War

Explore 135 quotes about War

Even in those cities which seem to enjoy the blessings of peace, and where the arts flourish, the inhabitants are devoured by envy, cares and anxieties, which are greater plagues than any experienced in a town when it is under siege.

Voltaire

Candide

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Topic

War and peace War Peace

Speaker

Martin

Author

Voltaire

Source

Candide

Medium

Novel

Genre

Satire

Language

French

Time

1759 1750s 18th century

Era

Age of Enlightenment

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Voltaire. Candide, ou l'Optimisme [Candide: or, All for the Best]. Geneva: Gabriel Cramer, 1759, ch. 20.

Current Citation

Voltaire. Candide, edited by Nicholas Cronk. W. W. Norton & Company, 2016, ch. 20.

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

Dwight D. Eisenhower

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Topic

Battle Preparation War

Speaker

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Language

English

Time

1962 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Eisenhower, Dwight D. Quoted in Six Crises, written by Richard Nixon. Doubleday, 1962.

When the rich wage war it's the poor who die.

Jean-Paul Sartre

More information about this quote

Topic

War Rich vs. poor

Speaker

Nasti

Author

Jean-Paul Sartre

Source

The Devil and the Good Lord

Medium

Play

Statement Type

Irony

Language

French

Time

1951 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Le Diable et le be Dieu [The Devil and the Good Lord]. Directed by Louis Jouvet. 7 June 1951, Théâtre Antoine, Paris, France.

Current Citation

Sartre, Jean-Paul. "The Devil & the Good Lord." The Devil & the Good Lord and Two Other Plays, translated by Kitty Black. Vintage, 1962.

War is father of all and king of all. Some he reveals as gods, other as men; some he makes slaves, other free.

Heraclitus

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More information about this quote

Topic

War Fate

Author

Heraclitus

Medium

Presocratic fragment Fragment

Genre

Philosophical literature

Language

Greek

Time

5th century BC

Era

Classical antiquity

Authentication Score 0

Original Citation

Heraclitus. Fragments. 5th century BC, F23 - DK B53.

Current Citation

Heraclitus. "Heraclitus of Ephesus." The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists, translated by Robin Waterfield. Oxford University Press, 2009, F23 - DK B53.

North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.

Richard Nixon

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Topic

Vietnam War War American politics

Speaker

Richard Nixon

Source

Silent Majority Speech on the War in Vietnam

Medium

Speech

Genre

Political speech

Language

English

Time

1969 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Nixon, Richard. Televised address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam. 3 Nov. 1969, Washington, DC, USA.

Current Citation

Nixon, Richard. Richard Nixon: Speeches, Writings, Documents, edited by Rick Perlstein. Princeton University Press, 2008, ch. 19.

Four things greater than all things are,—
Women and Horses and Power and War.

Rudyard Kipling

More information about this quote

Topic

Women Power War Horses

Author

Rudyard Kipling

Source

The Ballad of the King's Jest

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1890 1890s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Kipling, Rudyard. "The Ballad of the King's Jest." Macmillan’s Magazine, Feb. 1890, I. 38.

Current Citation

Kipling, Rudyard. "The Ballad of the King's Jest." The Collected Poems of Rudyard Kipling. Wordsworth Editions, 1999.

War is like love, it always finds a way.

Bertolt Brecht

More information about this quote

Topic

Inevitability of war War

Speaker

The Chaplain

Author

Bertolt Brecht

Source

Mother Courage and Her Children

Medium

Play

Language

German

Time

1939 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Brecht, Bertolt. Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder [Mother Courage and Her Children]. 1941, Schauspielhaus Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland.

Current Citation

Brecht, Bertolt. Mother Courage and Her Children, translated by Eric Bentley. Grove Press, 1991.

The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose.

Henry Kissinger

More information about this quote

Topic

Guerilla warfare Winning and losing War

Speaker

Henry Kissinger

Source

The Viet Nam Negotiations Foreign Affairs

Medium

Magazine

Language

English

Time

1969 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Kissinger, Henry. "The Viet Nam Negotiations." Foreign Affairs, Jan. 1969.

We are mad, not only individually, but nationally. We check manslaughter and isolated murders; but what of war and the much vaunted crime of slaughtering whole peoples?

Seneca the Younger

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Topic

Genocide Anti-war War

Author

Seneca the Younger

Source

Epistles (Seneca the Younger)

Medium

Letter

Language

Latin

Time

65 60s 1st century

Era

Classical antiquity

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Seneca the Younger. Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium [Moral Letters to Lucilius]. c. 65 AD.

Current Citation

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. Letters on Ethics, translated by Margaret Graver and A. A. Long. University of Chicago Press, 2017.

You think you are dying for your country; you die for the industrialists.

Anatole France

More information about this quote

Topic

Anti-war Dying for one's country Patriotism War

Author

Anatole France

Source

L' Humanite

Medium

Newspaper

Language

French

Time

1922 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

France, Anatole. "Une Lettre D'Anatole France." L'Humanite, 18 July 1922.

After each war there is a little less democracy to save.

Brooks Atkinson

More information about this quote

Topic

Decline of democracy War Democracy

Author

Brooks Atkinson

Source

Once Around the Sun

Medium

Personal journal

Language

English

Time

1951 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Atkinson, Brooks. Once Around the Sun. Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1951.

Now tell us all about the war,
And what they kill'd each other for.

Robert Southey

More information about this quote

Topic

War stories War

Author

Robert Southey

Source

The Battle of Blenheim

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1805 1800s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Southey, Robert. "The Battle of Blenheim." Metrical Tales and Other Poems. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1805, I. 29.

What if someone gave a war & Nobody came?
Life would ring the bells of Ecstasy and Forever be Itself again.

Allen Ginsberg

Graffiti 12th Cubicle Men's Room Syracuse Airport

More information about this quote

Topic

Anti-war War

Author

Allen Ginsberg

Source

Graffiti 12th Cubicle Men's Room Syracuse Airport

Medium

Poem

Statement Type

Question

Language

English

Time

1973 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Ginsberg, Allen. "Graffiti 12th Cubicle Men's Room Syracuse Airport." The Fall of America: Poems of These States. City Lights Bookstore, 1973.

War is the greatest of all agents of change. It speeds up all processes, wipes out minor distinctions, brings realities to the surface. Above all, war brings it home to the individual that he is not altogether an individual. It is only because they are aware of this that men will die on the field of battle.

George Orwell

More information about this quote

Topic

Effects of war War

Author

George Orwell

Source

The English Revolution The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius

Language

English

Time

1941 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Orwell, George. "The English Revolution." The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius. Searchlight Books, edited by T. R. Fyvel and George Orwell. Secker & Warburg, 1941, pt. 3, sec. 2.

Current Citation

Orwell, George. "The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius." The Collected Essays, Journalism And Letters Of George Orwell, vol. 2: My Country Right or Left 1940-1943, edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus. David R. Godine, 2007, no. 17, pt. 3, sec. 2.

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

Cormac McCarthy

Blood Meridian; or The Evening Redness in the West

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Topic

Man and war War

Author

Cormac McCarthy

Source

Blood Meridian; or The Evening Redness in the West

Medium

Novel

Genre

Western literature

Language

English

Time

1985 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

McCarthy, Cormac. Blood Meridian; or The Evening Redness in the West. Random House, 1985, ch. 17.

Every gun that is made, ever 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

More information about this quote

Topic

Costs of war War

Speaker

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Medium

Speech

Genre

Political speech

Language

English

Time

1953 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Eisenhower, Dwight D. "Chance for Peace." American Society for Newspaper Editors meeting. 16 Apr. 1953, Washington, DC, USA.

Yes, quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown.

Thomas Hardy

More information about this quote

Topic

Absurdity of war War

Author

Thomas Hardy

Source

The Man He Killed

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1902 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Original Citation

Hardy, Thomas. "The Man He Killed." Harper's Weekly, 8 Nov. 1902.

Current Citation

Hardy, Thomas. "The Man He Killed." Selected Poems. Penguin Classics, 1998.

But war's a game, which, were their subjects wise,
Kings would not play at.

William Cowper

The Winter Morning Walk

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Topic

War

Author

William Cowper

Source

The Winter Morning Walk The Task

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1785 1780s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Cowper, William. The Task. London: Joseph Johnson, 1785, bk. 5.

Current Citation

Cowper, William. "The Task." William Cowper: The Task and Selected Other Poems, edited by James Sambrook. Routledge, 2016, bk. 5.

The history of failure in war can almost be summed up in two words: too late.

Douglas MacArthur

More information about this quote

Topic

Military strategy War

Speaker

Douglas MacArthur

Medium

Speech

Language

English

Time

1940 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

MacArthur, Douglas. Statement on aid to Great Britain. 16 Sept. 1940.

I would like to see every single soldier on every single side, just take off your helmet, unbuckle your kit, lay down your rifle, and set down at the side of some shady lane, and say, nope, I ain't a gonna kill nobody. Plenty of rich folks want to fight. Give them the guns.

Woody Guthrie

People’s World

More information about this quote

Topic

Rich vs. poor in war War

Author

Woody Guthrie

Source

I Ain’t a Gonna Kill Nobody People’s World

Medium

Newspaper

Language

English

Time

1939 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Guthrie, Woody. “I Ain’t a Gonna Kill Nobody.” People’s World, c. 1939.