. ~ Spanish Proverb
War makes thieves, and peace hangs them. ~ Scottish Proverbs
You cannot wage war without the sound of gunpowder. ~ Malian Proverbs
Eternal peace lasts until the next war. ~ Russian Proverb
Hussars pray for war and doctors for fever. ~ German Proverb
He who doesn’t go to war roars like a lion. ~ Iranian Proverbs
In peace be faithful; in war be valiant. ~ New Zealander Proverbs
Better dry bread in peacetime than meat in wartime. ~ Hungarian Proverbs
Make peace with people; wage war with your sins. ~ Russian Proverb
Advise no one to go to war or to marry. ~ Spanish Proverb
If you wish for peace be ready for war. ~ Traditional Proverb
The war is lost for too much advice. ~ Sicilian Proverbs
An iron peace is better than a golden war. ~ Polish Proverbs
Quotations about War
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. ~ Ruth Benedict
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. ~ Lewis H. Lapham
All war represents a failure of diplomacy. ~ Tony Benn
The most persistent sound which reverberates through man’s history is the beating of war drums. ~ Arthur Koestler
How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print. ~ Karl Kraus
War — what a waste of time. It’s all about great achievements for the very few but hideous losses for the very many. ~ Author Unknown
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. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster. ~ William T. Sherman
Blunders are an inescapable feature of war, because choice in military affairs lies generally between the bad and the worse. ~ Allan Massie
The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
America is addicted to wars of distraction. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich
Moderation in war is imbecility. ~ Admiral John Fisher
The real trouble with war (modern war) is that it gives no one a chance to kill the right people. ~ Ezra Pound
I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win. ~ Sun Tzu
Wars can be prevented just as surely as they can be provoked, and we who fail to prevent them must share in the guilt for the dead. ~ Omar Nelson Bradley
War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can’t smile, grin. If you can’t grin, keep out of the way till you can. ~ Winston Churchill
An unjust peace is better than a just war. ~ Marcus T. Cicero
I have a deep sympathy with war; it so apes the gait and bearing of the soul. ~ Henry David Thoreau
Men are at war with each other because each man is at war with himself. ~ Francis Meehan
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. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
I sincerely wish war was a pleasanter and easier business than it is, but it does not admit of holidays. ~ Abraham Lincoln
War is the statesman’s game, the priest’s delight, the lawyer’s jest, the hired assassin’s trade. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley
The most terrible job in warfare is to be a second lieutenant leading a platoon when you are on the battlefield. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
There is no reason for war that reasonable men can’t settle. ~ Author Unknown
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. ~ Noel Coward
Force, and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues. ~ Thomas Hobbes
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. ~ D. H. Lawrence
War is a contagion. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
In war, there is no substitute for victory. ~ Douglas Macarthur
I have known war as few men now living know it. Its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes. ~ Douglas Macarthur
I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. ~ Albert Einstein
Frankly, I’d like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private industry. ~ Joseph Heller
In war, more than anywhere else in the world, things happen differently from what we had expected, and look differently when near from what they did at a distance. ~ Karl Von Clausewitz
Of course in war all madness’s come out in a man. That is the fault of war not of a man or a nation. ~ Frieda Lawrence
Wars are carried out by large organizations; Peace is brought one by one. ~ Rachel Manor
War is not an adventure. It is a disease. It is like typhus. ~ Antoine De Saint-Exupery
War is not a life: it is a situation, one which may neither be ignored nor accepted. ~ T. S. Eliot
The more we sweat in peace the less we bleed in war. ~ Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit
In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons. ~ Herodotus
The natural principle of war is to do the most harm to our enemy with the least harm to ourselves; and this of course is to be effected by stratagem. ~ Washington Irving
The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it. ~ George Orwell
War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of politics by other means. ~ Karl Von Clausewitz
There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli
War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow. ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. ~ Sun Tzu
War is like love, it always finds a way. ~ Bertolt Brecht
To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman. ~ George Santayana
It takes twenty years or more of peace to make a man; it takes only twenty seconds of war to destroy him. ~ Baudouin I
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. ~ John F. Kennedy
War is hell and all that, but it has a good deal to recommend it. It wipes out all the small nuisances of peace time. ~ Ian Hay
Wars are made to make debt. ~ Ezra Pound
War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it. ~ Desiderius Erasmus
Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die. ~ Herbert Clark Hoover
I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more wars. ~ Abbie Hoffman
War hath no fury like a non-combatant. ~ Charles Edward Montague
War on nations changes maps. War on poverty maps change. ~ Muhammad Ali
Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves. ~ William Hazlitt
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. ~ George Orwell
War: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that he too is suffering; in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost. ~ Karl Kraus
The pioneers of a warless world are the young men and women who refuse military service. ~ Albert Einstein
There are two things which will always be very difficult for a democratic nation: to start a war and to end it. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville
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. ~ Margot Asquith
War is the supreme drama of a completely mechanized society. ~ Lewis Mumford
If it were not for the war, this war would suit me down to the ground. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers
I cannot believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war and no one will win the next. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war. ~ Otto Von Bismarck
War is the trade of Kings. ~ John Dryden
The inevitableness, the idealism, and the blessing of war, as an indispensable and stimulating law of development, must be repeatedly emphasized. ~ Friedrich Von Bernhardi
A skillful leech is better far, than half a hundred men of war. ~ Samuel Butler
You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. ~ Jeannette Rankin
Suppose they gave a war, and no one came? ~ Leslie Parrish-Bach
To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace. ~ George Washington
It is far easier to make war than to make peace. ~ Georges Clemenceau
In war, there are no unwounded soldiers. ~ Jose Narosky
The most important wars in history were the result of trivial causes. Those who know when they have had enough are wealthy. ~ Fred Van Amburgh
War begets quiet, quiet idleness, idleness disorder, disorder ruin; likewise ruin order, order virtue, virtue glory, and good fortune. ~ Sir Walter Raleigh
Morality is contraband in war. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
No country has suffered so much from the ruins of war while being at peace as the American. ~ Edward Dahlberg
There was never a good war, or a bad peace. ~ Benjamin Franklin
War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow men. ~ Napoleon Hill
As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular. ~ Oscar Wilde
The giving of blood is imbued with the psychology of peace, for it leaves its humanitarian mark in the hearts of those who give for their fellowman. ~ Red Cross Courier
A ‘just war’ is hospitable to every self-deception on the part of those waging it, none more than the certainty of virtue, under whose shelter every abomination can be committed with a clear conscience. ~ Alexander Cockburn
A self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war. ~ Simone Weil
The sinews of war, a limitless supply of money. ~ Marcus T. Cicero
We make war that we may live in peace. ~ Aristotle
Women and War: With a New Epilogue. ~ Book preview