“War had become nothing more than slaughtering soldiers from a safe distance. When this failed to produce victory, civilians too became targeted for annihilation. It took more than a century, two world wars and the invention of the ultimate weapon, the atomic bomb, before the impact of this change started to become fully realized: war had become ‘total war’. Warfare in the twentieth century is now an industry. It is bureaucratized, to the extent that its main decisions are being taken anonymously and committed to paper by people far removed from the actual killing zones.” ——Hylke Tromp, On the Nature of War and the Nature of Militarism
“War never takes a wicked man by chance, the good man always.” ——Sophocles, Philoctetes
“War is a fevered god who takes alike maiden and king and clod.” ——Hilda Doolittle, Telesila
“The moral reality of war is divided into two parts. War is always judged twice, first with reference to the reasons states have for fighting, secondly with reference to the means they adopt…. The two sorts of judgment are logically independent. It is perfectly possible for a just war to be fought unjustly and for an unjust war to be fought in strict accordance with the rules. But this independence, though our views of particular wars often conform to its terms, is nevertheless puzzling. It is a crime to commit aggression, but aggressive war is a rule-governed activity. It is right to resist aggression, but the resistance is subject to moral (and legal) restraint.” ——Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars
“As horrible as the death toll was in World War I, the millions who died were, by and large, killed on the battlefield–soldiers killed by soldiers, not civilians killed by lawless or random or planned savagery. The rough proportion of military to civilian casualties was ninety to ten. In World War II, the proportions were roughly even. Today, for every ten military casualties there are on the order of ninety civilian deaths. The reality of our era, as demonstrated in Angola, Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Chechnya, is that torture is rampant, murdering civilians commonplace, and driving the survivors from their homes often the main goal of a particular military offensive.” ——Ron Gutman and David Rieff, preface, Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know
“War alone brings up to their highest tension all human energies and imposes the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to make it.” ——Benito Mussolini, The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism
“War being the greatest of evils, all its accessories necessarily partake of the same character.” ——Herman Melville, Omoo
“A war undertaken without sufficient monies has but a wisp of force. Coins are the very sinews of battles.” ——François Rabelais, Gargantua
“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, New Statesman, February 8, 1991
“There has been no war without atrocity. War is atrocity, pure and simple: only greed, nationalism and faith help us pretend otherwise.” ——Michael Marshall, Blood of Angels
“The nation having the strongest war footing can easily find an excuse for going to war.” ——Lewis F. Korns, Thoughts
“Man kills without ceasing, to nourish himself; but since in addition he needs to kill for pleasure, he has invented the chase! The child kills the insects he finds, the little birds, all the little animals that come in his way. But this does not suffice for the irresistible need of massacre that is in us. It is not enough to kill beasts; we must kill man too. Long ago this need was satisfied by human sacrifice. Now, the necessity of living in society has made murder a crime. We condemn and punish the assassin! But as we cannot live without yielding to this natural and imperious instinct of death, we relieve ourselves from time to time, by wars. Then a whole nation slaughters another nation. It is a feast of blood, a feast that maddens armies and intoxicates the civilians, women and children, who read, by lamplight at night, the feverish story of massacre.” ——Guy de Maupassant, The Diary of a Madman
“War is a mind-set, and all action that comes out of such a mind-set will either strengthen the enemy, the perceived evil, or, if the war is won, will create a new enemy, a new evil equal to and often worse than the one that was defeated. There is a deep interrelatedness between your state of consciousness and external reality. When you are in the grip of a mind-set such as ‘war,’ your perceptions become extremely selective as well as distorted. In other words, you will see only what you want to see and then misinterpret it. You can imagine what kind of action comes out of such a delusional system. Or instead of imagining it, watch the news on TV tonight.” ——Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“A true warrior does not fight because he wishes to but because he has to. A man who yearns for war, a man who enjoys his killing, he is a brute and a monster. No matter how much glory he wins on the battlefield, that cannot erase the fact that he is no better than a rabid wolf who will turn on his friends and family as soon as his foes.” ——Christopher Paolini, Brisingr
“Let’s face it–if mothers ruled the world, there wouldn’t be any goddamn wars in the first place.” ——Sally Field, acceptance speech, 2007 Emmy Awards
“The war does not end when you come home. It lives on in memories of your fellow soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who gave their lives. It endures in the wound that is slow to heal, the disability that isn’t going away, the dream that wakes you at night, or the stiffening in your spine when a car backfires down the street.” ——Barack Obama, speech, February 27, 2009
“I cannot now, as I once did, talk lightly, thoughtlessly, of fighting with this or that nation. That nation is no longer an abstraction to me. It is no longer a vague mass. It spreads out before me into individuals, in a thousand interesting forms and relations. It consists of husbands and wives, parents and children, who love one another as I love my own home. It consists of affectionate women and sweet children. It consists of Christians united with me to the common Savior, and in whose spirit I recognize the likeness of his divine virtue. It consists of a vast multitude of laborers at the plough and in the workshop, whose toils I sympathize with, whose burden I should rejoice to lighten, and for whose elevation I have pleaded. It consists of men of science, taste, genius, whose writings have beguiled my solitary hours, and given life to my intellect and best affections. Here is the nation which I am called to fight with, into whose families I must send mourning, whose fall or humiliation I must seek through blood. I cannot do it without a clear commission from God.” ——William E. Channing, Thoughts
“War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man. At the dawn of history, its morality was not questioned; it was simply a fact, like drought or disease — the manner in which tribes and then civilizations sought power and settled their differences. And over time, as codes of law sought to control violence within groups, so did philosophers and clerics and statesmen seek to regulate the destructive power of war. The concept of a ‘just war’ emerged, suggesting that war is justified only when certain conditions were met: if it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense; if the force used is proportional; and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence. Of course, we know that for most of history, this concept of ‘just war’ was rarely observed. The capacity of human beings to think up new ways to kill one another proved inexhaustible, as did our capacity to exempt from mercy those who look different or pray to a different God.” ——Barack Obama, Nobel Lecture, December 10, 2009
“War is sure result of the existence of armed men. That country which maintains a large standing army will sooner or later have a war. The man who prides himself on fisticuffs is going, some day, to meet a man who considers himself the better man, and they will test the issue.” ——Elbert Hubbard, The American Bible
“The abolition of war is no longer to be set down as a creation of fancy, a dream of enthusiastic philanthropy. War rests on opinion; and opinion is more and more withdrawing its support. War rests on contempt of human nature; on the long mournful habit of regarding the mass of human beings as machines, or as animals; having no higher use than to be shot at and murdered for the glory of a chief, for the seating of this or that family on a throne, for the petty interests and selfish rivalries which have inflamed states to conflict. Let the worth of a human being be felt, and a main pillar of war will fall.” ——William E. Channing, Thoughts
“In every trade save war men of talent and vigor prosper. In war they die.” ——Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing
“A preventive war, to my mind, is an impossibility today. How could you have one if one of its features would be several cities lying in ruins, several cities where many, many thousands of people would be dead and injured and mangled, the transportation systems destroyed, sanitation implements and systems all gone? That isn’t preventive war; that is war.” ——Dwight D. Eisenhower, news conference, August 11, 1954
“War is a game, in which princes seldom win, the people never. To be defended, is almost as great an evil as to be attacked; and the peasant has often found the shield of a protector, no less oppressive than the sword of an invader. Wars of opinion, as they have been the most destructive, are also the most disgraceful of conflicts; being appeals from right to might, and from argument to artillery.” ——Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon
“War may be the game of kings, but, like the games at ancient Rome, it is generally exhibited to please and pacify the people.” ——Arthur Helps, Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
“Want is both parent and child of war.” ——Edward Counsel, Maxims
“Armies are not bad things in themselves; it’s war that’s evil.” ——Juan Gomez-Jurado, God’s Spy
“Short of changing human nature… the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war.” ——Richard Nixon, Real Peace
“Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.” ——James Madison, speech at Constitutional Convention, June 29, 1787
“All wars of interference, arising from an officious intrusion into the concerns of other states; all wars of ambition, carried on for the purposes of aggrandizement; and all wars of aggression, undertaken for the purpose of forcing an assent to this or that set of religious opinions; all such wars are criminal in their very outset, and have hypocrisy for their common base.” ——Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon
“We could make no more tragic mistake than merely to concentrate on military strength. For if we did only this, the future would hold nothing for the world but an Age of Terror.” ——Dwight D. Eisenhower, State of the Union Address, January 9, 1958
“Even a successful war is a loss to most families.” ——Edward Counsel, Maxims
“There’s never been a true war that wasn’t fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe that they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.” ——Neil Gaiman, American Gods
“War is the most readily available form of chaos.” ——Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune
“It makes no difference what men think of war…. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.” ——Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
“I cannot get accustomed to war; my brain refuses to understand and explain a thing that is senseless in its basis. Millions of people gather at one place and, giving their actions order and regularity, kill each other, and it hurts everybody equally, and all are unhappy — what is it if not madness?” ——Leonid Andreyev, The Red Laugh
“War among men defiles this world.” ——T. S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral
“War ends when it has rolled through cities and villages, everywhere sowing death and destruction. For such is the logic of war. If people do not display wisdom they will clash like blind moles and then mutual annihilation will commence.” ——Robert McNamara, The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara
“I ain’t draft dodging. I ain’t burning no flag. I ain’t running to Canada. I’m staying right here. You want to send me to jail? Fine, you go right ahead. I’ve been in jail for 400 years. I could be there for 4 or 5 more, but I ain’t going no 10,000 miles to help murder and kill other poor people. If I want to die, I’ll die right here, right now, fightin’ you, if I want to die. You my enemy, not no Chinese, no Vietcong, no Japanese. You my opposer when I want freedom. You my opposer when I want justice. You my opposer when I want equality. Want me to go somewhere and fight for you? You won’t even stand up for me right here in America, for my rights and my religious beliefs. You won’t even stand up for my right here at home.” ——Muhammad Ali, Ali (2001)
“There’s no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war except its ending.” ——Abraham Lincoln, Star Trek, The Savage Curtain (1969)
“The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you’re already dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function: without mercy, without compassion, without remorse. All war depends upon it.” ——Captain Ronald Speirs, Band of Brothers (2001)
“War is coming. In foreign fields, war of the whole wide world, with all your boys falling down in the mud. Do you think they will thank the man who taught them it was glorious?” ——Jeremy Baines, Doctor Who, The Family of Blood (2007)
“The cruel reality of war is that there is no return home. No return to innocence. What is lost, is lost forever.” ——Sarah Connor, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, The Tower Is Tall But the Fall Is Short (2008)
“I was a warrior who dreamed he could bring peace. Sooner or later, though, you always have to wake up.” ——Jake Sully, Avatar (2009)
“Never underestimate the power of words. It only takes one word to start a war: ‘charge!’ There’s also a single word to end one: ‘armistice.'” ——Senator Blakely, Dakota Incident (1956)
“The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug.” ——Chris Hedges, The Hurt Locker (2008)
“War isn’t hell at all. It’s man at his best; the highest morality he’s capable of. It’s not war that’s insane, you see. It’s the morality of it. It’s not greed or ambition that makes war, it’s goodness. Wars are always fought for the best of reasons: for liberation or manifest destiny. Always against tyranny and always in the interest of humanity. So far this war, we’ve managed to butcher some ten million humans in the interest of humanity. Next war it seems we’ll have to destroy all of man in order to preserve his damn dignity. It’s not war that’s unnatural to us, it’s virtue. As long as valor remains a virtue, we shall have soldiers. So, I preach cowardice. Through cowardice, we shall all be saved.” ——Lt. Commander Charles E. Madison, The Americanization of Emily (1964)
“Indians! Indians were the issue in those days. I can assure you, gentlemen, there is nothing quite so grotesque as the meeting of a child with a bullet; or an entire village slaughtered while sleeping. That was the government’s resolution of that particular issue and I have seen nothing in its behavior since then that would persuade me that it has gained either in wisdom, common sense, or humanity.” ——Colonel William Ludlow, Legends of the Fall (1994)
“Would be greatest blessing if all war fought with machinery instead of human beings.” ——Charlie Chan, Charlie Chan at the Olympics (1937)