War Quotes

"Power said to the world, 'You are mine.' The world kept it prisoner on her throne. Love said to the world, 'I am thine.' The world gave it the freedom of her house."

"The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war."

Erasmus

"The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."

Thucydides

"Men grow tired of sleep, love, singing and dancing sooner than of war."

Homer

"They make a desert and call it peace."

Tacitus

"In times of war, the law falls silent."

Cicero

"We check manslaughter and isolated murders; but what of war and the much-vaunted crime of slaughtering whole peoples?"

Seneca

"We make war that we may live in peace."

"In war, three-quarters turns on personal character and relations; the balance of manpower and materials counts only for the remaining quarter."

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."

"Nothing except a battle lost can be half as melancholy as a battle won."

Duke of Wellington

"If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war."

Leo Tolstoy

"Peace is the virtue of civilization. War is its crime."

Victor Hugo

"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."

"If we don't end war, war will end us."

H. G. Wells

"In modern war... you will die like a dog for no good reason."

"So it goes."

Kurt Vonnegut

"The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on."

Joseph Heller

"A true war story is never moral."

Tim O'Brien

"War is a force that gives us meaning."

Chris Hedges

"Disarm, disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."

Julia Ward Howe

"Lay down your arms!"

Bertha von Suttner

"Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought!"

"I have known war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting."

Douglas MacArthur

"The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five."

Carl Sagan