War Quotes

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

~ Joseph Heller

No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

He who joyfully marches to music rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

~ Albert Einstein

There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.

~ Sun Tzu

For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.

~ Elie Wiesel

In wars, boy, fools kill other fools for foolish causes

~ Robert Jordan

How come we play war and not peace?Too few role models.

~ Bill Watterson

War doesn't negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace. - Baba

~ Khaled Hosseini

But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony--Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?

~ Erich Maria Remarque

It doesn't make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead.

~ Joseph Heller

Move swift as the Wind and closely-formed as the Wood. Attack like the Fire and be still as the Mountain.

~ Sun Tzu

The human race is unimportant. It is the self that must not be betrayed.I suppose one could say that Hitler didn't betray his self.You are right. He did not. But millions of Germans did betray their selves. That was the tragedy. Not that one man had the courage to be evil. But that millions had not the courage to be good.

~ John Fowles

The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.

~ Sun Tzu

Until the philosophy which hold one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned...Everything is war. Me say war.That until the're no longer 1st class and 2nd class citizens of any nation...Until the color of a man's skin is ofno more significa...nce than the color of his eyes, me say war. That until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race me say war!

~ Haile Selassie

It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

~ Terry Pratchett

May God have mercy for my enemies because I won't.

~ George S. Patton Jr.

When someone has been mean to you, why would you want to be good to them?' 'You wouldn't want to. That's what makes it hard. You do it anyway. Being good is hard. Much harder than being bad.

~ Jeanne Duprau

We are not youth any longer. We don’t want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world, and we had to shoot it to pieces.

~ Erich Maria Remarque

Rules are for children. This is war, and in war the only crime is to lose.

~ Joe Abercrombie

And if we burn, you burn with us.

~ Suzanne Collins

So the whole war is because we can't talk to each other.

~ Orson Scott Card

War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.

~ Cormac Mccarthy

If you can walk with the crowd and keep your virtue, or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run- Yours is the earth and everything that's in it, And-which is more-you'll be a man my son.

~ Rudyard Kipling

When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.

~ Sun Tzu

Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!

~ William Shakespeare

The whole world can become the enemy when you lose what you love.

~ Kristina Mcmorris

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

War is sweet to those who have never fought.

~ Jess Rothenberg

The law of evolution is that the strongest survives!' 'Yes, and the strongest, in the existence of any social species, are those who are most social. In human terms, most ethical...There is no strength to be gained from hurting one another. Only weakness.

~ Ursula K. Le Guin

To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.

~ Sun Tzu

We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial—I believe we are lost.

~ Erich Maria Remarque

who wishes to fight must first count the cost

~ Sun Tzu

There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs.

~ George R.r. Martin

Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor.

~ Robert A. Heinlein

He tried to name which of the deadly seven might apply, and when he failed he decided to append an eighth, regret.

~ Charles Frazier

The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.

~ James Madison

Battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.

~ Walt Whitman

Maybe this was how you stayed sane in wartime: a handful of noble deeds amid the chaos.

~ Scott Westerfeld

Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me'.

~ George Orwell

One mark of a great soldier is that he fight on his own terms or fights not at all.

~ Sun Tzu