War Quotes

Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes. It can no longer be of concern to great powers alone. For a nuclear disaster, spread by winds and waters and fear, could well engulf the great and the small, the rich and the poor, the committed and the uncommitted alike. Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.

JOHN F. KENNEDY

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

PLATO

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.
DAVID FRIEDMAN

There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy.
GEORGE WASHINGTON

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.ALBERT EINSTEIN (More on)

When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing more to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.
PLATO

Why do we kill people who are killing people to show that killing people is wrong?
HOLLY NEAR

It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.
GENERAL DOUGLAS MACARTHUR

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?
GANDHI

War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men.

GEORGES CLEMENCEAU

You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.

JEANNETTE RANKIN

They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.
ERNEST HEMMINGWAY

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

PATRICK HENRY

I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to fight in.
GEORGE MCGOVERN

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. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
DWIGHT EISENHOWER

Never has there been a good war or a bad peace.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

You can't say civilization don't advance -- for every war, they kill you in a new way.
WILL ROGERS