War

"But now, instead of discussion and argument, brute force rises up to the rescue of discomfited error, and crushes truth and right into the dust. "Might makes right," and hoary folly totters on in her mad career escorted by armies and navies."

"Nay, number itself in armies importeth not much, where the people is of weak courage; for, as Virgil saith, "It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep be.""

"The British army has fought for the establishment of our nation, and on all these occasions it is known that the discipline which exists in that army has not destroyed its spirit. It is, thank God, what it was, still; and they will meet again with the same spirit when called on on a future occasion, and I hope and trust, whether men mean it or not, no man will be able to render a British soldier other than he is, one of the most respectable."

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

"Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service."

"Hey, what are ya gonna do, nice college boy, eh? Didn't want to get mixed up in the family business huh? Now you wanna gun down a police captain. Why? Because he slapped you in the face a little bit? Hah? What do you think this is, the Army where you shoot 'em a mile away? You've gotta get up close like this and bada-bing! You blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit."

"Nothing is less compatible with military efficiency than political excitement."

"A Serjeant is a soldier with a halbert, and a drummer is a soldier with a drum."

"The Pale Blue Dot (photograph) is a silent rebuke to the fundamentalist, the nationalist, the militarist, the polluter-to anyone who does not put above all other things the protection of our little planet and the life that it sustains in the vast cold darkness."

"As a military professional, I knew that the most important element is trust- the vision had to be built on trust. The very basis for why soldiers fight the way they do is the trust they have in their teammates, their fellow soldiers. It's usually less dramatic off the battlefield but still equally important. Without trust in each other and trust in the institution, you will not be able to realize your vision."

"I have to laugh when people ask, "How's retired life?" I'm as busy as I've ever been, except now I make my own schedule. I see my husband every day. I finally get to spend regular quality time with family and friends. I no longer miss milestone events such as baby showers, birthdays, graduations, and weddings. I wrote this book. I started a consulting company, First 2 Four, LLC. I serve on multiple boards. I even continue to give speeches at universities and corporate gatherings, despite my continued fear of public speaking. But nothing- absolutely nothing- can replace the pride and purpose of being a soldier."

"Not everyone is cut out for the military, but I do believe everyone can and should have the opportunity to participate in a national service endeavor of their choice. Serving in the military can make you a better citizen, employee, and leader. The military provides hands-on experience. It provides leadership training and builds a foundation for a strong work ethic. Corporate America has taken notice and regularly recruits soldiers just as it does Ivy League students."

"“The army,” says a Moslem historian, with charming clarity, “is the source and means of government.”"

"She might have assumed that the fusion ships were doing something useful, but the media was full of talk of “military exercises,” which meant the Tirans and the Ghahari were engaging in expensive, belligerent gestures in orbit, trying to convince each other of their superior skills, technology, or sheer strength of numbers. For people with no real differences apart from a few centuries of recent history, they could puff up their minor political disputes into matters of the utmost solemnity. It might almost have been funny, if the idiots hadn’t incinerated hundreds of thousands of each other’s citizens every few decades, not to mention playing callous and often deadly games with the lives of the inhabitants of smaller nations."

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

"Some day there is going to be a man sitting in my present chair who has not been raised in the military services and who will have little understanding of where slashes in their estimates can be made with little or no damage. If that should happen while we still have the state of tension that now exists in the world, I shudder to think of what could happen in this country."

"The Cold War may well be remembered, then, as the point at which military strength, a defining characteristic of "power" itself for the past five centuries, ceased to be that. The Soviet Union collapsed, after all, with its military forces, even its nuclear capabilities, fully intact. The advance of technology, together with a culture of caution that transcended ideology, caused the nature of power itself to shift between 1945 and 1991: by the time the Cold War ended, the capacity to fight wars no longer guaranteed the influence of states, or even their continued existence, within the international system."

"In the various states of society, armies are recruited from very different motives. Barbarians are urged by the love of war; the citizens of a free republic may be prompted by a principle of duty; the subjects, or at least the nobles, of a monarchy, are animated by a sentiment of honor; but the timid and luxurious inhabitants of a declining empire must be allured into the service by the hopes of profit, or compelled by the dread of punishment."

"Like a plague, the mad spirit is sweeping the country, infesting the clearest heads and staunchest hearts with the deathly germ of militarism...militarism, the destroyer of youth, the raper of women, the annihilator of the best in the race, the very mower of life."

"The spirit of militarism has already permeated all walks of life. Indeed, I am convinced that militarism is a greater danger here than anywhere else, because of the many bribes capitalism holds out to those whom it wishes to destroy."

"Meanwhile, the U.S. debt remains, as it has been since 1790, a war debt; the United States continues to spend more on its military than do all other nations on earth put together, and military expenditures are not only the basis of the government's industrial policy; they also take up such a huge proportion of the budget that by many estimations, were it not for them, the United States would not run a deficit at all."

"The U.S. military, unlike any other, maintains a doctrine of global power projection: that it should have the ability, through roughly 800 overseas military bases, to intervene with deadly force absolutely anywhere on the planet. In a way, though, land forces are secondary; at least since World War II, the key to U.S. military doctrine has always been a reliance on air power. The United States has fought no war in which it did not control the skies, and it has relied on aerial bombardment far more systematically than any other military-in its recent occupation of Iraq, for instance, even going so far as to bomb residential neighborhoods of cities ostensibly under its own control. The essence of U.S. military predominance in the world is, ultimately, the fact that it can, at will, drop bombs, with only a few hours' notice, at absolutely any point on the surface of the planet. No other government has ever had anything remotely like this sort of capability. In fact, a case could well be made that it is this very power that holds the entire world monetary system, organized around the dollar, together."

"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle."

"A soldier of the civil authority must be taught not to kill men and to refuse to do so if he is commanded. ... If he is unwilling to comply, he must be rejected. A military commander ... must resign or be rejected. If a catechumen or a believer seeks to become a soldier, they must be rejected, for they have despised God."

"In 1806 the French under Napoleon had defeated the Prussians in a six-week campaign, trouncing them with such aplomb at the Battle of Jena that the philosopher Hegel had moved to celebrate Napoleon as the "world soul." In 1870 all signs indicated that the outcome would be otherwise. The French military ataché Eugène Stoffel] in Berlin had recently made a chilling observation: "Prussia is not a country which has an army. Prussia is an army which has a country.""

"Dumb stupid animals to be used."

"Little generals and painted gods raise armies to waste lives and goods and spoil the sacred earth."

"Armies, the world over, destroy enemies' property when they can not use it; and even destroy their own to keep it from the enemy. Civilized belligerents do all in their power to help themselves, or hurt the enemy, except a few things regarded as barbarous or cruel. Among the exceptions are the massacre of vanquished foes, and non-combatants, male and female."

"I could as easily bail out the Potomac River with a teaspoon as attend to all the details of the army."

"The soldier, be he friend or foe, is charged with the protection of the weak and unarmed. It is the very essence and reason for his being. When he violates this sacred trust, he not only profanes his entire cult but threatens the very fabric of international society. The traditions of fighting men are long and honorable. They are based upon the noblest of human traits—sacrifice."

"In the United States… a handful of corporations centralize decisions and responsibilities that are relevant for military and political as well as economic developments of global significance. For nowadays the military and the political cannot be separated from economic considerations of power. We now live not in an economic order or a political order, but in a political economy that is closely linked with military institutions and decisions. This is obvious in the repeated “oil crisis” in the Middle East, or in the relevance of Southeast Asia and African resources for the Western powers…"

"What the main drift of the twentieth century has revealed is that the economy has become concentrated and incorporated in the great hierarchies, the military has become enlarged and decisive to the shape of the entire economic structure; and moreover the economic and the military have become structurally and deeply interrelated, as the economy has become a seemingly permanent war economy; and military men and policies have increasingly penetrated the corporate economy."

"For the corporation executives, the military metaphysic often coincides with their interest in a stable and planned flow of profit; it enables them to have their risk underwritten by public money; it enables them reasonably to expect that they can exploit for private profit now and later, the risky research developments paid for by public money. It is, in brief, a mask of the subsidized capitalism from which they extract profit and upon which their power is based."

"Be a true patriot and don't forget: force should only be used in the service of right. Unarmed people deserve the respect of the Armed Forces... [...] A soldier cannot be a whistle-blower, unless it means saving the fatherland..."

"Bento Moreira Lima. A Caixa Preta do Golpe de 64. Paulo de Mello Bastos."

"It is the same in all wars; the soldiers do the fighting, the 'journalists' do the shouting, and no 'true patriot' ever gets near a front-line trench, except on the briefest of propaganda-tours."

"War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it."

"Every war, when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defence against a homicidal maniac. The essential job is to get people to recognise war propaganda when they see it, especially when it is disguised as peace propaganda."

"Everyone acknowledges that people come to the evidence with different preconceptions. But we can't go into these problems assuming that the civilian bias, which tends toward arms control, and the view that everyone is rational, is necessarily more appropriate than the military bias. That needs to be argued, not just assumed."

"Every time the Secretary of Defense tries to get a hand on his many intelligence programs, we hear warnings about the dire consequences to liberty. When you look behind those warnings, what you really see is the CIA trying to preserve its perks."

"The military mind tends to be conservative, realistic and historical. The civilian mind tends to be liberal, idealistic and Utopian. Journalists, obviously, are civilians, and they tend to distrust, and to suspect, the military’s motives."

"A bellicose stance toward Russia has become so routine and widespread that we might not give it a second thought... Often the biggest lies involve what remains unsaid. For instance, U.S. media rarely mention such key matters as the promise-breaking huge expansion of NATO to Russia’s borders since the fall of the Berlin Wall... or the more than 800 U.S. military bases overseas -- in contrast to Russia’s nine... The lives -- and even existence -- of future generations are at stake in the relationship between Washington and Moscow... The [USA's] incessant drumbeat is in sync with what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the madness of militarism."

"Terrible as an army with banners."

"What other job lets you die for a living?"

"There is a remedy against the domination imposed, not by generals, statesmen, and men of action, whose power dissolves when they retire, but by the great sort-crossers, whose power increases when they die- the remedy of becoming aware of metaphor..."

"Enjoin this upon the Officers, and let them inculcate, and press home to the Soldiery, the Necessity of Order and Harmony among them, who are embark'd in one common Cause, and mutually contending for all that Freeman [sic] hold dear. I am persuaded, if the Officers will but exert themselves, these Animosities, this Disorder, will in a great Measure subside, and nothing being more essential to the Service than that it should, I am hopeful nothing on their Parts will be wanting to effect it."

"Nothing can be more hurtful to the service, than the neglect of discipline; for that discipline, more than numbers, gives one army the superiority over another."

"Really when I reflect upon the characters and attainments of some of the General Officers of this army, and consider that these are the persons on whom I am to rely to lead columns against the French Generals, and who are to carry my instructions into execution, I tremble; and, as Lord Chesterfield said of the Generals of his day, "I only hope that when the enemy reads the list of their names he trembles as I do.""

"To know when to retreat; and to dare to do it."

"[A]rmies are only expedients, necessary evils. They should be kept out of sight for the same reason I keep the guns out of sight in my home. A military parade does not display greatness—it displays power. And that may be where I most part company with our new nationalists."

"The syndicalists fight against every form of militarism, which they see as a terrible threat to the physical and mental well-being of the people, which is in reality only a weapon in the hands of the ruling classes to protect the power of the propertied classes against the working class, harnessing power of the great majority of the people against the rebellion of the oppressed. For the workers of all lands, there is no benefit to be had from slaughtering one another, and it is only their ignorance which arranges for them to go to the wars which are the result of conflicts of interests between the capitalists of different States."

"With willing hearts and skillful hands, the difficult we do at once; the impossible takes a bit longer."

"There are two rules of war that have not yet been invalidated by the new world order. The first rule is that the belligerent nation must be fairly sure that its actions will make things better; the second rule is that the belligerent nation must be more or less certain that its actions won't make things worse."

"In order for a war to be just, three things are necessary. First, the authority of the sovereign…. Secondly, a just cause…. Thirdly … a rightful intention."

"But, say they, the wise man will wage Just Wars. As if he would not all the rather lament the necessity of just wars, if he remembers that he is a man; for if they were not just he would not wage them, and would therefore be delivered from all wars."

"They who have waged war in obedience to the divine command, or in conformity with His laws, have represented in their persons the public justice or the wisdom of government, and in this capacity have put to death wicked men; such persons have by no means violated the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill.""

"The Mahabharata, which provides the context for the Gita, clearly lays down that “non-violence is the highest duty” and describes how Krishna tries several non-violent solutions. Only when these fail due to the stubborn selfishness of the other party, and when the justice of his party’s cause is established and acknowledged even by elderly members of the opposite party, does Krishna gradually accept the second maxim, viz. that “violence is a duty against wilful evildoers”. That’s when he agrees at last to let the war begin. ... At any rate, his conduct in the whole process leading up to the start of the war is neatly compatible with the European theory of Just War, and could even be read as the earliest attempt at formulating such a doctrine of the conditions for Just War."

"Justa bella quibus necessaria."

"War will never yield but to the principles of universal justice and love, and these have no sure root but in the religion of Jesus Christ."

"War is mankind's most tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men. Though you follow the trade of the warrior, you do so in the spirit of Washington -- not of Genghis Khan. For Americans, only threat to our way of life justifies resort to conflict."

"Orthodox Christianity recognizes harms from both involuntary and “justifiable” homicide, including homicide in a just war, both of which incur excommunication not as punishment, but as spiritual therapy (Basil, 1983, Canon 13, pp. 801-802)."

"Modern civilization has introduced great qualifications to soften the rigours of war; and allows a degree of intercourse with enemies, and particularly with prisoners of war, which can hardly be carried on without the assistance of our Courts of justice. It is not therefore good policy to encourage these strict notions, which are insisted on contrary to morality and public convenience."

"The war in Afghanistan against apocalyptic terrorism qualifies in my understanding as the first truly just war since World War II."

"All the same, the fundamental truths which govern that art are still unchangeable; just as the principles of mechanics must always govern architecture, whether the building be made of wood, stone, iron or concrete; just as the principles of harmony govern music of whatever kind. It is still necessary, then, to establish the principles of war."

"Constantine was converted to Christianity by a vision that came to him on the eve of the battle of Milvian Bridge: "He saw with his own eyes, up in the sky and resting over the sun, a cross-shaped trophy formed from light, and a text attached to it which said, 'By this sign, conquer' ". Soon the cross would morph from being a hated symbol of Roman brutality into the universally recognizable logo of the Holy Roman Empire. Within a century, St Augustine would develop the novel idea of just war, trimming the church's originally pacifist message to the needs of the imperial war machine."

"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, no matter how justified, is not a crime."

"When people ask me what I did in the war, I tell them I did the same thing we all did. We fought for what was right. I've come to realize, there's nothing good about war... But there is good in why you fight wars. And we were all fighting for the same thing."

"The church has historically trusted men to make the decision about when to take life in war by giving them the “just war” theory. There is no “just abortion” theory for women. Catholics who believe in justice and equality reluctantly conclude that the absolute opposition of the church to abortion has more to do with the inequality of women in the church than with respect for life."

"The ideology of warfare that has been repeatedly invoked for the past thousand years of Western history grew out of Augustine's thesis of just war in the fifth century and continued to be developed to its complete expression in Pope Urban II's propaganda campaign launching the first Crusade at the end of the eleventh century. Simply stated in the terms of the American western, one of the great cultural institutions for fostering violence, the world is made up of good guys and bad guys, and the good guys have to shoot the bad guys for everyone's well-being. Once this was established, the state had only to declare its proposed victim a bad guy to justify a war."

"The organizing principle of any society is for war. The basic authority of the modern state over its people resides in its war powers. Today it's oil, tomorrow, water. It's what we like to call the GOD business: Guns, Oil, and Drugs. But there is a problem. Our way of life, its over. It's unsustainable and in rapid decline. That's why we implement demand destruction. We continue to make money as the world burns. But for this to work the people have to remain ignorant of the problem until it's too late. That's why we have triggers in place: 9/11, 7/7, WMDs. A population in a permanent state of fear does not ask questions. Our desire for war becomes its desire for war. A willing sacrifice. You see, fear is justification, fear is control, fear is money."

"Justum est bellum, quibus necessarium; et pia arma, quibus nulla nisi in armis relinquitur opes."

"But war, in a good cause, is not the greatest evil which a nation can suffer. War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice – a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice – is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other."

"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."

"Every decision to launch a war, even if it is the most justified and clear decision, is never easy. [...] It should not be utilized in the political race of those who wish to rise to power even at the price of baseless self-destruction, which lacks logic and boundaries – all this around a war which was the most justified."

"It is the object only of war that makes it honorable. And if there was ever a just war since the world began, it is this in which America is now engaged. * * * We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in."

"We must not let what happened lead to a deepening of divisions. Religion must never be used as a reason for conflict. [...] With all my heart I beg God to keep the world in peace. From this place, I invite both Christians and Muslims to raise an intense prayer to the One, almighty God whose children we all are, that the supreme good of peace may reign in the world."

"I say: NO TO WAR! War is not always inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity. International law, honest dialogue, solidarity between states, the noble exercise of diplomacy; these are methods worthy of individuals and nations in resolving their differences. I say this as I think of those who still place their trust in nuclear weapons, and as I think of the all too numerous conflicts which continue to hold hostage our brothers and sisters in humanity. Bethlehem reminds us of the unresolved crisis in the Middle East, where two peoples, Israeli and Palestinian, are called to live side by side, equally free and sovereign, in mutual respect. Faced with the constant degeneration of the crisis in the Middle East, I say to you that the solution will never be imposed by recourse to terrorism or armed conflict, as if military victories could be the solution. And what are we to say about the threat of a war which could strike the people of Iraq, the land of the Prophets, a people already sorely tried by more than 12 years of embargo? War is never just another means that one can choose to employ for settling differences between nations. As the charter of the United Nations Organisation and international law itself remind us, war cannot be decided upon, even when it is a matter of ensuring the common good, except as the very last option and in accordance with very strict conditions, without ignoring the consequences for the civilian population both during and after the military operations."

"When war, as in these days in Iraq, threatens the fate of humanity, it is ever more urgent to proclaim, with a strong and decisive voice, that only peace is the road to follow to construct a more just and united society. Violence and arms can never resolve the problems of men."

"The Seeger Court recognized that the exemption provision needed to “deal[] with the beliefs of different individuals who will articulate them in a multitude of ways,” and focused its test simply on the sincerity of the individual’s conscientious objection. Even this broadened approach to conscientious objection remains focused on individuals who are opposed to participating in any war, as opposed to those who are opposed to participating in a particular war. This leaves certain people who have moral objections to participation in particular wars—for example, someone who subscribes to “just war theory,” which condemns some, but not other, wars—without protection."

"Unjust war is to be abhorred; but woe to the nation that does not make ready to hold its own in time of need against all who would harm it! And woe thrice over to the nation in which the average man loses the fighting edge, loses the power to serve as a soldier if the day of need should arise!"

"Women have long been props for war-making. Invasions are often justified in part by pointing to the suffering of women in the countries targeted for attack. “Only the terrorists and the Taliban threaten to pull out women’s fingernails for wearing nail polish,” Laura Bush said when she took over her husband’s weekly radio address, in 2001, to urge Americans to support the war in Afghanistan. Like McMaster’s miniskirt photograph, Bush’s speech exemplifies the kind of pseudo-feminism sometimes used to justify invasion. The literary theorist and postcolonial feminist Gayatri Spivak calls it “white men saving brown women from brown men,” an imperial logic that ignores sexism at home to fight sexism abroad, and which disregards brown women’s agency and self-understanding. How women make sense of the situations in which they live—whether, for instance, they see the veil as oppressive or as a symbol of resistance or simply as an important religious practice—is irrelevant. Instead, imperialism is presented as a necessary act of deliverance. They don’t know how to treat their women; our job—really, our moral obligation—is liberation."

".מלחמת שלום הגליל היתה מהמוצדקות ביותר במלחמות ישראל"

"The statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception."

"War can only be abolished through war … in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun."

"The term "just war" contains an internal contradiction. War is inherently unjust, and the great challenge of our time is how to deal with evil, tyranny, and oppression without killing huge numbers of people."

"We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children. War is terrorism, magnified a hundred times."

"Man has mounted science, and is now run away with. I firmly believe that before many centuries more, science will be the master of men. The engines he will have invented will be beyond his strength to control. Someday science may have the existence of mankind in its power, and the human race commit suicide, by blowing up the world."

"In the map of nearly every country of the world three or four more red circles, a score of miles in diameter, mark the position of the dying atomic bombs, and the death areas that men have been forced to abandon around them. Within these areas perished museums, cathedrals, palaces, libraries, galleries of masterpieces, and a vast accumulation of human achievement, whose charred remains lie buried, a legacy of curious material that only future generations may hope to examine."

"If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth."

"This revelation of the secrets of nature, long mercifully withheld from man, should arouse the most solemn reflections in the mind and conscience of every human being capable of comprehension. We must indeed pray that these awful agencies will be made to conduce to peace among the nations, and that instead of wreaking measureless havoc upon the entire globe, may become a perennial fountain of world prosperity."

"The news today about "Atomic bombs" is so horrifying one is stunned. ... Such explosives in men's hands, while their moral and intellectual status is declining, is about as useful as giving out firearms to all inmates of a gaol and then saying that you hope "this will ensure peace". But one good thing may arise out of it, I suppose, if the write-ups are not overheated: Japan ought to cave in. Well we're in God's hands. But He does not look kindly on Babel-builders."

"... the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization."

"One must expect a war between U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. which will begin with the total destruction of London. I think the war will last 30 years, and leave a world without civilised people, from which everything will have to be built afresh — a process taking (say) 500 years."

"What a curious picture it is to find man, homo sapiens, of divine origin, we are told, seriously considering going underground to escape the consequences of his own folly. With a little wisdom and foresight, surely it is not yet necessary to forsake life in the fresh air and in the warmth of the sunlight. What a paradox if our own cleverness in science should force us to live underground with the moles."

"Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb, I would not have lifted a finger."

"We have men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner."

"There is a further advantage [to hydrogen bombs]: the supply of uranium in the planet is very limited, and it might be feared that it would be used up before the human race was exterminated, but now that the practically unlimited supply of hydrogen can be utilized, there is considerable reason to hope that homo sapiens may put an end to himself, to the great advantage of such less ferocious animals as may survive. But it is time to return to less cheerful topics."

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

"There is only one question: When will I be blown up?"

"If you are not ready, and did not know what to do, it could hurt you in different ways. It could knock you down, hard, or throw you against a tree or a wall. It is such a big explosion, it can smash in buildings and knock signboards over, and break windows all over town, but if you duck and cover, like Burt, you will be much safer."

"Anyway, I'm sort of glad they’ve got the atomic bomb invented. If there’s ever another war, I’m going to sit right the hell on top of it. I’ll volunteer for it, I swear to God I will."

"There is no evil in the atom; only in men’s souls."

"The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated. The worst is atomic war. The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealth and the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth. 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. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. ... Is there no other way the world may live?"

"Suppose atomic bombs had reduced the population of the world to one brother and one sister, should they let the human race die out? I do not know the answer, but I do not think it can be in the affirmative merely on the ground that incest is wicked."

"安らかに眠って下さい 過ちは 繰返しませぬから"

"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."

"The best authorities are unanimous in saying that a war with H-bombs might possibly put an end to the human race. It is feared that if many H-bombs are used there will be universal death, sudden only for a minority, but for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegration."

"The atom bomb was no "great decision." It was used in the war, and for your information, there were more people killed by fire bombs in Tokyo than dropping of the atomic bombs accounted for. It was merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness. The dropping of the bombs stopped the war, saved millions of lives."

"The unacceptability of the Doomsday Machine raises awkward, unpleasant, and complicated questions that must be considered by both policy maker and technician. If it is not acceptable to risk the lives of the three billion inhabitants of the earth in order to protect ourselves from surprise attack, then how many people would we be willing to risk? I believe that both the United States and NATO would reluctantly be willing to envisage the possibility of one or two hundred million people... dying from the immediate effects, even if one does not include deferred long-term effects due to radiation, if an all-out thermonuclear war results from a failure of Type I Deterrence. With somewhat more controversy, similar numbers would apply to Type II Deterrence. (For example, some experts would concede the statement for an all-out Soviet nuclear attack on Europe, but not if the Soviets restricted themselves to the use of conventional weapons.) We are willing to live with the possibility partly because we think of it as a remote possibility. We do not expect either kind of deterrence to fail, and we do not expect the results to be that cataclysmic if deterrence does fail."

"Some one may pose the question: will China win her rights over the United States of America, by possessing and dropping the bomb? No, neither China nor the Soviet Union will ever use the bomb unless they are attacked by those who have aggression and war in their very blood. If the Soviet Union did not possess the bomb, the imperialists would speak in other terms with us. We will never attack with the bomb, we are opposed to war, we are ready to destroy the bomb but we keep it for defensive purposes. "It is fear that guards the vineyard," is a saying of our people. The imperialists should be afraid of us and terribly afraid at that."

"Adolf Hitler is probably the last of the great adventurer-conquerors in the tradition of Alexander the Great, Caesar and Napoleon, and the Third Reich the last of the empires which set out on the path taken earlier by France, Rome and Macedonia. The curtain was rung on that phase of history, at least, by the sudden invention of the hydrogen bomb, of the ballistic missile and of rockets that can be aimed to hit the moon. In our new age of terrifying, lethal gadgets, which supplanted so swiftly the old one, the first great aggressive war, should it come, will be launched by suicidal little madmen pressing an electronic button. There will be no conquerors and no conquests, but only the charred bones of the dead on an uninhabited planet."

"Suppose Germany had developed two bombs before we had any bombs. And suppose Germany had dropped one bomb, say, on Rochester and the other on Buffalo, and then having run out of bombs she would have lost the war. Can anyone doubt that we would then have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and that we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them? ... The only conclusion we can draw is that governments acting in a crisis are guided by questions of expediency, and moral considerations are given very little weight, and that America is no different from any other nation in this respect."

"But this very triumph of scientific annihilation—this very success of invention—has destroyed the possibility of war's being a medium for the practical settlement of international differences. The enormous destruction to both sides of closely matched opponents makes it impossible for even the winner to translate it into anything but his own disaster…. Global war has become a Frankenstein to destroy both sides. No longer is it a weapon of adventure—the shortcut to international power. If you lose, you are annihilated. If you win, you stand only to lose. No longer does it possess even the chance of the winner of a duel. It contains now only the germs of double suicide."

"Every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us."

"I propose the immediate launching of a nuclear strike on the United States. The Cuban people are prepared to sacrifice themselves for the cause of the destruction of imperialism and the victory of world revolution."

"The human race may well become extinct before the end of the century. Speaking as a mathematician, I should say the odds are about three to one against survival."

"But of all environments, that produced by man’s complex technology is perhaps the most unstable and rickety. In its present form, our society is not two centuries old, and a few nuclear bombs will do it in. To be sure, evolution works over long periods of time and two centuries is far from sufficient to breed Homo technikos.... The destruction of our technological society in a fit of nuclear peevishness would become disastrous even if there were many millions of immediate survivors. The environment toward which they were fitted would be gone, and Darwin’s demon would wipe them out remorselessly and without a backward glance."

"These are the stakes! To make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die."

"Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed, but I do say no more than 10 to 20 million killed, tops! Uh, depending on the breaks."

"If the President had his way, we’d have a nuclear war every week."

"The living will envy the dead."

"Let us imagine how many people would die if war breaks out. There are 2.7 billion people in the world, and a third could be lost. If it is a little higher it could be half ... I say that if the worst came to the worst and one-half dies, there will still be one-half left, but imperialism would be razed to the ground and the whole world would become socialist. After a few years there would be 2.7 billion people again."

"The double horror of two Japanese city names grew for me into another kind of double horror; an estranging awareness of what the United States was capable of, the country that five years before had given me its citizenship; a nauseating terror at the direction the natural sciences were going. Never far from an apocalyptic vision of the world, I saw the end of the essence of mankind an end brought nearer, or even made, possible, by the profession to which I belonged. In my view, all natural sciences were as one; and if one science could no longer plead innocence, none could."

"In 1945, therefore, I proved a sentimental fool; and Mr. Truman could safely have classified me among the whimpering idiots he did not wish admitted to the presidential office. For I felt that no man has the right to decree so much suffering, and that science, in providing and sharpening the knife and in upholding the ram, had incurred a guilt of which it will never get rid. It was at that time that the nexus between science and murder became clear to me. For several years after the somber event, between 1947 and 1952, I tried desperately to find a position in what then appeared to me as a bucolic Switzerland,—but I had no success."

"It's now been 35 years since the first atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima. The great majority of the world's people cannot remember a time when the nuclear shadow did not hang over the Earth. Our minds have adjusted to it, as after a time our eyes adjust to the dark. Yet the risk of a nuclear conflagration has not lessened. It has not happened yet, thank God, but that can give us little comfort, for it only has to happen once. The danger is becoming greater. As the arsenals of the superpowers grow in size and sophistication and as other governments, perhaps even in the future dozens of governments, acquire these weapons, it may only be a matter of time before madness, desperation, greed, or miscalculation lets loose this terrible force. In an all-out nuclear war, more destructive power than in all of World War II would be unleashed every second during the long afternoon it would take for all the missiles and bombs to fall. A World War II every second—more people killed in the first few hours than in all the wars of history put together. The survivors, if any, would live in despair amid the poisoned ruins of a civilization that had committed suicide."

"Imagine a room awash in gasoline, and there are two implacable enemies in that room. One of them has nine thousand matches. The other has seven thousand matches. Each of them is concerned about who's ahead, who's stronger. Well that's the kind of situation we are actually in. The amount of weapons that are available to the United States and the Soviet Union are so bloated, so grossly in excess of what's needed to dissuade the other, that if it weren't so tragic, it would be laughable. What is necessary is to reduce the matches and to clean up the gasoline."

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?"

"My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."

"There is no monopoly on common sense On either side of the political fence. We share the same biology, regardless of ideology. Believe me when I say to you, I hope the Russians love their children too."

"A nuclear war does not defend a country and it does not defend a system. I've put it the same way many times; not even the most accomplished ideologue will be able to tell the difference between the ashes of capitalism and the ashes of communism."

"War is just another game Tailor made for the insane But make a threat of their annihilation And nobody wants to play If that's the only thing that keeps the peace Then thank God for the bomb"

"Under the four oceans and the seven seas, American and Soviet submarines fight a near-war every day of the year. Relentlessly, they search for one another, trailing an adversary when they can and trying to evade one when detected. They make every move of a real war, except shoot. ... Should a shooting war erupt, many experts argue, submarines would be the capital ships of the American and Soviet fleets. The battleship dominated naval operations in World War I, and the aircraft carrier brought victory at sea in World War II, but the nuclear-powered submarine would provide the edge in a future conflict."

"If none of us believe in war Then can you tell me, what the weapons for? Listen to me everyone If the button is pushed, there'll be nowhere to run, oh. Giants sleeping, giants winning Wars within their dreams Till they wake when it's too late And in God's name blaspheme."

"What is the only provocation that could bring about the use of nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the priority target for nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the only established defense against nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. How do we prevent the use of nuclear weapons? By threatening the use of nuclear weapons. And we can't get rid of nuclear weapons, because of nuclear weapons. The intransigence, it seems, is a function of the weapons themselves."

"The arms race is a race between nuclear weapons and ourselves."

"We simply don't know whether nuclear weapons have been effective as a deterrent...whether they are effective today or can be expected to be so in the future. Nuclear policy has for years been framed in ignorance of the facts most central to its justification."

"It is not nuclear violence alone that is the threat to mankind. It is the willingness to kill our fellow human beings – the innocent as well as the noninnocent- for political ends. Unless we are willing to redirect our time, energy, and resources away from perfecting the means of mass destruction of whatever sort and into exploring nonviolent alternatives to war itself, our efforts to combat the threat of nuclear war are likely to be of no avail."

"We had many contingency plans for responding to a nuclear attack. But everything would happen so fast that I wondered how much planning or reason could be applied in such a crisis. The Russians sometimes kept submarines off our East Coast with nuclear missiles that could turn the White House into a pile of radioactive rubble within six or eight minutes. Six minutes to decide how to respond to a blip on a radar scope and decide whether to unleash Armageddon! How could anyone apply reason at a time like that? There were some people in the Pentagon who thought in terms of fighting and winning a nuclear war. To me it was simple common sense: A nuclear war couldn't be won by either side. It must never be fought."

"The prediction of nuclear winter is drawn not, of course, from any direct experience with the consequences of global nuclear war, but rather from an investigation of the governing physics. (The problem does not lend itself to full experimental verification—at least not more than once.)"

"Galileo's head was on the block The crime was looking up for truth... And then you had to bring up reincarnation... How long 'til my soul gets it right... Can any human being ever reach that kind of light... I call on the resting soul of Galileo King of night vision, king of insight... I'm not making a joke, you know me I take everything so seriously If we wait for the time 'til all souls get it right Then at least I know there'll be no nuclear annihilation In my lifetime, I'm still not right..."

"War. War never changes."

"For the love of God, for the love of your children and of the civilization to which you belong, cease this madness. You are mortal men. You are capable of error. You have no right to hold in your hands—there is no one wise enough and strong enough to hold in his hands—destructive power sufficient to put an end to civilized life on a great portion of our planet."

"... right at the Russian border, there are very extreme tensions, that could blow up anytime and lead to what would in fact be a terminal nuclear war, terminal for the species and life on Earth. We’re very close to that... First of all, we should do things to ameliorate it. Secondly, we should ask why. Well, it’s because NATO expanded after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in violation of verbal promises to Mikhail Gorbachev, mostly under Clinton, partly under first Bush, then Clinton expanded right to the Russian border, expanded further under Obama... The fate of... organized human society, even of the survival of the species, depends on this. How much attention is given to these things as compared with, you know, whether Trump lied about something?"

"Nuclear weapons are like a rifle hanging on the wall in a play. We did not write the play, we are not staging it and we do not know what the author intends. Anyone could take the rifle from the wall at any time."

"One U.S. Trident submarine, now being replaced by even more lethal ones — one U.S. submarine can destroy almost 200 cities anywhere in the world with its nuclear weapons. China in the South China Sea has four old noisy submarines which can’t even get out because they’re contained by superior U.S. and Allied Force... In the face of this, the United States is sending a fleet of nuclear submarines to Australia. That’s the AUKUS deal—the Australia, U.K., United States—which have no strategic purpose whatsoever. They will not even be in operation for 15 years, but they do incite China almost certainly to build up its lagging military forces, increasing the level of confrontation. There are problems in the South China Sea that can be met with diplomacy and negotiations, the regional powers taking the lead, could go into the details. But the right measure is not increasing provocation, increasing the threat of an accidental development which could lead to devastating, even Earthly-terminal nuclear war. But that is the direction the Biden administration is following, expansion of the Trump programs. That is the core of their foreign policy programs."

"The important thing to know about an assassination or an attempted assassination is not who fired the shot, but who paid for the bullet."

"The American Dream has run out of gas. The car has stopped. It no longer supplies the world with its images, its dreams, its fantasies. No more. It's over. It supplies the world with its nightmares now: the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, Vietnam."

"They who say, "There will always be war," do not know what they are saying. They are preyed upon by the common internal malady of shortsight. They think themselves full of common-sense as they think themselves full of honesty. In reality, they are revealing the clumsy and limited mentality of the assassins themselves."

"We were sure that ours was a nation of the ballot, not the bullet, until the murders of John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr."

"No assassination instruction should ever be written or recorded. Ideally, only one person will be involved. No report may be made, though the act will usually be properly covered by news services. … The simplest local tools are often the most efficient means of assassination. A hammer, axe, wrench, screw driver, fire poker, kitchen knife, lamp stand, or anything hard, heavy and handy will suffice … The most efficient accident … is a fall of 75 feet or more onto a hard surface … Falls before trains and subway cars are usually effective, but require exact timing … assassinations can seldom be employed with a clear conscience. Persons who are morally squeamish should not attempt it. … The techniques employed will vary depending on whether or not the assassin himself is to be killed with the subject. If the assassin is to die with the subject, the act will be called "lost." If the assassin is to escape, the act will be called "safe." It should be noted that no compromise should exist here. The assassin must not fall alive into enemy hands. … Except in terroristic assassinations, it is desirable that the assassin be transient. In a lost assassination, the assassin must be a fanatic of some sort. Politics, religion and revenge are about the only feasible motives."

"These events don't constitute assassinations because as far as we are concerned assassinations are only those of heads of state."

"When such crimes are perpetrated the public mind is apt to fall into gloom and perplexity, for it is ignorant alike of the causes and the consequences of such deeds. But it is one of our duties to reassure them under unreasoning panic and despondency. Assassination has never changed the history of the world. I will not refer to the remote past, though an accident has made the most memorable instance of antiquity at this moment fresh in the minds and memory of all around me. But even the costly sacrifice of a Caesar did not propitiate the inexorable destiny of his country."

"The reverberations of Princip's shots truly shook the world. Yet political assassinations were far from uncommon in the early twentieth century, as we have already seen in the case of the unfortunate President McKinley. His successor, Theodore Roosevelt, only narrowly escaped assassination too. Between 1900 and 1913 no fewer than forty heads of state, politicians and diplomats were murdered, including four kings, six prime ministers and three presidents. In the Balkans alone there were eight successful assassinations, the victims of which included two kings, one queen, two prime ministers and the commander-in-chief of the Turkish Army."

"The philosophic historian, studying hereafter this present age, in which we are ourselves living, may say that it was a time of unexampled prosperity, luxury, and wealth; but catching at certain horrible murders which have lately disgraced our civilisation, may call us a nation of assassins. It is to invert the pyramid and stand it on its point."

"The landlord may become a direct oppressor. He may care nothing for the people, and have no object but to squeeze the most that he can out of them fairly or unfairly. The Russian government has been called despotism tempered with assassination. In Ireland landlordism was tempered by assassination. Unfortunately the wrong man was generally assassinated. The true criminal was an absentee, and his agent was shot instead of him. A noble lord living in England, two of whose agents had lost their lives already in his service, ordered the next to post a notice in his Barony that he intended to persevere in what he was doing, and if the tenants thought they would intimidate him by shooting his agents, they would find themselves mistaken."

"The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment."

"The path you walk on has no end. No matter how far you go, or how many corpses you crawl over, the killing will never end. It's a future without hope. Hear me Snake! My spirit will be watching you..."

"Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country — and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians."

"Consider well this fact: As long as the German people does not arise and use force directed by its own will, the assassination of the people will continue."

"Tyranny is usually tempered with assassination, and Democracy must be tempered with culture. In the absence of this, it turns into a representation of collective folly."

"Absolutism tempered by assassination."

"I decided that the only form of government was a benevolent despotism, tempered with assassination. Then I went home again, hopeless. I am still hopeless, for that matter. We will commit the same follies again. Nothing teaches us."

"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly. If the assassination Could trammel up the consequence, and catch, With his surcease, success; that but this blow Might be the be-all and the end-all — here, But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, — We'd jump the life to come. But in these cases We still have judgement here; that we but teach Bloody instructions, which being taught, return To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice To our own lips."

"Et tu Brute?"

"Assassination is the extreme form of censorship; and it seems hard to justify an incitement to it on anti-censorial principles."

"The external threat to liberty should not drive us into suppressing liberty at home. Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination."

"E un incidente del mestiere."

"Assassination is the perquisite of kings."

"America is the place where you can not kill your Government by killing the men who conduct it. The only way you can kill government in America is by making the men and women of America forget how to govern, and nobody can do that."

"There is no announced U.S. policy directive regarding targeted killing. Assassination is addressed in Executive Order 12333, which does not prohibit killing absolutely, but only without presidential approval. Assassination and targeted killing are very different acts, however."

"… there are no universally accepted laws governing the use of targeted killing. Each nation is responsible for applying its own domestic laws and concepts of self-defence when considering this option."

"Strategic results that undermine established terrorist campaigns demand broader scope and planning. In our case studies, popular support was more effectively reduced by the arrests of leaders than by their demise, and this is why efforts at targeted killing often backfire in the long run."

"The preparation of a targeted killing operation often takes a long duration (weeks to months), especially when targeting senior terror operatives."

"Targeted killings are analagous to the use of marksmen on the battlefield – designed to eliminate specific enemy combatants who have already initiated violence against the United States. Moreover, targeted killing is congruent with just war thinking in the context of twenty-first century conflict."

"Assassination, whether in peacetime or in wartime, constitutes an illegal killing, while targeted killing is the intentional slaying of a specific individual or group of individuals with explicit governmental approval."

"The real issue – one emphasized in informal conversations – seems to be that unless the target is a duly designated "combatant," the targeted killing would become an "assassination.""

"Targets of a targeted killing include the potential suicide bomber as well as other individuals. A legitimate target is an individual significantly involved in the suicide bomber infrastructure; that is, "doers" and "senders" alike."

"There also must be no reasonable alternative to the targeted killing: meaning that the international law requirement of seeking another reasonable means of incapacitating the terrorist prior to a future attack has proved fruitless."

"Ultimately, then, a targeted killing will comport with human rights norms only if the authorities harbour a reasonable belief, in the circumstances holding at the time, that they are acting in the last possible window of opportunity to prevent a terrorist attack that is almost certainly going to be perpetrated by the target(s). Absent such conditions, the action will comprise an unlawful extrajudicial killing."

"If "terrorist" is really just a catch-all phrase for describing enemies of the state, then restricting targeted killing to terrorists is really no restriction at all – ore, more accurately, it only imposes the onerous restriction of limiting killing to one's enemies."

"In wartime, however, the prohibition against targeted killing is more elusive because the law stipulates that combatants, regardless of their rank or official role, are potential targets. Since war is a contest between states, not persons, the killing in war is not murder."

"Just what does distinguish lawful targeted killing from unlawful political assassination? The answer turns upon which legal framework applies. During war, the law of armed conflict applies, and targeted killing of individuals is lawful, although killing by treacherous means – through the use of deceit or trickery – is not. In peacetime, any extra-judicial killing by a government agent is lawful only if taken in self-defense or in defense of others."

"Detention (preferably after a full-blown criminal trial) is the tactic of choice against suspected terrorists, but it is not always feasible to capture suspected or even self-proclaimed, terrorists or others who pose an immediate and serious danger to a state. Many states have opted, under these circumstances, for a more drastic form of preventative incapacitation, namely, targeted killing."

"Targeted killing further reduces moderates ability to control the extremists (or self police) since they lose credibility among the larger audience and undermine them overall."

"Even if the targeted killing is deemed to fall within the laws of armed conflict, the rules relating thereto protect non-combatants. While civilians cannot be targeted, if they are killed or injured during an attack on a military target, then as long as the means employed were discriminate and proportionate, there is no violation of the laws of armed conflict."

""Targeted killings" ought to be an effective deterrent. Death is a severe enough punishment to give most people pause, and members of terror organizations other than those being groomed to carry out suicide attacks are not known for being suicidal themselves."

"… those who support targeted killings argue that the killing of a terrorist who is personally responsible for serious, mass casualty attacks and who is still capable of spilling the blood of innocents is not only justified and moral, it is even essential for saving human lives. Supporters of this approach also cite the value of human life, and claim that in the name of the sanctity of life, decision makers must be allowed to do everything they can to prevent the few from harming the many – terrorists killing civilians and endangering world peace – and therefore individual attacks are permitted, moral, and justified."

"The moral legitimacy of targeted killing becomes even clearer when compared to the alternative means of fighting terror – that is, the massive invasion of the community that shelters and supports the terrorists in an attempt to catch or kill the terrorists and destory their infrastructure."

"Well-targeted killing, however, is not evidently more decent than random killing, unless the targeted victims are thought to be more deserving of their fate."

"Encumbered by the weight of each individual’s gear, neither their physical capability nor emergency supplemental flotations devices, if activated, were sufficient to keep them at the surface"

"United States Rear Adm. Michael DeVore according to The drownings of 2 Navy SEALs were preventable, military investigation finds (October 11, 2024)"

"A navy is essentially and necessarily aristocratic. True as may be the political principles for which we are now contending they can never be practically applied or even admitted on board ship, out of port, or off soundings. This may seem a hardship, but it is nevertheless the simplest of truths. Whilst the ships sent forth by the Congress may and must fight for the principles of human rights and republican freedom, the ships themselves must be ruled and commanded at sea under a system of absolute despotism."

"A ruler that has but an army has one hand, but he who has a navy has both."

"When a crisis confronts the nation, the first question often asked by policymakers is: "What naval forces are available and how fast can they be on station?""

"Leonardo da Vinci is the outstanding example of the comprehensively anticipatory design scientist. Operating under the patronage of the Duke of Milan he designed the fortified defences and weaponry as well as the tools of peaceful production.. What happened at the time of Leonardo and Galileo was that mathematics was so unproved by the advent of the zero that not only was much more scientific shipbuilding made possible but also much more reliable navigation. Immediately thereafter truly large-scale venturing on the world’s oceans commenced, and the strong sword-leader patrons as designing their new and more powerful world-girdling ships. Next they took their Leonardos to sea with them as their seagoing Merlins to invent ever more powerful tools and strategies on a world-around basis to implement their great campaigns to best all the other great pirates, thereby enabling them to become masters of the world and of all its people and wealth.. The topmost Great Pirates’ Leonardos discovered — both in their careful, long-distance planning and in their anticipatory inventing that the grand strategies of sea power made it experimentally clear that a plurality of ships could usually outmaneuver one ship. So the Great Pirates’ Leonardos invented navies. Then, of course, they had to control various resource-supplying mines, forests, and lands with which and upon which to build the ships and establish the industries essential to building, supplying, and maintaining their navy’s ships... The required and scientifically designed secrecy of the sea operations thus pulled a curtain that hid the Leonardos from public view, popular ken, and recorded history. p. 25"

"Then came the grand strategy which said, “divide and conquer.” You divide up the other man’s ships in battle or you best him when several of his ships are hauled out on the land for repairs. They also had a grand strategy of anticipatory divide and conquer. Anticipatory divide and conquer was much more effective than tardy divide and conquer, since it enabled those who employed it to surprise the other pirate under conditions unfavorable to the latter... The great top pirates of the world, realizing that dull people were innocuous and that the only people who could contrive to displace the supreme pirates were the bright ones, set about to apply their grand strategy of anticipatory divide and conquer to solve that situation comprehensively. The Great Pirate came into each of the various lands where he either acquired or sold goods profitably and picked the strongest man there to be his local head man. The Pirate’s picked man became the Pirate’s general manager of the local realm. If the Great Pirate's local strong man in a given land had not already done so, the Great Pirate told him to proclaim himself king. Despite the local head man’s secret subservience to him, the Great Pirate allowed and counted upon his king-stooge to convince his countrymen that he, the local king, was indeed the head man of all men -the god—ordained ruler. To guarantee that sovereign claim the Pirates gave their stooge-kings secret lines of supplies which provided everything required to enforce the sovereign claim. The more massively bejewelled the king’s gold crown, and the more visible his court and castle, the less visible was his pirate master. p. 29 Ch. II, Origins of specialization"

"While paintings, poems, films and histories memorialise the great naval battles – Salamis, Lepanto, Trafalgar, Midway – when one navy destroyed another, the main strategic purpose of navies is to control the seas, and the highways that criss-cross them, and prevent their enemies from doing so. Even today land communications are vulnerable to disruption, either man-made or natural; how much more so in the past before surfaced roads and railways? Ever since humans began to build floating craft, water has been the most reliable way of moving people and material. Navies exist to protect their nations, their coasts, people and shipping, and to project their power abroad. By landing troops on enemy coasts, acting as floating gun and aircraft platforms in more recent times to bring firepower to bear on land targets, or destroying enemy capacity to wage war, whether by sinking or seizing enemy and sometimes neutral shipping or blockading ports so that needed resources, including soldiers, cannot move in or out, a powerful navy can make it difficult, even impossible, for its enemy to wage war on land or at sea. ‘We destroy the national life afloat,’ said the leading British naval theorist Julian Corbett, who taught generations of officers before the First World War, ‘and therefore check the vitality of that life ashore, as far as one is dependent on the other.’"

"Britain's best bulwarks are her wooden walls."

"Our ships were British oak, And hearts of oak our men."

"Cooped in their winged sea-girt citadel."

"Right—that will do for the marines."

"The wooden walls are the best walls of this kingdom."

"Hearts of oak are our ships, Gallant tars are our men."

"Hearts of oak are our ships, Hearts of oak are our men."

"All in the Downs the fleet was moor'd."

"Now landsmen all, whoever you may be, If you want to rise to the top of the tree, If your soul isn't fettered to an office stool, Be careful to be guided by this golden rule— Stick close to your desks and never go to sea, And you all may be Rulers of the Queen's Navee."

"Scarce one tall frigate walks the sea Or skirts the safer shores Of all that bore to victory Our stout old Commodores."

"The credite of the Realme, by defending the same with Wodden Walles, as Themistocles called the Ship of Athens."

"Lysander when handing over the command of the fleet to Callicratidas, the Spartan, said to him, "I deliver you a fleet that is mistress of the seas.""

"There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles the Second. But the seamen were not gentlemen; and the gentlemen were not seamen."

"Now the sunset breezes shiver, And she's fading down the river, But in England's song forever She's the Fighting Téméraire."

"Tell that to the Marines—the sailors won't believe it."

"The legislature have anxiously provided for those most useful and deserving body of men, the seamen and marines of this country."

"Surely the navy must be the navy royal."

"The naval dominion of England is of great consequence and use; for it is called dotem regni. If therefore the kingdom of England consists of land and sea, I hope we shall not stand at half defence, to defend the land and leave the sea."

"The condition of the British Navy is, no doubt, a matter of national importance and public interest."

"The salvation of this country depends upon the discipline of the fleet; without discipline they would be a rabble, dangerous only to their friends, and harmless to the enemy."

"The navy is the most important defence of the country, in which every subject of the Queen has an interest of the deepest character."

"War itself is a great evil, but it is chosen to avoid a greater. The practice of pressing is one of the mischiefs war bringeth with it. But it is a maxim in law, and good policy too, that all private mischiefs must be borne with patience for preventing a national calamity. And as no greater calamity can befall us than to be weak and defenceless at sea in a time of war, so I do not know that the wisdom of the nation hath hitherto found out any method of manning our navy, less inconvenient than pressing; and at the same time, equally sure and effectual."

"It may not be fit, in point of discipline, that a subordinate officer should dispute the commands of his superior, if he were ordered to go to the mast head: but if the superior were to order him thither, knowing that, for some bodily infirmity, it was impossible he should execute the order, and that he must infallibly break his neck in the attempt, and it were so to happen, the discipline of the navy would not protect that superior from being guilty of the crime of murder."

"Our Mountains are cover'd with Imperial Oak Whose Roots, like our liberties, ages have nourished But long e're our Nation submits to the Yoke Not a Tree shall be left on the Field where it Flourished Should Invasion impend, every Tree would defend From the Hill tops they shaded, our Shores to defend For ne'er shall the Sons of Columbia be Slaves While the Earth bears a Plant, or the Sea rolls its Waves."

"He who surpasses or subdues mankind, Must look down on the hate of those below."

"Flet victus, victor interiit."

"Veni, vidi, vici."

"We still talk in terms of "conquest"-whether it be of the insect world or of the mysterious world of space. We still have not become mature enough to see ourselves as a very tiny part of a vast and incredible universe, a universe that is distinguished above all else by a mysterious and wonderful unity that we flout at our peril."

"Great things thro' greatest hazards are achiev'd, And then they shine."

"We have defined colonialism as the forcible takeover of land and economy, and, in the case of European colonialism, a restructuring of non-capitalist economies in order to fuel European capitalism. This allows us to understand modern European colonialism not as some trans-historical impulse to conquer but as an integral part of capitalist development."

"Narrator: The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices...to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill...and suspicion can destroy...and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own -- for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is...that these things cannot be confined...to the Twilight Zone."

"Shall they hoist me up, And show me to the shouting varletry Of censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt Be gentle grave unto me, rather on Nilus' mud Lay me stark naked, and let the water-flies Blow me into abhorring!"

"Brave conquerors! for so you are That war against your own affections, And the huge army of the world's desires."

"Life throws challenges and every challenge comes with rainbows and lights to conquer it."

"To conquer by sheer force is becoming harder and harder every day. Defensive is getting continuously the advantage of offensive, as we progress in the satanic science of destruction. The new art of controlling electrically the movements and operations of individualized automata at a distance without wires, will soon enable any country to render its coasts impregnable against all naval attacks."

"Berlin of 1884 was effected through the sword and the bullet. But the night of the bullet was followed by the morning of the chalk and the blackboard. The physical violence of the battlefield was followed by the psychological violence of the classroom."

"Jus belli, ut qui vicissent, iis quos vicissent, quemadmodum vellent, imperarent."

"In hoc signo vinces."

"A vaincre sans péril on triomphe sans gloire."

"Like Douglas conquer, or like Douglas die."

"Sai, che piegar si vede Il docile arboscello, Che vince allor che cede Dei turbini al furor."

"Cede repugnanti; cedendo victor abibis."

"Male vincetis, sed vincite."

"Victi vincimus."

"Victor victorum cluet."

"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god.""

"I sing the hymn of the conquered, who fell in the battle of life, The hymn of the wounded, the beaten who died overwhelmed in the strife; Not the jubilant song of the victors for whom the resounding acclaim Of nations was lifted in chorus whose brows wore the chaplet of fame, But the hymn of the low and the humble, the weary, the broken in heart, Who strove and who failed, acting bravely a silent and desperate part."

"Bis vincit qui se vincit in victoria."

"It would be superfluous in me to point out to your Lordship that this is war."

"My voice is still for war."

"They sent forth men to battle, But no such men return; And home, to claim their welcome, Come ashes in an urn."

"What is the only provocation that could bring about the use of nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the priority target for nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the only established defense against nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. How do we prevent the use of nuclear weapons? By threatening the use of nuclear weapons. And we can't get rid of nuclear weapons, because of nuclear weapons. The intransigence, it seems, is a function of the weapons themselves."

"The arms race is a race between nuclear weapons and ourselves."

"There are two rules of war that have not yet been invalidated by the new world order. The first rule is that the belligerent nation must be fairly sure that its actions will make things better; the second rule is that the belligerent nation must be more or less certain that its actions won't make things worse. America could perhaps claim to be satisfying the first rule (while admitting that the improvement may be only local and short term). It cannot begin to satisfy the second."

"A great historian, Henry Steele Commager, said that in their lust for victory, neither traditional party is looking beyond November. And he went on to cite three issues that their platforms totally ignore: atomic warfare, Presidential Directive 59 notwithstanding. If we don't resolve that issue, all others become irrelevant. The issue of our natural resources; the right of posterity to inherit the earth, and what kind of earth will it be? The issue of nationalism — the recognition, he says, that every major problem confronting us is global, and cannot be solved by nationalism here or elsewhere — that is chauvinistic, that is parochial, that is as anachronistic as states' rights was in the days of Jefferson Davis."

"Let who will boast their courage in the field, I find but little safety from my shield. Nature's, not honour's, law we must obey:This made me cast my useless shield away, And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life, which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain; But who can get another life again?"

"Instead of breaking that bridge, we should, if possible, provide another, that he may retire the sooner out of Europe."

"This is war. Have you heard about "good war"? I don't think anyone have heard about good war. It's a war, you always have casualties, you always have innocent people, people being killed by any means, no one can tell how..."

"If wars can be started with lies, they can be stopped by truth."

"I refused to continue in a war that was no longer in the service of the vital national interest of our people. ... We’ve been a nation too long at war. If you're 20 years old today, you have never known an America at peace."

"War can be and is mass murder, where the motive is wrong. It can be sacrifice and right action, where the motive is right. The slaying of a man in the act of killing the defenseless is not regarded as murder. The principle remains the same, whether it is killing an individual who is murdering, or fighting a nation which is warring on the defenseless."

"The distribution of the world's resources and the settled unity of the peoples of the world are ... one and the same thing, for behind all modern wars lies a fundamental economic problem. Solve that and wars will very largely cease."

"Of all the differences between the Old World and the New this is perhaps the most salient: Half the wars of Europe, half the troubles that have vexed European States, ... have arisen from theological differences or from the rival claims of church and state. This whole vast chapter of debate and strife has remained virtually unopened in the United States."

"Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too. But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction I stabbed. 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? If we threw away these rifles and this uniform you could be my brother, just like Kat and Albert. Take twenty years of my life, comrade, and stand up — take more, for I do not know what I can even attempt to do with it now."

"Germany could not win this war because it was in league with the devil. This war would not have ended without revolution."

"I’ve been thinking about the war a lot recently, and I think I’ve decided it’s wrong. We are defeating ourselves in waging it, will destroy ourselves by winning it."

"All quiet along the Potomac they say Except now and then a stray picket Is shot as he walks on his beat, to and fro, By a rifleman hid in the thicket."

"Gaily! gaily! close our ranks! Arm! Advance! Hope of France! Gaily! gaily! close our ranks! Onward! Onward! Gauls and Franks!"

"Wars invariably serve as classrooms and laboratories where men and techniques and states of mind are prepared for the next war."

"The inevitableness, the idealism, and the blessing of war, as an indispensable and stimulating law of development, must be repeatedly emphasized."

"War is a biological necessity of the first importance, a regulative element in the life of mankind which cannot be dispensed with. ... But it is not only a biological law but a moral obligation and, as such, an indispensable factor in civilization."

"Our next war will be fought for the highest interests of our country and of mankind. This will invest it with importance in the world's history. "World power or downfall" will be our rallying cry."

"We Germans have a far greater and more urgent duty towards civilization to perform than the Great Asiatic Power. We, like the Japanese, can only fulfil it by the sword."

"Just for a word—"neutrality," a word which in war-time had so often been disregarded—just for a scrap of paper, Great Britain was going to make war on a kindred nation who desired nothing better than to be friends with her."

"Wars are God's way of teaching Americans geography."

"L'affaire Herzegovinienne ne vaut pas les os d'un fusilier poméranien."

"Lieber Spitzkugeln als Spitzreden."

"Ich sehe in unserm Bundesverhältnisse ein Gebrechen Preussens, welches wir früher oder später ferro et igne werden heilen müssen."

"[The great questions of the day] are not decided by speeches and majority votes, but by blood and iron."

"War tore the guts out of the British empire, weakening it in resources and morale. The first major loss was Ireland."

"No wars are unintended or 'accidental'. What is often unintended is the length and bloodiness of the war."

"War and peace are not separate compartments. Peace depends on threats and force; often peace is the crystallisation of past force."

"It is the problem of accurately measuring the relative power of nations which goes far to explain why wars occur. War is a dispute about the measurement of power. War marks the choice of a new set of weights and measures."

"Generals gathered in their masses just like witches at black masses. Evil minds that plot destruction, sorcerer of death's construction."

"What a place to plunder!"

"War is not a pathology that, with proper hygiene and treatment, can be wholly prevented. War is a natural condition of the State, which was organized in order to be an effective instrument of violence on behalf of society. Wars are like deaths, which, while they can be postponed, will come when they will come and cannot be finally avoided."

"War will make corpses of us all."

"It is magnificent, but it is not war."

"War is the health of the State. Only when the State is at war does the modern society function with that unity of sentiment, simple uncritical patriotic devotion, cooperation of services, which have always been the ideal of the State lover."

"War is the health of the State and it is during war that one best understands the nature of that institution."

"We have men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner."

"Wars can be prevented just as surely as they can be provoked, and we who fail to prevent them must share the guilt for the dead."

"Ethical obligation has to subordinate itself to the totalitarian nature of war."

"Politics is the domestication of war."

"What we have here is a war, the war of matter and spirit...The war of banks and religion. In New York City, banks tower over cathedrals. Banks are the temples of America. This is a holy war. Our economy is our religion.""

"My tanks were filled with gasoline and wars. I was a lead soldier. I marched against the smoke of the city....And the world closed its doors—anvils and hammers against the sleeping men—doors of the heart—cities everywhere—and litte lead soldiers."

"[War] is a highly planned and cooperative form of theft."

"Of course, it's tempting to close one's eyes to history and instead to speculate about the roots of war in some possible animal instinct. As if, like the tiger, we still had to kill to live or like the robin redbreast to defend a nesting territory. But war, organized war, is not a human instinct. It is a highly planned and cooperative form of theft. And that form of theft began ten-thousand years ago when the harvesters of wheat accumulated a surplus and the nomads rose out of the desert to rob them of what they themselves could not provide. The evidence for that, we saw, in the walled city of Jericho and it's prehistoric tower. That is the beginning of war."

"War provides men with the perfect psychological backdrop to give vent to their contempt for women. The maleness of the military—the brute power of weaponry exclusive to their hands, the spiritual bonding of men at arms, the manly discipline of orders given and orders obeyed, the simple logic of the hierarchical command—confirms for men what they long suspect—that women are peripheral to the world that counts"

"The Government of the United States would be constrained to hold the Imperial German government to a strict accountability for such acts of their naval authorities."

"In war, science has proven itself an evil genius; it has made war more terrible than it ever was before. Man used to be content to slaughter his fellowmen on a single plane — the earth's surface. Science has taught him to go down into the water and shoot up from below and to go up into the clouds and shoot down from above, thus making the battlefield three times a bloody as it was before; but science does not teach brotherly love. Science has made war so hellish that civilization was about to commit suicide; and now we are told that newly discovered instruments of destruction will make the cruelties of the late war seem trivial in comparison with the cruelties of wars that may come in the future."

"Lay down the axe; fling by the spade; Leave in its track the toiling plough; The rifle and the bayonet-blade For arms like yours were fitter now; And let the hands that ply the pen Quit the light task, and learn to wield The horseman's crooked brand, and rein The charger on the battle-field."

"None of our soldiers would understand not being asked to do whatever is necessary to reestablish a situation which is humiliating to us and unacceptable to our country's honor.—We are going to counter-attack."

"The American flag has been forced to retire. This is intolerable."

"You are there, stay there."

"I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people."

"This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers."

"Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled; Scots, wham Bruce has aften led, Welcome to your gory bed, Or to victory!"

"But they will have it thus nevertheless, and so they put note of "divinity upon the most cruel and pernicious plague of human kind," adore such men with grand titles, degrees, statues, images, honour, applaud, and highly reward them for their good service, no greater glory than to die in the field. So Africanus is extolled by Ennius: Mars, and Hercules, and I know not how many besides of old, were deified; went this way to heaven, that were indeed bloody butchers, wicked destroyers, and troublers of the world, prodigious monsters, hell-hounds, feral plagues, devourers, common executioners of human kind, as Lactanius truly proves, and Cyprian to Donat, such as were desperate in wars, and precipitately made away themselves, (like those Celtes in Damascen, with ridiculous valour, ut dedecorosum putarent muro ruenti se subducere, a disgrace to run away for a rotten wall, now ready to fall on their heads), such as will not rush on a sword's point, or seek to shun a cannon's shot, are base cowards, and no valiant men. By which means, Madet orbis mutuo sanguine, the earth wallows in her own blood, Sævit amor ferri et scelerati insania belli; and for that, which if it be done in private, a man shall be rigorously executed, "and which is no less than murder itself; if the same fact be done in public in wars, it is called manhood, and the party is honored for it.""

"Dieu est d'ordinaire pour les gros escadrons contre les petits."

"Although it is commonly supposed that war making is the specific activity of nations, the blind rage that motivates war destroys the very social bonds that make nations possible. Of course, it can fortify the nationalism of a nation, producing a provisional coherence bolstered by war and enmity, but it also erodes the social relations that make politics possible. The power of destruction unleashed by war breaks social ties and produces anger, revenge, and distrust (“embitterment”) such that it becomes unclear whether reparation is possible, undermining not only those relations that may have been built in the past, but also the future possibility of peaceful coexistence."

"Whatever the explicit strategic or political aims of a war may be, they prove to be weak in comparison with its aims of destruction; what war destroys first are the very restrictions imposed on destructive license. If we can rightly speak about the unstated “aim” of war, it is neither primarily to alter the political landscape nor to establish a new political order, but rather to destroy the social basis of politics itself."

"In all the trade of war, no feat Is nobler than a brave retreat."

"For those that run away, and fly, Take place at least o' th' enemy."

"Bloody wars at first began, The artificial plague of man, That from his own invention rise, To scourge his own iniquities."

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."

"A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

"A few profit – and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war."

"Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our steel companies and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted—to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get. … Give capital and industry and labor thirty days to think it over and you will find, by that time, there will be no war. That will smash the war racket—that and nothing else."

"O proud was our army that morning That stood where the pine darkly towers, When Sherman said—"Boys, you are weary, This day fair Savannah is ours." Then sang we a song for our chieftain That echoed o'er river and lea, And the stars on our banner shone brighter When Sherman marched down to the sea."

"Hand to hand, and foot to foot: Nothing there, save death, was mute; Stroke, and thrust, and flash, and cry For quarter or for victory, Mingle there with the volleying thunder."

"War, war is still the cry, "War even to the knife!""

"And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed, The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; And the deep thunder peal on peal, afar And near; the beat of the alarming drum Roused up the soldier ere the morning star; While throng'd the citizens with terror dumb, Or whispering with white lips—"The foe! they come! they come!""

"Battle's magnificently stern array!"

"The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold."

"Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen; Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown!"

"Veni, vidi, vici."

"In bello parvis momentis magni casus intercedunt."

"War is the answer if you're questioning the general."

"I normalized diplomatic relations with China in 1979. Since 1979, do you know how many times China has been at war with anybody? None. And we have stayed at war. (The United States is) the most warlike nation in the history of the world... How many miles of high-speed railroad do we have in this country?... We have wasted, I think, $3 trillion (military spending) ... China has not wasted a single penny on war, and that's why they're ahead of us. In almost every way... And I think the difference is if you take $3 trillion and put it in American infrastructure, you'd probably have $2 trillion left over. We'd have high-speed railroad. We'd have bridges that aren't collapsing. We'd have roads that are maintained properly. Our education system would be as good as that of, say, South Korea or Hong Kong."

"War. War never changes. The Romans waged war to gather slaves and wealth. Spain built an empire from its lust for gold and territory. Hitler shaped a battered Germany into an economic superpower. But war never changes."

"The combat deepens. On, ye brave, Who rush to glory, or the grave! Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave, And charge with all thy chivalry."

"La Garde meurt, mais ne se rend pas."

"War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle; therefore they take boys from one village and another village, stick them into uniforms, equip them with guns, and let them loose like wild beasts against each other."

"There dwell and toil, in the British village of Dumdrudge, usually some five hundred souls. From these…there are successively selected, during the French War, say thirty able-bodied men: Dumdrudge, at her own expense, has suckled and nursed them; she has not without difficulty and sorrow, fed them up to manhood, and trained them to crafts, so that once can weave, another build, another hammer, and the weakest can stand under thirty stone avoirdupois. Nevertheless, amid much weeping and swearing, they are selected; all dressed in red; and shipped away, at the public charges, some two thousand miles, or say only to the south of Spain; and fed there till wanted. And now to that same spot in the south of Spain, are thirty similar French artisans, from a French Dumdrudge, in like manner wending: Till at length, after infinite effort, the two parties come into actual juxtaposition; and Thirty stands fronting Thirty, each with a gun in his hand. Straightway the word "Fire!" is given: and they blow the souls out of one another and in the place of sixty brisk useful craftsmen, the world has sixty dead carcasses, which it must bury, and anew shed tears for. Had these men any quarrel? Busy as the Devil is, not the smallest!... their Governors had fallen out; and, instead of shooting one another, had the cunning to make these poor blockheads shoot. Alas, so it is in Deutschland, and hitherto in all other lands..."

"O Chryste, it is a grief for me to telle, How manie a noble erle and valrous knyghte In fyghtynge for Kynge Harrold noblie fell, Al sleyne on Hastyng's field in bloudie fyghte."

"Is this a call to war? Does anyone pretend that preparation for resistance to aggression is unleashing war? I declare it to be the sole guarantee of peace. We need the swift gathering of forces to confront not only military but moral aggression; the resolute and sober acceptance of their duty by the English-speaking peoples and by all the nations, great and small, who wish to walk with them. Their faithful and zealous comradeship would almost between night and morning clear the path of progress and banish from all our lives the fear which already darkens the sunlight to hundreds of millions of men."

"The eagle has ceased to scream, but the parrots will now begin to chatter. The war of the giants is over and the pigmies will now start to squabble."

"To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war."

"Let us learn our lessons. … Never believe any war will be smooth and easy or that anyone who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events… incompetent or arrogant commanders, untrustworthy allies, hostile neutrals, malignant fortune, ugly surprise, awful miscalculations."

"Equidem ad pacem hortari non desino; quae vel iniusta utilior est quam iustissimum bellum cum civibus."

"Silent enim leges inter arma."

"Parvi enim sunt foris arma, nisi est consilium domi."

"Silent leges inter arma."

"Pro aris et focis."

"Nervi belli pecunia infinita."

"There's nothing more pornographic than glorifying war."

"We had a malfunction with a cluster bomb unit, and a couple of grenades fell on a schoolyard, and some, I think three, school children were killed... And two weeks later, I got a letter from a Serb grandfather. He said, “You’ve killed my granddaughter.” He said, “I hate you for this, and I’ll kill you.” And I got this in the middle of the war. And it made me very, very sad. We certainly never wanted to do anything like that. But in war, accidents happen. And that’s why you shouldn’t undertake military operations unless every other alternative has been exhausted, because innocent people do die."

"Well here's to the Maine, and I'm sorry for Spain, Said Kelly and Burke and Shea."

"War is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means."

"War is only caused through the political intercourse of governments and nations … war is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse with an admixture of other means."

"War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means."

"War is fought by human beings."

"Of course wars are fought by teenagers. Do you realize that? They really should be fought by the politicians and the old people who start these wars."

"We made war to the end—to the very end of the end."

"War is not the answer For only love can conquer hate You know we've got to find a way To bring some lovin' here today"

"I make my war upon privilege and authority, whereby the right of property, the true right in that which is proper to the individual, is annihilated."

"What voice did on my spirit fall, Peschiera, when thy bridge I crossed? "'Tis better to have fought and lost, Than never to have fought at all.""

"[T]he honours, the fame, the emoluments of war, belong not to [the middle and industrial classes]; the battle-plain is the harvest field of the aristocracy, watered with the blood of the people...Whilst our trade rested upon our foreign dependencies, as was the case in the middle of the last century...force and violence, were necessary to command our customers for our manufacturers...But war, although the greatest of consumers, not only produces nothing in return, but, by abstracting labour from productive employment and interrupting the course of trade, it impedes, in a variety of indirect ways, the creation of wealth; and, should hostilities be continued for a series of years, each successive war-loan will be felt in our commercial and manufacturing districts with an augmented pressure."

"War in fact is becoming contemptible, and ought to be put down by the great nations of Europe, just as we put down a vulgar mob."

"The war had been going on long enough that soldiers digging graves for comrades would unearth bones of men killed in previous battles. And because they were starving just about anything went into the stewpot. Frogs. Mice. Bugs. Dogs. Snails. Worms. They slaughtered the horses and oxen that were pulling carts heaped with treasure; jeweled reliquaries, silver candlestick holders, and gold crucifixes were abandoned in scorched fields or left in carts too heavy for starving men to pull. They drank from stagnant puddles and filthy streams... a well or cistern... never mind the body floating on the surface. ...Blackburn [in Old Man Goya] reports that a soldier who approached a convent being used as a hospital saw amputated limbs along the wall, "while more arms and legs kept flying out the windows..." At La Coruña, two thousand horses were shot to prevent enemy soldiers from riding them. ...One Spaniard kept a bag of French ears and fingers. ...[A] pack of English hounds accompanied [the Iron Duke]. Between military engagements he would go fox hunting. At Talavera... a fire sprang up in dry grass where... soldiers lay dead or dying, "and men were ashamed because their pangs of hunger increased with the smell of roasting meat.""

"The flames of Moscow were the aurora of the liberty of the world."

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

"Hence jarring sectaries may learn Their real interest to discern; That brother should not war with brother, And worry and devour each other."

"General Taylor never surrenders."

"We give up the fort when there's not a man left to defend it."

"There was a war, just one in a long line of wars, fought for beliefs and principles as all wars have ever been fought and will ever be in days to come. Little was achieved, nothing was gained. Lives were taken and pain was inflicted. The real reasons are lost in the mists."

"War has revealed an overpowering national instinct. The conflicting theories of the exact nature and limitations of our government had blinded the shrewdest minds to the fact that we were a nation, with all the feelings and instincts of a nation, and that our quarrels must be settled inside and not outside."

"‘But human beans [...] is shootling guns and going up in aerioplanes to drop their bombs on each other's heads every week. Human beans is always killing other human beans.’"

"Men will seem to see new destructions in the sky. The flames that fall from it will seem to rise in it and to fly from it with terror. They will hear every kind of animals speak in human language. They will instantaneously run in person in various parts of the world, without motion. They will see the greatest splendour in the midst of darkness. O! marvel of the human race! What madness has led you thus! You will speak with animals of every species and they with you in human speech. You will see yourself fall from great heights without any harm and torrents will accompany you, and will mingle with their rapid course."

"From fear in every guise, From sloth, from love of pelf, By war's great sacrifice The world redeems itself."

"Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. In the Middle Ages when the feudal lords who inhabited the castles whose towers may still be seen along the Rhine concluded to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth they declared war upon one another. But they themselves did not go to war any more than the modern feudal lords, the barons of Wall Street go to war. The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their masters; to believe that when their masters declared war upon one another, it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another and to cut one another's throats for the profit and glory of the lords and barons who held them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose — especially their lives. They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people. And here let me emphasize the fact — and it cannot be repeated too often — that the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace. Yours not to reason why; Yours but to do and die. That is their motto and we object on the part of the awakening workers of this nation. If war is right let it be declared by the people. You who have your lives to lose, you certainly above all others have the right to decide the momentous issue of war or peace."

"War is the ultimate realization of modern technology."

"The Trump administration has barred International Criminal Court investigators from entering the United States. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Friday that the U.S. will start denying visas to members of the ICC who may be investigating alleged war crimes by the U.S. military in Afghanistan. In September, national security adviser John Bolton threatened U.S. sanctions against ICC judges if they continued to investigate alleged war crimes committed by U.S. troops in Afghanistan."

"Di qui non si passa."

"Non si passa, passeremo noi."

"What argufies pride and ambition? Soon or late death will take us in tow: Each bullet has got its commission, And when our time's come we must go."

"I'm iron. I lasted through ten years of war, and now I can last through this. It's true, it's not good for the nerves."

"A feat of chivalry, fiery with consummate courage, and bright with flashing vigor."

"Carry his body hence,— Kings must have slaves; Kings climb to eminence Over men's graves: So this man's eye is dim;— Throw the earth over him."

"In war men pass like shadows that stain the grass, Leaving their lives upon the green: While Earth bewails the crimson sheen, Men’s dreams and stars and whispers all helpless pass."

"War puts burdens on people without caring whether they are ready for them or not."

"We are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause. We must never forget that victory to the rebellion meant death to the republic. We must never forget that the loyal soldiers who rest beneath this sod flung themselves between the nation and the nation destroyers. If today we have a country not boiling in an agony of blood, like France, if now we have a united country, no longer cursed by the hell-black system of human bondage, if the American name is no longer a by-word and a hissing to a mocking earth, if the star-spangled banner floats only over free American citizens in every quarter of the land, and our country has before it a long and glorious career of justice, liberty, and civilization, we are indebted to the unselfish devotion of the noble army who rest in these honored graves all around us."

"All delays are dangerous in war."

"War, he sung, is toil and trouble; Honour but an empty bubble."

"At the border posts, shed blood becomes a sea, The martial emperor's dream of expansion has no end."

"When 'tis an aven thing in th' prayin', may th' best man win … an' th' best man will win."

"'Tis startin' a polis foorce to prevint war…. How'll they be ar-rmed? What a foolish question. They'll be ar-rmed with love, if coorse. Who'll pay thim? That's a financyal detail that can be arranged later on. What'll happen if wan iv th' rough-necks reaches f'r a gun? Don't bother me with thrifles."

"Come you masters of war,/You that build all the guns,/You that build the death planes,/You that build the big bombs,/You that hide behind walls,/You that hide behind desks,/I just want you to know,/I can see through your masks./"

"If God’s on our side/They’ll stop the next war"

"There is so much that must be done in a civilized barbarism like war."

"There is no discharge in that war."

"All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom. It is no mere chance that our older universities developed from clerical schools. Both churches and universities — insofar as they live up to their true function — serve the ennoblement of the individual. They seek to fulfill this great task by spreading moral and cultural understanding, renouncing the use of brute force."

"I say when you get into a war, you should win as quick as you can, because your losses become a function of the duration of the war. I believe when you get in a war, get everything you need and win it."

"Now he conducted her through his armouries where he kept his weapons and weapons for his fighting men and all panoply of war. There he showed her swords and spears, maces and axes and daggers, orfreyed and damascened and inlaid with jewels; byrnies and baldricks and shields; blades so keen, a hair blown against them in a wind should be parted in twain; charmed helms on which no ordinary sword would bite. And Juss said unto the Queen, "Madam, what thinkest thou of these swords and spears? For know well that these be the ladder's rungs that we of Demonland climbed up by to that signiory and principality which now we hold over the four corners of the world." She answered, "O my lord, I think nobly of them. For an ill part it were while we joy in the harvest, to contemn the tools that prepared the land for it and reaped it.""

"As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable."

"I do not know how the Third World War will be fought, but I can tell you what they will use in the Fourth — rocks!"

"This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of the herd nature, the military system, which I abhor. That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed. This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how I hate them! War seems to me a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business."

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its stupidity."

"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. The 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."

"All free men remember that in the final choice a soldier's pack is not so heavy a burden as a prisoner's chains."

"Whether one believes in evolution, intelligent design, or Divine Creation, one thing is certain. Since the beginning of history, human beings have been at war with each other, under the pretext of religion, ideology, ethnicity and other reasons. And no civilization has ever willingly given up its most powerful weapons. We seem to agree today that we can share modern technology, but we still refuse to acknowledge that our values — at their very core — are shared values."

"I knew years before the Pentagon Papers came out that the Americans were being lied in to an essentially hopeless war. I’m not proud of the fact that it didn’t occur to me that my oath of office, which was to support the Constitution, called on me to put that information out and say, ‘64, when the war might have been avoided. But I certainly am glad that I finally came aware of what my real responsibilities were there. And I did put it out years later. At times, at that time, which published it, the “Times,” and the 18 other newspapers, which defied President Nixon’s injunctions and did put it out, were in the position of Julian Assange is in now."

"By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurl'd; Here once the embattl'd farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world."

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

"Ares (the God of War) hates those who hesitate."

"The fundamental principle underlying all justifications of war, from the point of view of human personality, is 'heroism'. War, it is said, offers man the opportunity to awaken the hero who sleeps within him. War breaks the routine of comfortable life; by means of its severe ordeals, it offers a transfiguring knowledge of life, life according to death. The moment the individual succeeds in living as a hero, even if it is the final moment of his earthly life, weighs infinitely more on the scale of values than a protracted existence spent consuming monotonously among the trivialities of cities. From a spiritual point of view, these possibilities make up for the negative and destructive tendencies of war, which are one-sidedly and tendentiously highlighted by pacifist materialism. War makes one realise the relativity of human life and therefore also the law of a 'more-than-life', and thus war has always an anti-materialist value, a spiritual value."

"Phil saw television as a marvelous teaching tool. There would be no excuse of illiteracy. Parents could learn along with their children. News and sporting events could be seen as they were happening. Symphonies would mean more when one could see the musicians as they played, and movies would be seen in our own living rooms. He said there would be a time when we would be able to see and learn about people in other lands. If we understood them better, differences could be settled around conference tables, without going to war."

"Before the French Revolution, wars scarcely affected the masses. They were fought out between sovereigns — the emperor, the kings, or the aristocratic republics which were still numerous in the eighteenth century — between ruling classes few in numbers, homogeneous, cultured, and refined. These classes could fight each other without excessive animosity; they could recognize that the enemy's cause was as righteous as their own; they could wage war as a game, respecting its rules even when it would be more advantageous to break them; and admit defeat as soon as it became too dangerous to keep on. Today it is the people who fight. . . . This mass cannot keep up the efforts of a war unless it is fired by some passion common to it all. A nation at war must therefore hate the enemy, which means that it must be convinced that it is defending the most righteous of causes against the most infamous aggression; that it represents innocent Right fighting against Evil armed with the most diabolical of long-premeditated designs."

"It is proverbial that generals always prepare for the last war..."

"Jellicoe has all the Nelsonic attributes except one—he is totally wanting in the great gift of insubordination."

"O great corrector of enormous times, Shaker of o'er-rank states, thou grand decider Of dusty and old titles, that healest with blood The earth when it is sick, and curest the world O' the pleurisy of people."

"Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education. Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both."

"The stories I have to tell are not for the ears of youngsters. What were the stories, really? A crowd of men charged from the trench. Later, some of them came back. What more was there to say? Once, a long time ago, war had been glamorous, with pageantry and uniforms to shame a peacock. Now it was only necessary, and the uniforms were the color of mud."

"My right has been rolled up. My left has been driven back. My center has been smashed. I have ordered an advance from all directions."

"Then came the attack in the Amiens sector on August 8. That went well, too. The moment had arrived. I ordered General Humbert to attack in his turn. "No reserves." No matter. Allez-y (Get on with it) I tell Marshal Haig to attack, too. He's short of men also. Attack all the same. There we are advancing everywhere—the whole line! En avant! Hup!"

"I am going on to the Rhine. If you oppose me, so much the worse for you, but whether you sign an armistice or not, I do not stop until I reach the Rhine."

"Keep the home fires burning, while your hearts are yearning, Tho' your lads are far away they dream of home. There's a silver lining through the dark cloud shining; Turn the dark cloud inside out till the boys come home."

"All of us who served in one war or another know very well that all wars are the glory and the agony of the young."

"War means fighting, and fighting means killing."

"Expect no quarter."

"This fight is against slavery; if we lose it, you will be made free."

"The newspapers still talk about glory but the average man, thank God, has got rid of that illusion. It is a damned bore, with a stall mate as the most probable outcome, but one has to see it through, and see it through with the knowledge that whichever side wins, civilisation in Europe will be pipped for the next 30 years. Don't indulge in Romance here, Malcolm, or suppose that an era of jolly little nationalities is dawning. We shall be much too much occupied with pestilence and poverty to reconstruct."

"It was sad. It's war. Many others died, too. It's war."

"War is obsolete. It could never have been done before. Only ten years ago... technology reached the point where it could be done. Since then the invisible technological-capability revolution has made it ever easier so to do. It is a matter of converting the high technology from weaponry to livingry. The essence of livingry is human-life advantaging and environment controlling. With the highest aeronautical and engineering facilities of the world redirected from weaponry to livingry production, all humanity would have the option of becoming enduringly successful. All previous revolutions have been political—in them the have-not majority has attempted revengefully to pull down the economically advantaged minority. If realized, this historically greatest design revolution will joyously elevate all humanity to unprecedented heights."

"Wars had been fought for as far back as anyone could see. They accompanied the first tribes and settlements, and they persisted through the creation of cites, nations, empires, and modern states. They varied only in the means available with which to fight them: as technology advanced so too did lethality, and the unsurprising result that as wars became bigger costs became greater. The first war of which we know the details—the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta during the 5th century BCE—probably brought about the deaths of 250,000 people. The two world wars of the 20th century may well have killed 300 times that number. The propensity for violence that drove these conflict and all those in between remained much the same, as Thucydides had predicted it would, “human nature being what it is.” What made the difference were the “improvements” in weaponry that inflated the body count."

"Your flaming torch aloft we bear, With burning heart an oath we swear To keep the faith, to fight it through, To crush the foe or sleep with you In Flanders' fields."

"The colossus of World War II seemed to be like a pyramid turned upside down."

"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?"

"You gotta remember that in war, you’re not deciding between the bad thing to and the good thing. You’re choosing between the bad and the worse. And you can’t control the shit that happens after you choose."

"Sometimes, thinking just didn’t do any good, didn’t provide any answers. Because for some questions—such as the arbitrariness of life and death during wartime—there weren’t any answers."

"When the red wrath perisheth, when the dulled swords fail, These three who have walked with Death—these shall prevail. Hell bade all its millions rise; Paradise sends three: Pity, and Self-sacrifice, and Charity."

"Sufficeth this to prove my theme withal, That every bullet hath a lighting place."

"'A more stupid and wasteful business there never was. Fields will not be planted, food will run low, tax revenues will dry up — save from the makers of swords and munitions.'"

"Once blood is shed in a national quarrel reason and right are swept aside by the rage of angry men."

"I was bandaging their wounds together with a field nurse. We did what we could: tearing strips from shirts and using them as bandages. So many died there! One lost his arm and died before making it to the crossing. Just fell down. Our radio operator too. Our girls, as they were climbing up the bank, got hit too. They were screaming, calling for their mothers. Torn limbs were flying from the blasts. It was terrifying. The most horrible is not the shelling itself, but to see its result."

"[B]y adopting microeconomics, game theory, systems analysis, and other managerial techniques, the Kennedy administration advanced “limited” war to greater specificity, making it seem much more controllable, manageable, and therefore desirable as foreign policy."

"The war we are fighting until victory or the bitter end is in its deepest sense a war between Christ and Marx. Christ: the principle of love. Marx: the principle of hate."

"We have 500,000 reservists in America who would rise in arms against your government if you dare to make a move against Germany."

"Neither ridiculous shriekings for revenge by French chauvinists, nor the Englishmen's gnashing of teeth, nor the wild gestures of the Slavs will turn us from our aim of protecting and extending German influence all the world over."

"Ye living soldiers of the mighty war, Once more from roaring cannon and the drums And bugles blown at morn, the summons comes; Forgot the halting limb, each wound and scar: Once more your Captain calls to you; Come to his last review!"

"An attitude not only of defence, but defiance."

"I believe the media can be the greatest force for peace on Earth. Instead, all too often, it is wielded as a weapon of war. That has to be challenged."

"If you are opposed to war, you are not a fringe minority. You are not a silent majority. You are part of a silenced majority. Silenced by the mainstream media."

"[I]magine if the U.S. media showed uncensored, hellish images of war-even for one week. What impact would that have? I think we would be able to abolish war."

"Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars. Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

"O, send Lewis Gordon hame And the lad I maune name, Though his back be at the wa' Here's to him that's far awa'. O, hon! my Highlandman, O, my bonny Highlandman, Weel would I my true love ken Among ten thousand Highlandmen."

"The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on."

"No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works."

"For the present, and so long as there are living witnesses of the great war of sections, there will be people who will not be consoled for the loss of a cause which they believed to be holy. As time passes, people, even of the South, will begin to wonder how it was possible that their ancestors ever fought for or justified institutions which acknowledged the right of property in man."

"I don't underrate the value of military knowledge, but if men make war in slavish obedience to rules, they will fail."

"Though I have been trained as a soldier, and participated in many battles, there never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword. I look forward to an epoch when a court, recognized by all nations, will settle international differences, instead of keeping large standing armies as they do in Europe."

"Wars produce many stories of fiction, some of which are told until they are believed to be true."

"War was return of earth to ugly earth, War was foundering of sublimities, Extinction of each happy art and faith By which the world had still kept head in air."

"The British army should be a projectile to be fired by the British navy."

"We will be misguided in our intentions if we point at one single thing and say that it will prevent war, unless, of course, that thing happens to be the will, the determination, and the resolve of people everywhere that nations will never again clash on the battlefield."

"Logistics is the ball and chain of armored warfare."

"The facts come sometimes to belie those who are convinced of the present reality of ‘moral progress’, according to the most usual conception of it; but all they do is modify their ideas a little in this respect, or refer the realization of their ideal to a more or less remote future, and they, too, might crawl out of their difficulties by talking about a ‘rhythm of progress’. Besides this, by a much simpler solution, they usually strive to forget the lesson of experience: such are the incorrigible dreamers who, at each new war do not fail to prophesy that it will be the last."

"Con disavvantaggio grande si fa la guerra con chi non ha che perdere."

"During the war of the rebellion Gould's firm did a large business in railway securities, and also made a great deal of money speculating in gold. Gould had private sources of information in the field, and he was able to turn almost every success or defeat of the Union army to profitable account."

"Wars are not a pub brawl. They are complex projects that require an extraordinary degree of organisation, cooperation and appeasement."

"War itself is not a mere science but a more fickle sort of thing, often subject to fate or chance, being an entirely human enterprise..."

"International wars became rare only after 1945, largely thanks to the new threat of nuclear annihilation."

"The greater the hold of government upon the life of the individual citizen, the greater the risk of war."

"I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it."

"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."

"They were left in the lurch For want of more wadding—He ran to the church— * * * * * * With his arms full of hymnbooks … Rang his voice, "Put Watts into 'em—Boys, give 'em Watts.""

"An hour ago, a Star was falling. A star? There's nothing strange in that. No, nothing; but above the thicket, Somehow it seemed to me that God Somewhere had just relieved a picket."

"Hark! I hear the tramp of thousands, And of armèd men the hum; Lo, a nation's hosts have gathered Round the quick alarming drum— Saying, Come, Freemen, Come! Ere your heritage be wasted, Said the quick alarming drum."

"Let the only walls the foe shall scale Be ramparts of the dead!"

"My men never retire. They go forward or they die."

"Most of these who are thrust into combat soon find it impossible to maintain the mythic perception of war."

"The vanquished know war. They see through the empty jingoism of those who use the abstract words of glory, honor, and patriotism to mask the cries of the wounded, the senseless killing, war profiteering, and chest-pounding grief."

"Napoleon healed through sword and fire the sick nation."

"The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force."

"Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation—the last arguments to which kings resort."

"The god of war has gone over to the other side."

"Hang yourself, brave Crillon. We fought at Arques, and you were not there."

"Πόλεμος πάντων μὲν πατήρ ἐστι πάντων δὲ βασιλεύς, καὶ τοὺς μὲν θεοὺς ἔδειξε τοὺς δὲ ἀνθρώπους, τοὺς μὲν δούλους ἐποίησε τοὺς δὲ ἐλευθέρους."

"# War is the father and king of all: some he has made gods, and some men; some slaves and some free."

"# War is the father and king of all, and has produced some as gods and some as men, and has made some slaves and some free. (G. T. W. Patrick, 1889)"

"#* Hippolytus, Ref. haer. ix. 9 (Fragment 53). Context: "And that the father of all created things is created and uncreated, the made and the maker, we hear him (Heraclitus) saying, 'War is the father and king of all,' etc.""

"#* Plutarch, de Iside 48, p. 370. Context, see frag. 43."

"#* Proclus in Tim. 54 A (comp. 24 B)."

"#* Compare Chrysippus from Philodem. P. eusebeias, vii. p. 81, Gomperz."

"#* Lucianus, Quomodo hist. conscrib. 2; Idem, Icaromen 8."

"# See also: πόλεμος πάντων μὲν πατήρ ἐστι, πάντων δὲ βασιλεύς"

"# Martin Heidegger, Parmenides (1942–1943)"

"Τίς γὰρ αὐτῶν νόος ἢ φρήν; [δήμων] ἀοιδοῖσι ἕπονται καὶ διδασκάλῳ χρέωνται ὁμίλῳ, οὐκ εἰδότες ὅτι πολλοὶ κακοὶ ὀλίγοι δὲ ἀγαθοί. αἱρεῦνται γὰρ ἓν ἀντία πάντων οἱ ἄριστοι, κλέος ἀέναον θνητῶν, οἱ δὲ πολλοὶ κεκόρηνται ὅκωσπερ κτήνεα."

"# The best people renounce all for one goal, the eternal fame of mortals; but most people stuff themselves like cattle."

"# For what sense or understanding have they? They follow minstrels and take the multitude for a teacher, not knowing that many are bad and few good. For the best men choose one thing above all – immortal glory among mortals; but the masses stuff themselves like cattle. (G.T.W. Patrick, 1889)"

"#: "The passage is restored as above by Bernays (Heraclitea i. p. 34), and Bywater (p. 43), from the following sources:"

"#:* Clement of Alex. Strom. v. 9, p. 682."

"#:* Proclus in Alcib. p. 255 Creuzer, = 525 ed. Cous. ii."

"#:* Clement of Alex. Strom. iv. 7, p. 586.""

"Inquiry shall likewise be made about the professions and trades of those who are brought to be admitted to the [Christian] faith. ... A soldier of the civil authority must be taught not to kill men and to refuse to do so if he is commanded, and to refuse to take an oath; if he is unwilling to comply, he must be rejected. ... If a catechumen or a believer seeks to become a soldier, they must be rejected, for they have despised God."

"I believe that I am today acting according to the purposes of the almighty Creator. In resisting the Jew, I am fighting the Lord’s battle."

"And I should not like to forget the hint which I have already given once before, on 1 September 1939, in the German Reichstag — that should the other world be plunged into a general war, Jewry as a whole will have played out its role in Europe. They can laugh at this today just as they laughed at my prophecies before. The coming months and years will prove that here too I was right."

"I have played straight with the Jews. On the eve of war I gave them a last warning. I warned them that if they again plunged the world into war, they would not be spared this time — that the vermin would be finally exterminated in Europe. They replied to this warning by a declaration of war. . . . We have pierced the Jewish abscess. The world of the future will be eternally grateful to us."

"the red father of war who signs his name in the blood of other men"

"Bleak are our shores with the blasts of December, Fettered and chill is the rivulet's flow; Throbbing and warm are the hearts that remember Who was our friend when the world was our foe."

"I war not with the dead."

"Cursed is the man, and void of law and right, Unworthy property, unworthy light, Unfit for public rule, or private care, That wretch, that monster, who delights in war;"

"Take thou thy arms and come with me, For we must quit ourselves like men, and strive To aid our cause, although we be but two. Great is the strength of feeble arms combined, And we can combat even with the brave."

"The chance of war Is equal, and the slayer oft is slain."

"It is not right to exult over slain men."

"So ends the bloody business of the day."

"Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die. And it is youth who must inherit the tribulation, the sorrow and the triumphs that are the aftermath of war."

"Nimirum hic ego sum."

"Postquam Discordia tetra Belli ferratos postes portasque refregit."

"Ye who made war that your ships Should lay to at the beck of no nation, Make war now on Murder, that slips The leash of her hounds of damnation; Ye who remembered the Alamo, Remember the Maine!"

"We cannot well exaggerate ... the horrors, the hateful ravages, and the countless expense of war... show plainly to our children that war, with its embodied woes and furies must be avoided."

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored: He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword: His truth is marching on."

"L'Angleterre prit l'aigle, et l'Autriche l'aiglon."

"Earth was the meadow, he the mower strong."

"The sinews of war are those two metals (gold and silver)."

"Individuals who commit serious violations of the laws of war with criminal intent – that is, intentionally or recklessly – may be prosecuted for war crimes. Individuals may also be held criminally liable for assisting in, facilitating, aiding, or abetting a war crime. All governments that are parties to an armed conflict are obligated to investigate alleged war crimes by members of their armed forces."

"The closeness of their intercourse [the intercourse of nations] will assuredly render war as absurd and impossible by-and-by, as it would be for Manchester to fight with Birmingham, or Holborn Hill with the Strand."

"If we do not change course quickly, we will inevitably encounter an incident where that first domino is tipped—triggering a sequence of unstoppable events that will mark the end of our time on this tiny planet... My hope lies in... the leaders of communities and social movements, big and small, who are willing to forfeit everything—including their lives—in defence of human rights."

"All war propaganda consists, in the last resort, in substituting diabolical abstractions for human beings. Similarly, those who defend war have invented a pleasant sounding vocabulary of abstractions in which to describe the process of mass murder."

"Pavlov’s findings were confirmed in the most distressing manner, and on a very large scale, during the two World Wars. As the result of a single catastrophic experience, or of a succession of terrors less appalling but frequently repeated, soldiers develop a number of disabling psycho-physical symptoms. Temporary unconsciousness, extreme agitation, lethargy, functional blindness or paralysis, completely unrealistic responses to the challenge of events, strange reversals of life-long patterns of behaviour—all the symptoms, which Pavlov observed in his dogs, re-appeared among the victims of what in the First World War was called ‘shell shock’, in the Second, ‘battle fatigue’. Every man, like every dog, has his own individual limit of endurance. Most men reach their limit after about thirty days of more or less continuous stress under the conditions of modern combat. The more than averagely susceptible succumb in only fifteen days. The more than averagely tough can resist for forty-five or even fifty days. Strong or weak, in the long run all of them break down. All, that is to say, of those who are initially sane. For, ironically enough, the only people who can hold up indefinitely under the stress of modern war are psychotics. Individual insanity is immune to the consequences of collective insanity."

"I can give no adequate description of the Horror Camp in which my men and myself were to spend the next month of our lives. It was just a barren wilderness, as bare as a chicken run. Corpses lay everywhere, some in huge piles, sometimes they lay singly or in pairs where they had fallen. It took a little time to get used to seeing men women and children collapse as you walked by them and to restrain oneself from going to their assistance. One had to get used early to the idea that the individual just did not count. One knew that five hundred a day were dying and that five hundred a day were going on dying for weeks before anything we could do would have the slightest effect. It was, however, not easy to watch a child choking to death from diptheria when you knew a tracheotomy and nursing would save it, one saw women drowning in their own vomit because they were too weak to turn over, and men eating worms as they clutched a half loaf of bread purely because they had to eat worms to live and now could scarcely tell the difference. Piles of corpses, naked and obscene, with a woman too weak to stand proping herself against them as she cooked the food we had given her over an open fire; men and women crouching down just anywhere in the open relieving themselves of the dysentary which was scouring their bowels, a woman standing stark naked washing herself with some issue soap in water from a tank in which the remains of a child floated. It was shortly after the British Red Cross arrived, though it may have no connection, that a very large quantity of lipstick arrived. This was not at all what we men wanted, we were screaming for hundreds and thousands of other things and I don't know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it, it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for these internees than the lipstick. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wandering about with nothing but a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red lips. I saw a woman dead on the post mortem table and clutched in her hand was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tatooed on the arm. At last they could take an interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity."

"Attempts to prohibit the use of particular weapons in warfare have been made in various civilizations over a long period of time....[I]n ancient times, the Laws of Manu (the greatest of the Hindu codes prohibited Hindus from using poisoned arrows; and the Greeks and Romans customarily observed a prohibition against using poison or poisoned weapons. During the Middle Ages the Lateran Council of 1132 declared that the crossbow [was prohibited.]"

"Colonial powers have long recruited soldiers from the periphery to fight wars at the center. …When war becomes a business model, and soldiers are sourced like cheap labor, we are no longer in the realm of politics. We are in the realm of trafficking."

"Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

"Then, sir, we will give them the bayonet!"

"You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight."

"Reflective apologists for war at the present day all take it religiously. It is a sort of sacrament. It's profits are to the vanquished as well as to the victor; and quite apart from any question of profit, it is an absolute good, we are told, for it is human nature at its highest dynamic."

"YOU are going to hear of wars and reports of wars; see that YOU are not terrified. For these things must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be food shortages and earthquakes in one place after another. All these things are a beginning of pangs of distress."

"He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smelleth the battle afar off."

"The safety of the country is at stake…. We must let ourselves be killed on the spot rather than retreat…. No faltering can be tolerated today."

"The armies most successful in war are those in which every combatant has a clear conscience."

"And war broke out in heaven: Mi′cha•el and his angels battled with the dragon, and the dragon and its angels battled but it did not prevail, neither was a place found for them any longer in heaven. So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven say:"

"How many men who listen to me tonight have served their nation in other wars? How very many are not here to listen? The war in Vietnam is not like these other wars. Yet, finally, war is always the same. It is young men dying in the fullness of their promise. It is trying to kill a man that you do not even know well enough to hate. It is a crime against mankind... Therefore, to know war is to know that there is still madness in this world."

"Among the calamities of war, may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates, and credulity encourages."

"I have prayed in her fields of poppies, I have laughed with the men who died— But in all my ways and through all my days Like a friend He walked beside. I have seen a sight under Heaven That only God understands, In the battles' glare I have seen Christ there With the Sword of God in His hand."

"Every battle, every war - is fought for things worth dying for."

"Men dying is a relative thing. The effect of the air campaign is a cumulative one and no one can predict which blow will be the crucial blow [to the enemy]."

"A navy is essentially and necessarily aristocratic. True as may be the political principles for which we are now contending they can never be practically applied or even admitted on board ship, out of port, or off soundings. This may seem a hardship, but it is nevertheless the simplest of truths. Whilst the ships sent forth by the Congress may and must fight for the principles of human rights and republican freedom, the ships themselves must be ruled and commanded at sea under a system of absolute despotism."

"The Philistines be upon thee, Samson."

"The people arose as one man."

"War is expensive. Winning a war, however, is less expensive than losing one."

"In war you learn your lessons, and they stay learned, but the tuition fees are high."

"Its is important, too, to realize that deadly violence among primitives is not even remotely comparable to modern warfare. When primitives fight, two little bands of men shoot arrows or swing war-clubs at one another because they want to fight; or because they are defending themselves, their families, or their territory. In the modern world soldiers fight because they have been brainwashed into believing in some kook ideology such as that of Nazism, socialism, or what American politicians choose to call "freedom". In any case the modern soldier is merely a pawn, a dupe who dies not for his family or his tribe but for the politicians who exploit him. If he's unlucky, maybe he does not die but comes home horribly crippled in a way that would never result from an arrow -or a spear-wound. Meanwhile, thousands of non-combatants are killed or mutilated. The environment is ravaged, not only in the war zone, but also back home, due to the accelerated consumption of natural resources needed to feed the war machine. In comparison, the violence of primitive man is relatively innocuous."

"(While smiling, and jokingly) You haven't come to see me for three weeks. I wondered whether you had become disgusted with us war criminals - particularly me, the so-called archcriminal of them all."

"Even philosophers will praise war as ennobling mankind, forgetting the Greek who said: War is bad in that it begets more evil than it kills."

"All wars are accordingly so many attempts (not in the intention of man, but in the intention of Nature) to establish new relations among states, and through the destruction or at least the dismemberment of all of them to create new political bodies, which, again, either internally or externally, cannot maintain themselves and which must thus suffer like revolutions; until finally, through the best possible civic constitution and common agreement and legislation in external affairs, a state is created which, like a civic commonwealth, can maintain itself automatically."

"By virtue of their mutual interest does nature unite people against violence and war…the spirit of trade cannot coexist with war, and sooner or later this spirit dominates every people. For among all those powers…that belong to a nation, financial power may be the most reliable in forcing nations to pursue the noble cause of peace…and wherever in the world war threatens to break out, they will try to head it off through mediation, just as if they were permanently leagued for this purpose."

"[t]he laws of war are only as strong as those who insist that they be observed.""

"Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought. Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder. Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human beings. Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction. Be heroes in an army of construction."

"Now the following questions have to be raised: did the occupation of other countries improve our own happiness? Does the individual German get anything out of such conquests? Won't we get into trouble with another powerful nation some place tomorrow or the day after? The differences in interests among the large nations will not be diminished by expanding ourselves."

"Modern war has become too complex to be entrusted to the intuition of even the most experienced military commander. Only our giant brains can calculate all the possibilities."

"Anyone who has ever studied the history of American diplomacy, especially military diplomacy, knows that you might start in a war with certain things on your mind as a purpose of what you are doing, but in the end, you found yourself fighting for entirely different things that you had never thought of before … In other words, war has a momentum of its own and it carries you away from all thoughtful intentions when you get into it. Today, if we went into Iraq, like the president would like us to do, you know where you begin. You never know where you are going to end."

"Whenever you have a possibility of going in two ways, either for peace or for war, for peaceful methods of for military methods, in the present age there is a strong prejudice for the peaceful ones. War seldom ever leads to good results."

"For the love of God, for the love of your children and of the civilization to which you belong, cease this madness. You are mortal men. You are capable of error. You have no right to hold in your hands—there is no one wise enough and strong enough to hold in his hands—destructive power sufficient to put an end to civilized life on a great portion of our planet."

"War will exist until that distant day when the enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."

"In a world of danger and trial, peace is our deepest aspiration, and when peace comes we will gladly convert not our swords into plowshares, but our bombs into peaceful reactors, and our planes into space vessels. "Pursue peace," the Bible tells us, and we shall pursue it with every effort and every energy that we possess. But it is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war."

"And if there is one path above all others to war, it is the path of weakness and disunity."

"Mankind must put an end to war — or war will put an end to mankind"

"The world is a very different one now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life."

"Every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us."

"Eighteen years ago the advent of nuclear weapons changed the course of the world as well as the war. Since that time, all mankind has been struggling to escape from the darkening prospect of mass destruction on earth. In an age when both sides have come to possess enough nuclear power to destroy the human race several times over, the world of communism and the world of free choice have been caught up in a vicious circle of conflicting ideology and interest. Each increase of tension has produced an increase of arms; each increase of arms has produced an increase of tension."

"A war today or tomorrow, if it led to nuclear war, would not be like any war in history. A full-scale nuclear exchange, lasting less than 60 minutes, with the weapons now in existence, could wipe out more than 300 million Americans, Europeans, and Russians, as well as untold numbers elsewhere. And the survivors, as Chairman Khrushchev warned the Communist Chinese, "the survivors would envy the dead." For they would inherit a world so devastated by explosions and poison and fire that today we cannot even conceive of its horrors. So let us try to turn the world away from war. Let us make the most of this opportunity, and every opportunity, to reduce tension, to slow down the perilous nuclear arms race, and to check the world's slide toward final annihilation."

"It is not easy for a free community to organise for war. We are not accustomed to listen to experts or prophets. Our strength lies in an ability to improvise. Yet an open mind to untried ideas is also necessary."

"O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand between their loved homes and the war's desolation."

"The unified field theory that best fits the currently known facts is what I call the "theory of competitive control." This is the notion that non-state armed groups, of many kinds, draw their strength and freedom of action primarily from their ability to manipulate and mobilize populations, and that they do this using a spectrum of methods from coercion to persuasion, by creating a normative system that makes people feel safe through the predictability and order that it generates. This theory has been part of many people’s thinking about insurgency and civil war for a long time. But the cases…suggest that it applies to any non-state armed group that preys on a population."

"War has changed little in principle from the beginning of recorded history. The mechanized warfare of today is only an evolution of the time when men fought with clubs and stones, and its machines are as nothing without the men who invent them, man them and give them life. War is force- force to the utmost- force to make the enemy yield to our own will- to yield because they see their comrades killed and wounded- to yield because their own will to fight is broken. War is men against men. Mechanized war is still men against men, for machines are masses of inert metal without the men who control them- or destroy them."

"Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers."

"We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not enough to say "We must not wage war." It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace. There is a fascinating little story that is preserved for us in Greek literature about Ulysses and the Sirens. The Sirens had the ability to sing so sweetly that sailors could not resist steering toward their island. Many ships were lured upon the rocks, and men forgot home, duty, and honor as they flung themselves into the sea to be embraced by arms that drew them down to death. Ulysses, determined not to be lured by the Sirens, first decided to tie himself tightly to the mast of his boat, and his crew stuffed their ears with wax. But finally he and his crew learned a better way to save themselves: they took on board the beautiful singer Orpheus whose melodies were sweeter than the music of the Sirens. When Orpheus sang, who bothered to listen to the Sirens? So we must fix our vision not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but upon the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody that is far superior to the discords of war. Somehow, we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race, which no one can win, to a positive contest to harness humanity's creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all the nations of the world. In short, we must shift the arms race into a peace race. If we have a will — and determination — to mount such a peace offensive, we will unlock hitherto tightly sealed doors of hope and transform our imminent cosmic elegy into a psalm of creative fulfillment."

"War bred the strangest paranoias from its soup of deceptions, misinformation, misdirection, and poor communication. And lack of any cultural basis for understanding."

"Soon the men of the column began to see that though the scarlet line was slender, it was very rigid and exact."

"For heathen heart that puts her trust In reeking tube and iron shard— All valiant dust that builds on dust, And guarding calls not Thee to guard— For frantic boast and foolish word, Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!"

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

"For agony and spoil Of nations beat to dust, For poisoned air and tortured soil And cold, commanded lust, And every secret woe The shuddering waters saw— Willed and fulfilled by high and low— Let them relearn the Law."

"But let this fact burn its way into your brain to save you from hell and rouse you for the revolution—this fact: Nowhere on all that battlefield among the shattered rifles and wrecked canon, among the broken ambulances and splintered ammunition wagons, nowhere in the mire and mush of blood and sand, nowhere among the bulging and befouling carcasses of dead horses and swelling corpses of dead men and boys—nowhere could be found the torn, bloated and fly-blown carcasses of bankers, bishops, politicians, "brainy capitalists" and other elegant and eminent "very best people." Well, hardly. Naturally—these proud, cunning and intelligent people were not there, on the firing line. Listen, oh, listen—you betrayed multitude of toil-damned, war-blasted workers of all nations: If the masters want blood, let them cut their own throats. We don't want other people's blood and we refuse to wast our own. Let those who want "great victories" go to the firing line and get them. If war is good enough to vote or to pray for, it is good enough to go to—up close where bayonets gleam, swords flash, canon roar, rifles clash, flesh rips, blood spurts, bones snap, brains are dashed,—up close where men toil, sweat, freeze, starve, kill, groan, scream, pray, laugh, howl, curse, go mad and die,—up close where the flesh and blood of betrayed men and boys are pounded into a red mush of mud by shrieking canon balls, by the iron-shod hoofs of galloping horses and the steel-bound wheels of rushing gun-trucks. "What is war?" They say "War is Hell." Well, then, let those who want hell, go to hell."

"You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King to help our French comrades against the invasion of a common enemy. You have to perform a task which will need your courage, your energy, and your patience. Remember that the honor of the British Army depends on your individual conduct. It will be your duty not only to set an example of discipline and perfect steadiness under fire, but also to maintain the most friendly relations with those whom you are helping in this struggle…. Do your duty bravely. Fear God and honor the King."

"War is itself a political act with primarily political objects and under the American form of government political officials must necessarily direct its general course."

"We are all saddened by the barbarism of humanity. The most negative manifestation of free will is seen in outbursts of war."

"Those who ignite wars should think about the abyss into which they thrust the planet. Even a war that afflicts only a few countries promotes the destruction of the entire planet. No one thinks of war as a planetary sickness, yet one can see what improvements in life are cut short everywhere in the world by even local wars. Such convulsions are not needed when steady progress is possible. 515."

"How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print."

"Every single war ever fought anywhere had spawned shadow battles between the warring governments and their own citizens. Black markets, war profiteering, blockade runners, quislings, conscientious objectors, organized crime and its less organized siblings. False government contracts, false traveling papers, false bills of lading, false passenger lists, and, for the really sophisticated, falsifying deebee programs. All it took were contacts and money."

""…wars of the 17th century on the European continent 3 million people perished, in the 18th century and in the 19th century - 5.5. million...[T]he First World War wiped out 10 million lives, the Second - over 50 million."

"The superficial student of history stands under the impression that Europe before the nineteenth century was torn asunder by endless wars and disagreements, yet there was far more inner unity in spite of the lack of airliners and superhighways. The interrelationship between the European monarchs also had the practical effect that totalitarian wars were not waged and that between A.D. 900 and 1866 no European monarchy was wiped off the map with the exception of Poland and the temporary grabs of the French Revolution. There is also little doubt that the absence of the modern means of war contributed to the relative mildness of medieval warfare. Yet the fact that all rulers were related was of greater importance and it acted as a break during peace negotiations; playing bridge against one's cousin or brother-in-law, one is glad to gain small sums but never intends to ruin the opponent. Wars during the Middle Ages were collective duels and to a certain extent even a privilege of the nobility and their kinsmen. The introduction of mercenaries — soldiers receiving a solde — lowered the moral level of warfare. The towns, defending themselves against a decadent, robbing knighthood, hired professional soldiers. These, thanks to the invention of gunpowder, were able to destroy the castles of the marauding or rebelling nobility. Thus went down what once had been, in the days of its true service, the finest symbol of European liberty."

"Glory was the lie concocted to inspire innocent fools to war."

"War will not end until all of the violent people are killed."

"Friendship itself prompts it (Government of the U. S.) to say to the Imperial Government (Germany) that repetition by the commanders of German naval vessels of acts in contravention of those rights (neutral) must be regarded by the Government of the United States, when they affect American citizens, as deliberately unfriendly."

"There is no such thing as an inevitable war. If war comes it will be from failure of human wisdom."

"I have always believed that success would be the inevitable result if the two services, the army and the navy, had fair play, and if we sent the right man to fill the right place."

"It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it."

"When Greeks joined Greeks, then was the tug of war!"

"Art, thou hast many infamies, But not an infamy like this. O snap the fife and still the drum And show the monster as she is."

"We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, someway or another, and some in South Korea too."

"I want you to make love, not war, I know you've heard it before."

"O, God assist our side: at least, avoid assisting the enemy and leave the rest to me."

"The ballot is stronger than the bullet."

"We, on our side, are praying Him to give us victory, because we believe we are right; but those on the other side pray to Him, look for victory, believing they are right. What must He think of us?"

"Armies, the world over, destroy enemies' property when they can not use it; and even destroy their own to keep it from the enemy. Civilized belligerents do all in their power to help themselves, or hurt the enemy, except a few things regarded as barbarous or cruel. Among the exceptions are the massacre of vanquished foes, and non-combatants, male and female."

"One month too late."

"To arms! to arms! ye brave! Th' avenging sword unsheathe, March on! march on! all hearts resolved On victory or death!"

"At the Captain's mess, in the Banquet-hall, Sat feasting the officers, one and all— Like a sabre-blow, like the swing of a sail, One raised his glass, held high to hail, Sharp snapped like the stroke of a rudder's play, Spoke three words only: "To the day!""

"Thus, if there is anyone who is confident that he can advise me as to the best advantage of the state in this campaign which I am about to conduct, let him not refuse his services to the state, but come with me into Macedonia. I will furnish him with his sea-passage, with a horse, a tent, and even travel-funds. If anyone is reluctant to do this and prefers the leisure of the city to the hardships of campaigning, let him not steer the ship from on shore."

"The great war of to-day is a war for bread and butter"

"Ez fer war, I call it murder,— Ther you hev it plain and flat; I don't want to go no furder Than my Testyment fer that."

"We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage."

"Not but wut abstract war is horrid, I sign to thet with all my heart,— But civilysation doos git forrid Sometimes, upon a powder-cart."

"War is a survival among us from savage times and affects now chiefly the boyish and unthinking element of the nation."

"God has chosen little nations as the vessels by which He carries His choicest wines to the lips of humanity to rejoice their hearts, to exalt their vision, to strengthen their faith, and if we had stood by when two little nations (Belgium and Servia) were being crushed and broken by the brutal hands of barbarians, our shame would have rung down the everlasting ages."

"The stern hand of Fate has scourged us to an elevation where we can see the everlasting things that matter for a nation—the great peaks we had forgotten, of Honour, Duty, Patriotism, and clad in glittering white, the pinnacles of Sacrifice, pointing like a rugged finger to Heaven. We shall descend into the valley again; but as long as the men and women of this generation last, they will carry in their hearts the image of these mighty peaks, whose foundations are not shaken, though Europe rock and sway in the convulsions of a great war."

"Too late in moving here, too late in arriving there, too late in coming to this decision, too late in starting with enterprises, too late in preparing. In this war the footsteps of the allied forces have been dogged by the mocking specter of Too Late! and unless we quicken our movements, damnation will fall on the sacred cause for which so much gallant blood has flowed."

"The last £100,000,000 will win."

"Is it, O man, with such discordant noises, With such accursed instruments as these, Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly voices, And jarrest the celestial harmonies?"

"Ultima ratio regum."

"The Campbells are comin'."

"Pourquoi cette trombe enflammée Qui vient foudroyer l'univers? Cet embrasement de l'enfer? Ce tourbillonnement d'armées Par mille milliers de milliers? —C'est pour un chiffon de papier."

"Alta sedent civilis vulnera dextræ."

"Datos, ne quisquam seruiat, enses."

"Omnibus hostes Reddite nos populis—civile avertite bellum."

"Non tam portas intrare patentes Quam fregisse juvat; nec tam patiente colono Arva premi, quam si ferro populetur et igni; Concessa pudet ire via."

"'Aig [F.-M. Sir Douglas Haig] 'e don't say much; 'e don't, so to say, say nothin'; but what 'e don't say don't mean nothin', not 'arf. But when 'e do say something—my Gawd!"

"Enormous masses of ammunition, such as the human mind had never imagined before the war, were hurled upon the bodies of men who passed a miserable existence scattered about in mud-filled shell-holes."

"Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen."

"I beg that the small steamers … be spared if possible, or else sunk without a trace being left. (Spurlos versenkt)."

"I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes."

"In war there is no substitute for victory."

"That's the way it is in war. You win or lose, live or die—and the difference is just an eyelash."

"Oh! wherefore come ye forth in triumph from the North, With your hands and your feet, and your raiment all red? And wherefore doth your rout send forth a joyous shout? And whence be the grapes of the wine-press which ye tread?"

"The essence of war is violence. Moderation in war is imbecility."

"[T]hat one should never permit a disorder to persist in order to avoid war, for war is not avoided thereby but merely deferred to one's own disadvantage..."

"Di qui nacque che tutti li profeti armati vinsero, e li disarmati rovinarono."

"War in men's eyes shall be A monster of iniquity In the good time coming. Nations shall not quarrel then, To prove which is the stronger; Nor slaughter men for glory's sake;— Wait a little longer."

"The warpipes are pealing, "The Campbells are coming." They are charging and cheering. O dinna ye hear it?"

"J'y suis, et j'y reste."

"War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason; and if any thing is to be hoped, every thing ought to be tried."

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

"I am very much against war, because war is uncivilized. People should not solve problems through killing people. That's not the way to do things. We are people who have the capacity to negotiate. We should negotiate around the table. We should arbitrate, or we should go through a court of law. Malaysia had a problem with Indonesia. It had a problem with the Philippines. It had a problem with Singapore. We went to the World Court and we accepted the findings of the whole court. We lost one, we win one. But if you go to war, even if you achieve victory, many, many people would suffer. People would kill, and money will be lost. Wars bankrupt nations."

"Unhappily, history proves that war is, in a certain sense, the habitual state of mankind, which is to say that human blood must flow without interruption somewhere or other on the globe, and that for every nation, peace is only a respite."

"Now the real fruits of human nature – the arts, sciences, great enterprises, lofty conceptions, manly virtues – are due especially to the state of war. […] In a word, we can say that blood is the manure of the plant we call genius."

"War is divine in itself, since it is a law of the world. War is divine through its consequences of a supernatural nature which are as much general as particular, consequences little known because little studied, but which are nevertheless incontestable. War is divine in the mysterious glory that surrounds it and in the no less inexplicable attraction that draws us to it. War is divine by the manner in which it breaks out."

"Opinion is so powerful in war that it can alter the nature of the same event and give it two different names, for no reason other than its own whim. A general throws his men between two enemy armies and he writes to his king, I have split him, he has lost. His opponent writes to his king, He has put himself between two fires, he is lost. Which of the two is mistaken? Whoever is seized by the cold goddess. Assuming that all things, especially size, are at least approximately equal, the only difference between the two positions is a purely moral one. It is imagination that loses battles."

"He says, “No ruler in the history of the world has ever been able to afford a war. They’re not affordable things. No prince ever says, ‘This is my budget, so this is the kind of war I can have.’ You enter into one and it uses up all the money you’ve got, and then it breaks you and bankrupts you.”"

"The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue."

"Marlbrough s'en va-t-en guerre, Mironton, mironton, mirontaine, Marlbrough s'en va-t-en guerre, Ne sait quand reviendra."

"The only hope for peace is to teach people who are full of pep and unbound force to enjoy being bound--enjoy submission to kind authority, wise authority, not merely tolerate such submission. Wars will only cease when humans enjoy being bound."

"Cineri gloria sera venit. (Also given as Cineri gloria sera sunt and Cineri gloria sera est.)"

"Step by step. Heart to heart. Left, right, left. We all fall down, like toy soldiers. Bit by bit torn apart, we never win, but the battle wages on for toy soldiers."

"War is not the greatest evil, though it is an evil. The open struggle of the battlefield is not the greatest evil; worse is that chronic condition of society which makes possible the violence of the stronger to the weaker; worse than war are insincerity and falsehood; worse is that egotism hidden under the mask of humanity and nobility in mind; worse is cowardice passing itself off as fortitude; worse is sophistry deceiving the sensible and wise. Death is not worse than a dishonourable life which destroys its own soul as well as that of its neighbour."

"And silence broods like spirit on the brae, A glimmering moon begins, the moonlight runs Over the grasses of the ancient way Rutted this morning by the passing guns."

"For a flying foe Discreet and provident conquerors build up A bridge of gold."

"Some undone widow sits upon mine arm, And takes away the use of it; and my sword, Glued to my scabbard with wronged orphan's tears, Will not be drawn."

"Wars and rumours of wars."

"Only a fool or a fraud talks tough or romantically about war."

"All quiet along the Potomac."

"How do wars begin? Through affront, through bravado, through stupidity or overconfidence, through sacred purpose or greed."

"There's some say that we wan, some say that they wan, Some say that nane wan at a', man, But one thing I'm sure that at Sheriff-Muir, A battle there was which I saw, man. And we ran and they ran, and they ran and we ran, And we ran, and they ran awa', man."

"[W]ar is so complex, it’s beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend allthe variables. Our judgement, our understanding, are not adequate."

"There is war in the skies!"

"City fighting also places enormous challenges on ground forces. Fighting in urban terrain generally favors the defenders, who can place snipers in windows and hide down narrow alleys. Even with precision munitions, it is difficult to use air and artillery power in a dense urban battle. Much of the fighting falls on the shoulders of the individual soldiers, who have to clear the city block by block."

"War challenges virtually every other institution of society—the justice and equity of its economy, the adequacy of its political systems, the energy of its productive plant, the bases, wisdom and purposes of its foreign policy."

"What though the field be lost? All is not lost; the unconquerable will, And study of revenge, immortal hate And courage never to submit or yield, And what is else not to be overcome."

"Heard so oft In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge Of battle."

"Th' imperial ensign, which, full high advanc'd, Shone like a meteor, streaming to the wind. With gems and golden lustre rich emblazed, Seraphic arms and trophies."

"My sentence is for open war."

"Others more mild, Retreated in a silent valley, sing With notes angelical to many a harp Their own heroic deeds and hapless fall By doom of battle."

"Black it stood as night, Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, And shook a dreadful dart."

"So frown'd the mighty combatants, that hell Grew darker at their frown."

"Arms on armour clashing bray'd Horrible discord, and the madding wheels Of brazen chariots ray'd; dire was the noise Of conflict."

"To overcome in battle, and subdue Nations, and bring home spoils with infinite Man-slaughter, shall be held the highest pitch Of human glory."

"The brazen throat of war."

"No war or battle sound Was heard the world around."

"War prosperity is like the prosperity that an earthquake or a plague brings."

"In addition to economic and military , wartime measures typically encourage a high degree of political, social and intellectual conformity. The general idea is that, in the face of an existential challenge from a vicious enemy, ought to cease. The media tends to become more patriotic, as do former ."

"Partout, à l’origine des sociétés, on voit donc les races les plus fortes, les plus guerrières, s’attribuer le gouvernement exclusif des sociétés ; partout on voit ces races s’attribuer, dans certaines circonscriptions plus ou moins étendues, selon leur nombre et leur force, le monopole de la sécurité.Et, ce monopole étant excessivement profitable par sa nature même, partout on voit aussi les races investies du monopole de la sécurité se livrer à des luttes acharnées, afin d’augmenter l’étendue de leur marché, le nombre de leurs consommateurs forcés, partant la quotité de leurs bénéfices.La guerre était la conséquence nécessaire, inévitable de l’établissement du monopole de la sécurité.Comme une autre conséquence inévitable, ce monopole devait engendrer tous les autres monopoles."

"In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defence."

"War hath no fury like a non-combatant."

"Most of the people who get sent to die in wars are young men who've got a lot of energy and would probably rather, in a better world, be putting that energy into copulation rather than going over there and blowing some other young man's guts out."

"Thrilled ye ever with the story How on stricken fields of glory Men have stood beneath the murderous iron hail!"

"How stupid are all who deny hope! How blind are those who affirm the advantage of wars!"

"Cooperation must be accepted as the foundation of Existence. Only through the broadest cooperation is it possible to find the true relationship between the state and national labor. Otherwise the ruinous indebtedness of the state will increase. The solution of such a problem by means of war will be a sign of barbarism. One must think not about the destruction of nations, but about the improvement of the planet!"

"We had nae heed for the parish bell, But still—when the bugle cried, We went for you to Neuve Chapelle, We went for you to the yetts o' Hell, And there for you we died!"

"They hold it atrocious to kill a fellow creature; therefore war is in their eyes incomprehensible and repulsive, a thing for which their language has no word."

"'Tis a principle of war that when you can use the lightning, 'tis better than cannon."

"Providence is always on the side of the last reserve."

"Baptism of fire."

"We have to go along a road covered with blood. We have no other alternative. For us it is a matter of life or death, a matter of living or existing. We have to be ready to face the challenges that await us."

"The world of today has achieved much, but for all its declared love for humanity, it has based itself far more on hatred and violence than on the virtues that make one human. War is the negation of truth and humanity. War may be unavoidable sometimes, but its progeny are terrible to contemplate. Not mere killing, for man must die, but the deliberate and persistent propagation of hatred and falsehood, which gradually become the normal habits of the people. It is dangerous and harmful to be guided in our life's course by hatreds and aversions, for they are wasteful of energy and limit and twist the mind and prevent it from perceiving truth."

"Wars are fought to gain a certain objective. War itself is not the objective; victory is not the objective; you fight to remove the obstruction that comes in the way of your objective. If you let victory become the end in itself then you've gone astray and forgotten what you were originally fighting about."

"If in the modern world wars have unfortunately to be fought (and they do, it seems) then they must be stopped at the first possible moment, otherwise they corrupt us, they create new problems and make our future even more uncertain. That is more than morality; it's sense."

"England expects every officer and man to do his duty this day."

"You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I tell you: it is the good war that hallows every cause."

"What the horrors of war are, no one can imagine — they are not wounds and blood and fever, spotted and low, or dysentery, chronic and acute, cold and heat and famine — they are intoxication, drunken brutality, demoralization and disorder on the part of the inferior, jealousies, meanness, indifference, selfish brutality on the part of the superior."

"A riot is a spontaneous outburst. A war is subject to advance planning."

"I seriously doubt if we will ever have another war. This is probably the very last one."

"A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers; There was lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth of woman's tears."

"We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war."

"I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars."

"That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics."

"It's easier to start wars than to end them. It is easier to blame others than to look inward. It is easier to see what is different about someone than to find the things we share. But we should choose the right path, not just the easy path."

"The only certainty in war is human suffering, uncertain costs, unintended consequences."

"War itself is never glorious, and we must never trumpet it as such."

"War, no matter what our intentions may be, brings suffering and tragedy."

"Artifacts tell us that violent conflict appeared with the very first man. Our early ancestors, having learned to make blades from flint and spears from wood, used these tools not just for hunting, but against their own kind. On every continent, the history of civilization is filled with war, whether driven by scarcity of grain or hunger for gold; compelled by nationalist fervor or religious zeal. Empires have risen and fallen. Peoples have been subjugated and liberated. And at each juncture, innocents have suffered, a countless toll, their names forgotten by time."

"War is a class conflict, too. The rich and powerful who open war escape the consequences of their decisions. It’s not their children sent into the jaws of violence. It is often the vulnerable, the poor, & working people -who had little to no say in conflict - who pay the price."

"March to the battle-field, The foe is now before us; Each heart is Freedom's shield, And heaven is shining o'er us."

"War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. The very word "war", therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist."

"In principle the war effort is always so planned as to eat up any surplus that might exist after meeting the bare needs of the population. In practice the needs of the population are always underestimated, with the result that there is a chronic shortage of half the necessities of life; but this is looked on as an advantage. It is deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere near the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and another.... And at the same time the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival."

"A peace that was truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war. This—although the vast majority of Party members understand it only in a shallower sense—is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: War is Peace."

"Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible... If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened.... And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth. Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past. And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. 'Reality control', they called it: in Newspeak, 'doublethink'..."

"There is a hill in Flanders, Heaped with a thousand slain, Where the shells fly night and noontide And the ghosts that died in vain, A little hill, a hard hill To the souls that died in pain."

"Every war is the result of a difference of opinion. Maybe the biggest questions can only be answered by the greatest of conflicts."

"In war, force is used by the belligerents themselves, no effort being made to bring evildoers before a judicial body, each army acting as judge, jury and executioner."

"Once war consisted of individual combats between armed men. Later it was waged between lines of men in opposing trenches. Now it is organized slaughter of whole populations."

"Tragic experience indicates that the most sacred obligations are utterly disregarded when their observance means losing the war."

"War. War never changes. Since the dawn of human kind, when our ancestors first discovered the killing power of rock and bone, blood has been spilled in the name of everything: from God to justice to simple, psychotic rage."

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it."

"In the early ages of the world, according to the Scripture chronology there were no kings; the consequence of which was, there were no wars; it is the pride of kings which throws mankind into confusion."

"These are the times that try men's souls. The Summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country, but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated."

"War even to the knife."

"I have to say that war is man-made. It's made by men. It's their thing, it's their world, and they're terribly injured in it. They suffer terribly in it, but it's made by men. How do they come to live this way?"

"Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here."

"Can any thing be more ridiculous, than that a man has a right to kill me, because he lives on the other side of the water, and because his prince has a quarrel with mine, though I have none with him."

"War is organised murder, and nothing else."

"Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains that victory."

"Now in war we are confronted with conditions which are strange If we accept them we will never win."

"For in war just as in loving you must keep on shoving Or you'll never get your reward. For if you are dilatory in the search for lust or glory You are up shitcreek and that's the truth, Oh, Lord.'So let us do real fighting, boring in and gouging, biting. Let's take a chance now that we have the ball. Let's forget those fine firm bases in the dreary shell raked spaces, Let's shoot the works and win! Yes win it all."

"Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base."

"Though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does."

"But I have seen the unknown dead, those little men of the Republic. It was they who woke me up. If a stranger, an enemy, becomes a thing like that when he dies, if one stops short and is afraid to walk over him, it means that even beaten our enemy is someone, that after having shed his blood, one must placate it, give this blood a voice, justify the man who shed it. Looking at certain dead is humiliating. One has the impression that the same fate that threw these bodies to the ground holds us nailed to the spot to see them, to fill our eyes with the sight. It's not fear, not our usual cowardice. One feels humiliated because one understands–touching it with one's eyes–that we might be in their place ourselves: there would be no difference, and if we live we owe it to this dirtied corpse. That is why every war is a civil war; every fallen man resembles one who remains and calls him to account."

"War makes men barbarous because, to take part in it, one must harden oneself against all regret, all appreciation of delicacy and sensitive values. One must live as if those values did not exist, and when the war is over one has lost the resilience to return to those values."

"Hell, Heaven or Hoboken by Christmas."

"Lafayette, we are here."

"Infantry, Artillery, Aviation—all that we have—are yours to dispose of as you will…. I have come to say to you that the American people would be proud to be engaged in the greatest battle in history."

"Ils ne passeront pas."

"γλυκύ δ᾽ἀπείρῳ πόλεμος. πεπειραμένων δέ τις ταρβεῖ προσιόντα νιν καρδία περισσῶς."

"War is sweet to those who have no experience of it, but the experienced man trembles exceedingly at heart on its approach."

"From the Rio Grande's waters to the icy lakes of Maine, Let all exult, for we have met the enemy again. Beneath their stern old mountains we have met them in their pride; And rolled from Buena Vista back the battle's bloody tide, Where the enemy came surging swift like the Mississippi's flood, And the Reaper, Death, with strong arms swung his sickle red with blood. Santa Anna boasted loudly that before two hours were past His Lancers through Saltillo should pursue us fierce and fast. On comes his solid infantry, line marching after line. Lo! their great standards in the sun like sheets of silver shine."

"As an investigative journalist, I have often had to rely on the courageous, principled acts of whistle-blowers. The truth about the Vietnam War was told when Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers. The truth about Iraq and Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia and many other flashpoints was told when WikiLeaks published the revelations of whistle-blowers."

"If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country I never would lay down my arms,—never! never! never!"

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

"The inexperienced in wisdom and virtue, ever occupied with feasting and such, are carried downward, and there, as is fitting, they wander their whole life long, neither ever looking upward to the truth above them nor rising toward it, nor tasting pure and lasting pleasures. Like cattle, always looking downward with their heads bent toward the ground and the banquet tables, they feed, fatten, and fornicate. In order to increase their possessions they kick and butt with horns and hoofs of steel and kill each other, insatiable as they are."

"He who first called money the sinews of the state seems to have said this with special reference to war."

"Sylla proceeded by persuasion, not by arms."

"Paulus Aemilius, on taking command of the forces in Macedonia, and finding them talkative and impertinently busy, as though they were all commanders, issued out his orders that they should have only ready hands and keen swords, and leave the rest to him."

"It is the province of kings to bring wars about; it is the province of God to end them."

"She saw her sons with purple death expire, Her sacred domes involved in rolling fire, A dreadful series of intestine wars, Inglorious triumphs and dishonest scars."

"War is bad, heaven knows, but slavery is far worse. If the doom of slavery is not sealed by the war, I shall curse the day I entered the Army."

"When there's a war around take the day off, that's my motto."

"The waves Of the mysterious death-river moaned; The tramp, the shout, the fearful thunder-roar Of red-breathed cannon, and the wailing cry Of myriad victims, filled the air."

"One thing had better be said at the outset. War occurs because the great mass of human beings are prepared, at least in certain circumstances, to regard the resort to arms as an acceptable proceeding."

"A man is known by the Company he joins. Bad communication trenches corrupt good manners. Never look a gift gun in the mouth. A drop of oil in time saves time. One swallow doesn't make a rum issue. Where there's a war there's a way."

"If this bill passes … as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, to prepare definitely for a separation, amicably if they can, violently if they must."

"Cœdes videtur significare sanguinem et ferrum."

"And the Jews claim: "The Hand of God is tied up." while their own hands are shackled and they are cursed for what they say. Nay, both His hands are unconstrained. He disburses as He pleases. And that which has been revealed to thee from thy Lord will certainly make many of them increase in stubbornness and denial. And We have cast among them enmity and hatred till the day of Resurrection. Whenever they provoke a war, Allah puts it out, and they eager to make mischief on the Earth, but Allah loves not mischievous people."

"Ouvrez toujours à vos ennemis toutes les portes et chemin, et plutot leur faites un pont d'argent, afin de les renvoyer."

"Lastly, forget good sportsmanship on the field of battle. War is not a refereed football game but the dirtiest game yet devised by human minds. And, if for one moment you feel soft towards that Nazi shooting at you, remember he's trying to kill you and, if he had the chance, he'd drive your dad into slavery, cut your mother's throat, rape your wife, sister, sweetheart, or daughter. You'll get no quarter from him. Give him none!"

"I want to stand by my country, but I cannot vote for war. I vote no."

"History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap."

"A single pipe broken by a high-impact explosive weapon can deprive 100,000 people of water. That same weapon may also destroy the neighbourhood’s sewage system, causing thousands to fall ill and placing further strain on already overstretched hospitals. Local economies collapse and populations flee, leaving fewer doctors and engineers, and no money to pay the salaries of those who remain. The acute pain caused by one attack triggers a ripple effect of long-term suffering that leaves no part of life unscathed."

"I never kill faces. These are the enemy, but if I don’t define things too closely, then I won’t miss any sleep tonight."

"War on the cheap is always a rotten policy."

"From the point of view of mass psychology, the effect of militarism is based essentially on a libidinous mechanism. The sexual effect of a uniform, the erotically provocative effect of rhythmically executed goose-stepping, the exhibitionistic nature of militaristic procedures, have been more practically comprehended by a salesgirl or an average secretary than by our most erudite politicians. On the other hand it is political reaction that consciously exploits these sexual interests. It not only designs flashy uniforms for the men, it puts the recruiting into the hands of attractive women. In conclusion, let us but recall the recruiting posters of war-thirsty powers, which ran something as follows: ‘Travel to foreign countries — join the Royal Navy I’ and the foreign countries were portrayed by exotic women. And why are these posters effective? Because our youth has become sexually starved owing to sexual suppression."

"Catholic Christianity in particular has long since divested itself of the revolutionary, i.e., rebellious, character of the primitive Christian movement. It seduces its millions of devotees into accepting war as an act of fate, as a ‘punishment of sin’. Wars are indeed the consequences of sins, but entirely different sins from those conceived of by Catholicism."

"Under the influence of politicians, masses of people tend to ascribe the responsibility for wars to those who wield power at any given time. In the First World War it was the munitions industrialists; in the Second World War it was the psychopathic generals who were said to be guilty. This is passing the buck. The responsibility for wars falls solely upon the shoulders of these same masses of people, for they have all the necessary means to avert war in their own hands."

"People like to think of war as a ‘social thunderstorm’. It is said that it ‘purifies’ the atmosphere; it has its great benefits -it ‘hardens the youth’ and makes them courageous. As far as that goes, people say, we have always had and will always have wars. They are biologically motivated. According to Darwin, the ‘struggle for existence’ is the law of life. Why, then, were peace conferences organized? Nor have I ever heard that bears or elephants split up into two camps and annihilate one another. In the animal kingdom there are no wars within the same species. Like sadism, war among one’s own kind is an acquisition of ‘civilised man'. No, for some reason or another, man shies away from putting his finger on the causes of war. And there can be no doubt that better ways than war exist of making youth fit and healthy, namely, a satisfying love life, pleasurable and steady work, general sports and freedom from the malicious gossip of old maids. In short, such arguments are hollow chatter."

"And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon."

"Then I saw when the Lamb broke one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of thunder, “Come.” I looked, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer."

"Twelve mailed men sat drinking late, The wine was red as blood. Cried one, "How long then must we wait Ere we shall thunder at the gate, And crush the cursed brood?" Twelve men of iron, drinking late, Strike hands, and pledge a cup of hate: * "The Day!""

"The war is a hallucination of those without homeland."

"If we are to end our wars, we have to dispense with a threatening, vengeful, bloodthirsty God. If we're to have any kind of world brotherhood, we have to dispense with a God who reserves his favors for a chosen few. Life is given to all. The sun shines freely on each of us. Would a God be less kindly? More than this, we must also dispense with our species God, and extend our ideas of divinity outward to the rest of nature which couches us and our religious theorizing with such a gracious and steady support."

"The strength of a civilization is not measured by its ability to fight wars, but rather by its ability to prevent them."

"The morning came, there stood the foe; Stark eyed them as they stood; Few words he spoke—'twas not a time For moralizing mood: "See there the enemy, my boys! Now, strong in valor's might, Beat them or Betty Stark will sleep In widowhood to-night.""

"He who makes the powder wins the war."

"Lo, steel-clad War his gorgeous standard rears ! The red-cross squadrons madly rage, And mow thro' infancy and age..."

"I have always said that a conference was held for one reason only, to give everybody a chance to get sore at everybody else. Sometimes it takes two or three conferences to scare up a war, but generally one will do it."

"I originated a remark many years ago that I think has been copied more than any little thing that I've every said, and I used it in the FOLLIES of 1922. I said America has a unique record. We never lost a war and we never won a conference in our lives. I believe that we could without any degree of egotism, single-handed lick any nation in the world. But we can't confer with Costa Rica and come home with our shirts on."

"Take the diplomacy out of war and the thing would fall flat in a week."

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

"Since I am an immature and wicked man, war and unrest appeal to me more than good bourgeois order. Brutality is respected, the people need wholesome fear. They want to fear someone. They want someone to frighten them and make them shudderingly submissive."

"And while I am talking to you mothers and fathers, I give you one more assurance. I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars."

"To you men who, in your turn, have come together to spend and be spent in the endless crusade against wrong; to you who face the future resolute and confident; to you who strive in a spirit of brotherhood for the betterment of our nation; to you who gird yourselves for this great new fight in the never-ending warfare for the good of mankind, I say in closing what I said in that speech in closing: "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord.""

"There are a great many objections urged against the enfranchisement of women; and one that I have recently heard is that women would not go to war. Perhaps, if women had the franchise, men would not need to go to war neither. And this is one great reason why I demand the franchise. War is only a relic of the old barbarisms. So long as woman is deprived of her right, man is only next door to a barbarian. If he were not, he never would go to war."

"Righteous Heaven, In thy great day of vengeance! Blast the traitor And his pernicious counsels, who, for wealth, For pow'r, the pride of greatness, or revenge, Would plunge his native land in civil wars."

"War, the needy bankrupt's last resort."

"War does not develop the virtues of peace. . .It is not a school that teaches respect for the person or property of others."

"When the rules of civilized society are suspended, when killing becomes a business and a sign of valor and heroism, when the wanton destruction of peaceable women and. children becomes an act of virtue, and is praised as a service to God and country, then it seems almost useless to talk about crime in the ordinary sense."

"[There is] an obliteration of all the religious, moral and legal habits which acted as a barrier against acts of murder or of aggression against personal inviolability."

"Uppermost on everybody’s mind of course, particularly here in America, is the horror of what has come to be known as 9/11. Nearly three thousand civilians lost their lives in that lethal terrorist strike. The grief is still deep. The rage still sharp. The tears have not dried. And a strange, deadly war is raging around the world. Yet, each person who has lost a loved one surely knows secretly, deeply, that no war, no act of revenge, no daisy-cutters dropped on someone else’s loved ones or someone else’s children, will blunt the edges of their pain or bring their own loved ones back. War cannot avenge those who have died. War is only a brutal desecration of their memory."

"He never would believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world, ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden."

"It makes me hate war, but it doesn't make me believe that we're in a world that can live without war yet."

"I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war."

"Those who took refuge in the cave of Zeret tried to reproduce their traditional way of life underground, far from the omnivoyance of the Italian colonial army. This seems to be a characteristic of 20th century war: from the Madrid tube in the 1930s to the present Al-Qaeda bunkers in Afghanistan, all the way through the Vietcong tunnels and the American nuclear shelters of the 1960s. Talking about the Iraq War, Stephen Graham (2004: 18) writes: ‘this time... the key is between trans-global, near instantaneous killing power, operating on the fringes of the outer space, and deep, subterranean, terrestrial space’. Except for the outer space, though, there is nothing really new in the War against Terror—an offspring of colonial warfare (Mbembe 2003). For the last hundred years, against the destructiveness of industrial war, the only option of survival has been going underground. And this is what the followers of Abebe Aregai did."

"Always our wars have been our confessions of weakness...We are against war and the sources of war. We are for poetry and the sources of poetry."

"Patriots always talk of dying for their country, and never of killing for their country."

"[The Russians] dashed on towards that thin line tipped with steel."

"Piers Morgan: You're always very keen to take a view, even if they're unproven, that is anti-American. You're never quite so keen to take a view that is anti-dictator. ..."

"I grew up in war-torn Iraq, and I believe that there are two sides of wars and we've only seen one side of it. We only talk about one side of it. But there's another side that I have witnessed as someone who lived in it and someone who ended up working in it."

"War," a friend of mine said, "is not about sound at all. It is actually about silence, the silence of humanity."

"There are two sides of war. There is a side that fights, and there is a side that keeps the schools and the factories and the hospitals open. There is a side that is focused on winning battles, and there is a side that is focused on winning life. There is a side that leads the front-line discussion, and there is a side that leads the back-line discussion. There is a side that thinks that peace is the end of fighting, and there is a side that thinks that peace is the arrival of schools and jobs. There is a side that is led by men, and there is a side that is led by women. And in order for us to understand how do we build lasting peace, we must understand war and peace from both sides. We must have a full picture of what that means."

"To accept the legitimacy of the state is to embrace the necessity for war."

"Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come."

"Mr. Speaker, in the brief time I have let me give you five reasons why I'm opposed to giving the President a blank check to launch a unilateral invasion and occupation of Iraq and why I will vote against this resolution. One: I have not heard any estimates of how many young American men and women might die in such a war, or how many tens of thousands of women and children in Iraq might also be killed. As a caring nation, we should do everything we can to prevent the horrible suffering that a war will cause. War must be the last recourse in international relations, not the first. Second... If President Bush believes that the US can go to war at any time against any nation, what moral or legal obligation can our government raise if another country chose to do the same thing."

"War was a masculine art, but when you started attacking women, you’d stopped engaging in war. You deserved anything that happened to you after that point."

"Irregular combatants are at their most effective in cities. They cannot easily shoot down planes, nor fight tanks in open fields. Instead, they draw the enemy into cities, and undermine the key advantage of today’s major powers, whose mechanised weapons are of little use in dense and narrow urban spaces."

"Another fucking war, man. I don't know where to begin, but I'll start with the radical leaders. Their steps we're following."

"Only the dead have seen the end of war."

"Let no one ever, from henceforth say one word in any way countenancing war. It is dangerous even to speak of how here and there the individual may gain some hardship of soul by it. For war is hell, and those who institute it are criminals. Were there even anything to say for it, it should not be said; for its spiritual disasters far outweigh any of its advantages."

"The fundamental of war has always been dehumanizing the enemy, seeing him as a soulless animal."

"Qui fuit peut revenir aussi; Qui meurt, il n'en est pas ainsi."

"Ein Schlachten war's, nicht eine Schlacht, zu nennen! It was a slaughter rather than a battle."

"Est ist hier wie in den alten Zeiten Wo die Klinge noch alles that bedeuten."

"War is not healthy for children and other living things."

"Hosti non solum dandam esse viam fugiendi verum etiam muniendam."

"One blast upon his bugle horn Were worth a thousand men."

"In the lost battle, Borne down by the flying, Where mingles war's rattle With groans of the dying."

""Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!" Were the last words of Marmion."

"Still from the sire the son shall hear Of the stern strife, and carnage drear, Of Flodden's fatal field, When shiver'd was fair Scotland's spear, And broken was her shield!"

"There was a stately drama writ By the hand that peopled the earth and air, And set the stars in the infinite, And made night gorgeous and morning fair; And all that had sense to reason knew That bloody drama must be gone through. Some sat and watched how the action veered— Waited, profited, trembled, cheered— We saw not clearly nor understood, But yielding ourselves to the masterhand, Each in his part as best he could, We played it through as the author planned."

"I'm dedicating my little story to you; doubtless you will be among the very few who will ever read it. It seems war stories aren't very well received at this point. I'm told they're out-dated, untimely and as might be expected - make some unpleasant reading. And, as you have no doubt already perceived, human beings don't like to remember unpleasant things. They gird themselves with the armor of wishful thinking, protect themselves with a shield of impenetrable optimism, and, with a few exceptions, seem to accomplish their "forgetting" quite admirably. But you, my children, I don't want you to be among those who choose to forget. I want you to read my stories and a lot of others like them. I want you to fill your heads with Remarque and Tolstoy and Ernie Pyle. I want you to know what shrapnel, and "88's" and mortar shells and mustard gas mean. I want you to feel, no matter how vicariously, a semblance of the feeling of a torn limb, a burnt patch of flesh, the crippling, numbing sensation of fear, the hopeless emptiness of fatigue. All these things are complimentary to the province of war and they should be taught and demonstrated in classrooms along with the more heroic aspects of uniforms, and flags, and honor and patriotism. I have no idea what your generation will be like. In mine we were to enjoy "Peace in our time". A very well meaning gentleman waved his umbrella and shouted those very words...less than a year before the whole world went to war. But this gentleman was suffering the worldly disease of insufferable optimism. He and his fellow humans kept polishing the rose colored glasses when actually they should have taken them off. They were sacrificing reason and reality for a brief and temporal peace of mind, the same peace of mind that many of my contemporaries derive by steadfastly refraining from remembering the war that came before."

"Too many wars are fought almost as if by rote. Too many wars are fought out of sloganry, out of battle hymns, out of aged, musty appeals to patriotism that went out with knighthood and moats. Love your country because it is eminently worthy of your affection. Respect it because it deserves your respect. Be loyal to it because it cannot survive without your loyalty. But do not accept the shedding of blood as a natural function or a prescribed way of history, even if history points this up by its repetition. That men die for causes does not necessarily sanctify that cause. And that men are maimed and torn to pieces every fifteen and twenty years does not immortalize or deify the act of war. Are you tough enough, young ladies and gentlemen, to try to build a world in which young men can live out their lives in fruitful pursuit of a decent, enriching consummation of both his talents and his hopes. But if survival calls for the bearing of arms, bear them, you must. As we all have."

"When you leave here today, if you agree with me, and others, give thought if you will to the inconsistencies of our national morality. That we can punish civil disobedience that finds expression in a revulsion against death – and yet remain strangely unmoved by acts of murder against victims we are supposedly helping, and are ourselves dying for. And even if you don’t agree – give thought to the whole adventure of war. It has been your fathers lot, and mine, and his. There has not been even a spasmodic moment when young men have not fought and died. When the solons, and the aged heads of state have not in their infinite wisdom and consummate judgment, sent the young off to end their lives. An obscure poet named w:Arthur Daidson Ficke Arthur Daidson Ficke |, wrote this in the 19th century: “Old men in impotence can beget new wars to kill the lusty young; Young men can sing, old men forget…That any song was every sung.” Don’t you forget that song, the words, the music, the symphony to living. Remember that you can’t necessarily sanctify a cause by virtue of the fact that men die for it. A death in a worthless or even questionable cause is a pointless, meaningless, tragically premature death. So when, in future times, men ask you to prove patriotism and loyalty and affection for your native land – remember that these things are not always equated with a willingness to die or to kill."

"Fortune is always on the side of the largest battalions."

"It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces."

"They got money for wars, but can't feed the poor."

"There was only one virtue, pugnacity; only one vice, pacifism. That is an essential condition of war."

"In the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence and famine."

"They shall not pass, tho' battleline May bend, and foe with foe combine, Tho' death rain on them from the sky Till every fighting man shall die, France shall not yield to German Rhine."

"“These movies, they make war seem like a mystical opportunity. Well, man, when I was here it wasn’t quite that way, y’know. It was leeches, fungus, the shits. It was searchin’ in the weeds for your buddy’s arm. It was lookin’ into the snaky eyes of some whore you were bangin’ and feelin’ weird shit crawl along your spine and expectin’ her head to do a Linda Blair three-sixty spin.” I slipped into a chair and leaned closer to Witcover. “It was Mordor, man. Stephen King land. Horror. And now, now I look around at all these movies and monuments and crap, and it makes me wanna fuckin’ puke to see what a noble hell it’s turnin’ out to be!”"

"A people who will persevere in war beyond a certain limit ought to know the consequences. Many, many peoples with less pertinacity have been wiped out of national existence."

"Hold the Fort! I am coming."

"War is hell."

"I regard the death and mangling of a couple thousand men as a small affair, a kind of morning dash — and it may be well that we become so hardened."

"War is the remedy our enemies have chosen. Other simple remedies were within their choice. Yon know it and they know it, but they wanted war, and I say let us give them all they want; not a word of argument, not a sign of let up, no cave in till we are whipped or they are."

"I've been where you are now and I know just how you feel. It's entirely natural that there should beat in the breast of every one of you a hope and desire that some day you can use the skill you have acquired here. Suppress it! You don't know the horrible aspects of war. I've been through two wars and I know. I've seen cities and homes in ashes. I've seen thousands of men lying on the ground, their dead faces looking up at the skies. I tell you, war is hell!"

"Greedy men say "More!" to war Sitting together telling stories could change that but who will take the time?"

"How can there be war and the next day eating, a man stacking plates on the curl of his arm, a table of people toasting one another in languages of grace"

"You do not understand what happens in war—a sort of sublime madness, an unholy hatred that is twisted into an unreasoning sense of righteousness…"

"J'ai vécu."

"My knowledge of pain, learned with the sabre, taught me not to be afraid. And just as in dueling when you must concentrate on your enemy's cheek, so, too, in war. You cannot waste time on feinting and sidestepping. You must decide on your target and go in."

"All's fair in love and war."

"Sainte Jeanne went harvesting in France, But ah! what found she there? The little streams were running red, And the torn fields were bare; And all about the ruined towers Where once her king was crowned, The hurtling ploughs of war and death Had scored the desolate ground."

"For God's sake, do not drag me into another war! I am worn down, and worn out, with crusading and defending Europe, and protecting mankind; I must think a little of myself."

"Every shot has its commission, d'ye see? We must all die at one time, as the saying is."

"Some of you will not come back. Some of you will come back maimed. Those of you who do come back will come back changed men. That is war!"

"I came, I saw, God overcame."

"A nice war is a war where everybody who is heroic is a hero, and everybody more or less is a hero in a nice war. Now this war is not at all a nice war."

"War is never fatal but always lost. Always lost."

"War was a kind of poverty with bullets."

"A wise man does not try to hurry history. Many wars have been avoided by patience and many have been precipitated by reckless haste."

"Speed is the essence of war. Take advantage of the enemy's unpreparedness; travel by unexpected routes and strike him where he has taken no precautions."

"[I]n war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory."

"All warfare is based on deception."

"Terrible as an army with banners."

"Either this or upon this. (Either bring this back or be brought back upon it)."

"Then more fierce The conflict grew; the din of arms, the yell Of savage rage, the shriek of agony, The groan of death, commingled in one sound Of undistinguish'd horrors."

"War! war! war! Heaven aid the right! God move the hero's arm in the fearful fight! God send the women sleep in the long, long night, When the breasts on whose strength they leaned shall heave no more."

"The crystal-pointed tents from hill to hill."

"But, Virginians, don't do it, for I tell you that the flagon, Filled with blood of Old Brown's offspring, was first poured by Southern hands; And each drop from Old Brown's life-veins, like the red gore of the Dragon, May spring up a vengeful Fury, hissing through your slave-worn lands: * And Old Brown, * Osawatomie Brown, May trouble you worse than ever, when you've nailed his coffin down."

"Never run against a war hero."

"Waste of Blood, and waste of Tears Waste of youth's most precious years, Waste of ways the saints have trod, Waste of Glory, waste of God, War!"

"When battle approaches, when war arises, the plans of the gods, beloved by the gods, are destroyed."

"Hobbes clearly proves that every creature Lives in a state of war by nature."

"War, that mad game the world so loves to play."

"Not with dreams, but with blood and with iron Shall a nation be moulded to last."

"War has been the excuse people have made throughout history to take something away from others that didn't belong to them. And it's a never ending cycle. First one group takes away something from the other, then the other wants to take it back, only if they succeed, they take much more. And then it starts all over again. War is caused by greed."

"Ratio et consilium propriæ ducis artes."

"Deos fortioribus adesse."

"אין לך מלחמה שנוצחת שאין בה מזרעו של עשו"

"We can start at once. We made preparations on the way."

"Militarism... is fetish worship. It is the prostration of men's souls before, and the laceration of their bodies to appease, an idol. ...Reverence for economic activity and industry and what is called business is also fetish worship, and in their devotion to that idol they torture themselves as needlessly, and indulge in the same meaningless antics."

"A little more grape, Captain Bragg."

"The children born of thee are sword and fire, Red ruin, and the breaking up of law."

"It cannot be made, it shall not be made, it will not be made; but if it were made there would be a war between France and England for the possession of Egypt."

"Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. "Forward the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!" he said, Into the valley of death Rode the six hundred."

"Forward, the Light Brigade! Was there a man dismayed? Not tho' the soldier knew Some one had blunder'd. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die. Into the valley of death Rode the six hundred."

"Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volley'd and thunder'd; Stormed at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell Rode the six hundred."

"Omnia prius experiri verbis quam armis sapientem decet."

"Ten good soldiers, wisely led, Will beat a hundred without a head."

"The last half of the 20th century will seem like a wild party for rich kids, compared to what's coming now. The party's over, folks. … "Winston Churchill said "The first casualty of War is always Truth." Churchill also said "In wartime, the Truth is so precious that it should always be surrounded by a bodyguard of Lies." That wisdom will not be much comfort to babies born last week. The first news they get in this world will be News subjected to Military Censorship. That is a given in wartime, along with massive campaigns of deliberately-planted "Dis-information." That is routine behavior in Wartime — for all countries and all combatants — and it makes life difficult for people who value real news. Count on it."

"Better, far better! Endure all the horrors of civil war than to see the dusky sons of Ham leading the fair daughters of the south to the altar."

"But what most showed the vanity of life Was to behold the nations all on fire."

"Be convinced that to be happy means to be free and that to be free means to be brave. Therefore do not take lightly the perils of war."

"Victory after all, I suppose!" he said, feeling his aching head. "Well, it seems a very gloomy business."

"War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend."

"A thousand touching traits testify to the sacred power of the love which a righteous war awakes in noble nations."

"War is elevating, because the individual disappears before the great conception of the state…. What a perversion of morality to wish to abolish heroism among men!"

"God will see to it that war always recurs as a drastic medicine for the human race."

"The struggle against war, properly understood and executed, presupposes the uncompromising hostility of the proletariat and its organizations, always and everywhere, toward its own and every other imperialist bourgeoisie..."

"The struggle against war and its social source, capitalism, presupposes direct, active, unequivocal support to the oppressed colonial peoples in their struggles and wars against imperialism. A 'neutral' position is tantamount to support of imperialism."

"They said we were soft, that we would not fight, that we could not win. We are not a warlike nation. We do not go to war for gain or for territory; we go to war for principles, and we produce young men like these. I think I told every one of them that I would rather have that medal, the Congressional Medal of Honor, than to be President of the United States."

"In bitter despair, some people have come to believe that wars are inevitable. With tragic fatalism, they insist that wars have always been, of necessity, and of necessity wars always will be. To such defeatism, men and women of good will must not and can not yield. The outlook for humanity is not so hopeless."

"If wars in the future are to be prevented the nations must be united in their determination to keep the peace under law. Nothing is more essential to the future peace of the world than continued cooperation of the nations which had to muster the force necessary to defeat the conspiracy of the Axis powers to dominate the world. While these great states have a special responsibility to enforce the peace, their responsibility is based upon the obligations resting upon all states, large and small, not to use force in international relations except in the defense of law. The responsibility of the great states is to serve and not to dominate the world."

"Any man who sees Europe now must realize that victory in a great war is not something you win once and for all, like victory in a ball game. Victory in a great war is something that must be won and kept won. It can be lost after you have won it — if you are careless or negligent or indifferent. Europe today is hungry. I am not talking about Germans. I am talking about the people of the countries which were overrun and devastated by the Germans, and particularly about the people of Western Europe. Many of them lack clothes and fuel and tools and shelter and raw materials. They lack the means to restore their cities and their factories. As the winter comes on, the distress will increase. Unless we do what we can to help, we may lose next winter what we won at such terrible cost last spring. Desperate men are liable to destroy the structure of their society to find in the wreckage some substitute for hope. If we let Europe go cold and hungry, we may lose some of the foundations of order on which the hope for worldwide peace must rest. We must help to the limits of our strength. And we will."

"“We’d never—” Alexander began, but he didn’t finish the sentence. When you were in a war, who could say what you might be driven to do?"

"They’d kill him or he’d kill them. War reduced everything to a brutal simplicity."

"I’ll tell you, though, this whole business of war would be a hell of a lot more fun if you didn’t get shot."

"He didn’t doubt there would be a next war; there would always be a next war."

"Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out … and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel … and in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of man" — with his mouth."

"When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory—must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen! "O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle—be Thou near them! With them—in spirit—we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with anavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it—for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen"."

"War without fire is worth nothing—like sausages without mustard."

"With computers acting as the stimulus, the theory of war was assimilated into that of microeconomics. . . . Instead of evaluating military operations by their product –that is, victory – calculations were cast in terms of input–output and cost effectiveness. Since intuition was replaced by calculation, and since the latter wasto be carried out with the aid of computers, it was necessary that all the phenomena of war be reduced to quantitative form. Consequently everything that could be quantified was, while everything that could not be tended to be thrown onto the garbage heap."

"This is the soldier brave enough to tell The glory-dazzled world that "war is hell.""

"It's really hard to talk about morality and war in the same sentence. In a war, there are so many questionable things done. Where was the morality in the bombing of Coventry, or the bombing of Dresden, or the Bataan Death March, or the Rape of Nanking, or the bombing of Pearl Harbor? I believe that when you're in a war, a nation must have the courage to do what it must to win the war with a minimum loss of lives."

"Veterans for Peace knows that the U.S. is a nation addicted to war. At this time of uncertainty, it is critically important that we, as veterans, continue to be clear and concise that our nation must turn from war to diplomacy and peace. It is high time to unwind all these tragic, failed and unnecessary wars of aggression, domination and plunder. It is time to turn a page in history and to build a new world based on human rights, equality and mutual respect for all. We must build momentum toward real and lasting peace. Nothing less than the survival of human civilization is at stake."

"Arma virumque cano."

"Quaeque ipse miserrima vidi et quorum pars magna fui."

"Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem."

"Dolus an virtus quis in hoste requirat?"

"Exigui numero, sed bello vivida virtus."

"Bella, horrida bella."

"Sævit amor ferri et scelerata insania belli."

"Nullum cum victis certamen et æthere cassis."

"On dit que Dieu est toujours pour les gros bataillons."

"Why does the Air Force need expensive new bombers? Have the people we've been bombing over the years been complaining?"

"On to Richmond."

"A great and lasting war can never be supported on this principle [patriotism] alone. It must be aided by a prospect of interest, or some reward."

"To be prepared for war is onto the most effectual means of preserving peace."

"They went to war against a preamble, they fought seven years against a declaration."

"Up Guards and at 'em!"

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

"The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing field of Eton."

"The War That Will End War."

"A time will come when a politician who has wilfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not stake their own."

"The atomic bomb had dwarfed the international issues to complete insignificance. When our minds wandered from the preoccupations of our immediate needs, we speculated upon the possibility of stopping the use of these frightful explosives before the world was utterly destroyed. For to us it seemed quite plain that these bombs and the still greater power of destruction of which they were the precursors might quite easily shatter every relationship and institution of mankind... war must end and that the only way to end war was to have but one government for mankind."

"The whole art of war consists in getting at what is on the other side of the hill."

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

"Urban warfare remains characterized by slow, massive destruction. Yet 50 years ago, there were no computers, no internet, no GPS, no UAVs, no digital communications, no night-vision devices, and no precision strikes. Two facts account for the lack of change in tactics. First, cities are constructed of steel and concrete, with streets providing the open spaces, which are usually linear. Any fighter in the open is quickly cut down. No technology can accurately detect and count humans inside buildings and tunnels. So the attacker must advance by blasting through the sides of buildings and slowly, slowly search every room. Second, tens to hundreds of thousands of civilians can be trapped in the cities. The terrorists in Mosul have prevented the civilians from leaving in order to use them as shields."

"This new Katterfelto, his show to complete, Means his boats should all sink as they pass by our fleet; Then as under the ocean their course they steer right on, They can pepper their foes from the bed of old Triton."

"War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! There's got to be a better way What is it good for? War has caused unrest Among the younger generation Induction then destruction Who wants to die? ... War-I despise Because it means destruction Of innocent lives War means tears To thousands of mothers how When their sons go off to fight And lose their lives ... It's an enemy of all mankind No point of war Because you're a man ... War has shattered Many young men's dreams We've got no place for it today They say we must fight to keep our freedom But Lord, there's just got to be a better way It ain't nothing but a heartbreaker Friend only to the undertaker"

"Now we remember over here in Flanders, (It isn't strange to think of You in Flanders!) This hideous warfare seems to make things clear. We never thought about You much in England, But now that we are far away from England We have no doubts, we know that You are here."

"We seemed to see our flag unfurled, Our champion waiting in his place For the last battle of the world, The Armageddon of the race."

"As long as war is regarded as wicked it will always have its fascinations. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular."

"I will die in the last ditch. (Dyke)."

"Germany's greatness makes it impossible for her to do without the ocean, but the ocean also proves that even in the distance, and on its farther side, without Germany and the German Emperor, no great decision dare henceforth be taken."

"Our German Fatherland to which I hope will be granted … to become in the future as closely united, as powerful, and as authoritative as once the Roman world-empire was, and that, just as in the old times they said, "Civis romanus sum," hereafter, at some time in the future, they will say, "I am a German citizen.""

"Every bullet has its billet."

"It's a long way to Tipperary, it's a long way to go; It's a long way to Tipperary, to the sweetest girl I know! Good-bye to Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square; It's a long way to Tipperary, but my Heart's right there!"

"War is only a sort of dramatic representation, a sort of dramatic symbol of a thousand forms of duty. I fancy that it is just as hard to do your duty when men are sneering at you as when they are shooting at you."

"You have laid upon me this double obligation: "we are relying upon you, Mr. President, to keep us out of war, but we are relying upon you, Mr. President, to keep the honor of the nation unstained.""

"It is not an army that we must train for war; it is a nation."

"In short, if newspapers were written by people whose sole object in writing was to tell the truth about politics and the truth about art we should not believe in war, and we should believe in art."

"They came with banner, spear, and shield; And it was proved in Bosworth field, Not long the Avenger was withstood— Earth help'd him with the cry of blood."

"But Thy most dreaded instrument In working out a pure intent, Is man,—arrayed for mutual slaughter,— Yea, Carnage is Thy daughter."

"Everyone loses in war, even the winners."

"War is murder, king-sized."

"As regards Providence, he cannot shake off the prejudice that in war, God is on the side of the big battalions, which at present are in the enemy's camp."

"Look, there is one statement that bothers me more than anything else, and that's the idea that when the troops are in combat everybody has to shut up. Imagine if we put troops in combat with a faulty rifle, and that rifle was malfunctioning and troops were dying as a result. I can't think anyone would allow that to happen, that would not speak up. Well, what's the difference between a faulty plan and strategy that's getting just as many troops killed?"

"War is much too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military."

"Months of boredom punctuated by moments of terror."

"It took me nearly a whole day to drive from Tokmak to the village of sonovka. I kept passing large Russian settlements on the road ... then Kirghiz villages completely ruined and razed literally to the ground - villages where, but three short years previously, there had been busy bazaars and farms surrounded with gardens and fields of luzerne. Now on every side a desert. It seemed incredible that it was possible in so short a time to wipe whole villages off the face of the earth, with their well-developed system of farming. It was only with the most attentive search that i could find the short stumps of their trees and remains of their irrigation canals. The destruction of the aryks or irrigation canals in this district quickly reduced a highly developed farming district into a desert and blotted out all traces of cultivation and settlement. Only in the water meadows and low-lying ground near the stream is any cultivation possible."

"One evening, in a high-society salon, people are discussing the war. A veteran recounts in moving terms the death of one of his friends. A lady weeps; she thinks of her husband who fell in the field of honor. "War is a terrible thing, unjustifiable," she sighs. Then, a well-known diplomat from the Quai d'Orsay, who until then had not taken part in the conversation, says with tranquil arrogance: "War? It's not that terrible! The death of one man is, indeed, a terrible thing, but one hundred thousand deaths is a statistic""

"James McHenry: War is inevitable, sir."

"Make a hawk a dove, Stop a war with love, Make a liar tell the truth."

"There are always casualties in war, gentlemen — otherwise it wouldn't be war. It'd just be a rather nasty argument with lots of pushing-and-shoving."

"Anyone who clings to the historically untrue — and thoroughly immoral — doctrine that 'violence never settles anything' I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence settled their fates quite nicely. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms."

"Captain Kirk: Death, destruction, disease, horror. That's what war is all about, Anan. That's what makes it a thing to be avoided. You've made it neat and painless. So neat and painless, you've had no reason to stop it."

"Spock: Captain, you took a big chance."

"Luke: I'm looking for a great warrior. Yoda: Great warrior. [Laughs] Wars not make one great."

"What this war represents is a failure to listen. Now you're closer to the Chancellor than anyone, please, ask him to stop the fighting and let the diplomacy resume."

"Wars don't ennoble men, it turns them into dogs, poisons the soul."

"Property, the whole thing's about property."

"There's a beast in every man. And it awakens when you put a sword in his hand."

"War makes thieves of many honest folk."

"The Minstrel-Boy to the war is gone, In the ranks of death you'll find him; His father's sword he has girded on, And his wild harp slung behind him. "Land of song!" said the warrior-bard, "Tho' all the world betrays thee, One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard, One faithful harp shall praise thee!""

"Once that first bullet goes past your head, politics and all that shit just goes right out the window."

"When I go home, people ask me: "Hey Hoot, why do you do it man? Why? You some kinda war junkie?", I won't say a god damn word. Why? They won't understand. They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand it's about the men next to you. And that's it. That's all it is."

"With every man I kill, the farther away from home I feel."

"I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy; we fought ourselves. The enemy was in us. The war is over for me now, but it will always be there, the rest of my days. As I'm sure Elias will be, fighting with Barnes for what Rhah called "possession of my soul." There are times since, I've felt like a child, born of those two fathers. But be that as it may, those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again. To teach to others what we know, and to try with what's left of our lives to find a goodness and a meaning to this life."

"If you are not affected, if you are not hurt by what we do, then you will not do anything to stop it. The war will simply continue. As long as it is just the soldiers, these barbaric men with guns who kill each other, as long as the damage is far away, the destruction and death out of your sight, then no amount of hand wringing and moral outrage will make it end. If you are affected, if your farms, your crops are destroyed, your neat buildings in your perfect towns burned to the ground, then there will be a reason to stop this. War is not tidy, it is not convenient, it is everywhere. It has to be felt by everyone. War is hell."

"A story. A man fires a rifle for many years. and he goes to war. And afterwards he comes home, and he sees that whatever else he may do with his life - build a house, love a woman, change his son's diaper - he will always remain a jarhead. And all the jarheads killing and dying, they will always be me. We are still in the desert."

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers: for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother."

"Bugs Bunny: Of course you realize, this means war!"

"Tedd Pierce, Merrie Melodies, "Case of the Missing Hare", Warner Bros. (December 12, 1942)."

"In God's name, march: True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings: Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings."

"If we be conquered, let men conquer us, and not these bastard Bretons; whom our fathers have in their own land beaten, bobb'd, and thump'd, and in record, left them the heirs of shame. Shall these enjoy our lands? lie with our wives? Ravish our daughters?"

"If you need to stop an asteroid, you call Superman. If you need to solve a mystery, you call Batman. But if you need to end a war, you call Wonder Woman."

"It's all an accident, an accident of hands. Mine, others, all without mind, from one extreme to another, but neither works nor will ever. Yet we stand here in the middle of no man's land."

"You do not want a war. You have seen violence, you have suffered loss. But you have seen nothing of war. War is not just the business of death. It is the antithesis of life. Hope tortured and flayed, reason dismembered, grinning at its limbs in its lap. Decency raped to death."

"And before we judge of them too harshly we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its inferior races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?"

"The problem with gun runners going to war, is that there is no shortage of ammunition."

"It was great pity, so it was, That villanous saltpetre should be digg'd Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd So cowardly; and but for these vile guns He would himself have been a soldier."

"We must have bloody noses and crack'd crowns, And pass them current too. God's me, my horse!"

"The fire-eyed maid of smoky war All hot and bleeding will we offer them."

"Tut, tut; good enough to toss; food for powder, food for powder; they'll fill a pit as well as better."

"The arms are fair, When the intent of bearing them is just."

"Our battle is more full of names than yours, Our men more perfect in the use of arms, Our armour all as strong, our cause the best; Then reason will our hearts should be as good."

"That I may truly say with the hook-nosed fellow of Rome, I came, I saw, and overcame."

"O war! thou son of hell, Whom angry heavens do make their minister, Throw in the frozen bosoms of our part Hot coals of vengeance! Let no soldier fly. He that is truly dedicate to war Hath no self-love, nor he that loves himself, Hath not essentially but by circumstance The name of valour."

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead."

"From camp to camp through the foul womb of night The hum of either army stilly sounds."

"The armourers, accomplishing the knights, With busy hammers closing rivets up, Give dreadful note of preparation."

"There are few die well that die in a battle."

"He which hath no stomach to this fight, Let him depart; his passport shall be made."

"It is war's prize to take all vantage."

"Sound trumpets! let our bloody colours wave! And either victory, or else a grave."

"They shall have wars and pay for their presumption."

"The cannons have their bowels full of wrath, And ready mounted are they to spit forth Their iron indignation 'gainst your walls."

"Now for the bare-pick'd bone of majesty Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace."

"Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars And brought in matter that should feed this fire; And now 'tis far too huge to be blown out With that same weak wind which enkindled it."

"I drew this gallant head of war, And cull'd these fiery spirits from the world, To outlook conquest and to win renown Even in the jaws of danger and of death."

"When the hurly-burly's done, When the battle's lost and won."

"Hang out our banners on the outward walls."

"Blow, wind! come, wrack! At least we'll die with harness on our back."

"Lay on, Macduff, And damn'd be him that first cries, "Hold, enough!""

"The bay-trees in our country all are wither'd And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven; The pale-fac'd moon looks bloody on the earth And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change; Rich men look sad and ruffians dance and leap, The one in fear to lose what they enjoy, The other to enjoy by rage and war."

"Let's march without the noise of threat'ning drum."

"He is come to open The purple testament of bleeding war."

"Grim-visag'd war hath smoothed his wrinkled front."

"Thus far into the bowels of the land Have we march'd without impediment."

"Conscience avaunt, Richard's himself again: Hark! the shrill trumpet sounds, to horse, away, My soul's in arms, and eager for the fray."

"Put in their hands thy bruising irons of wrath, That they may crush down with heavy fall The usurping helmets of our adversaries."

"Fight, gentlemen of England! fight, bold yeomen! Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head! Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood; Amaze the welkin with your broken staves!"

"And all the gods go with you! upon your sword Sit laurel victory! and smooth success Be strew'd before your feet!"

"All was lost, But that the heavens fought."

"Give me the cups; And let the kettle to the trumpet speak, The trumpet to the cannoneer without, The cannons to heavens, the heavens to earth."

"Cæsar's spirit, ranging for revenge, With Até by his side come hot from hell, Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice Cry "Havoc," and let slip the dogs of war."

"Follow thy drum; With man's blood paint the ground, gules, gules; Religious canons, civil laws are cruel; Then what should war be?"

"You'll go quitely to boot camp They'll shoot you dead, make you a man Don't you worry, it's for a cause Feeding global corporations' claws."

"Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes - men who despise you - enslave you - who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to think and what to feel! Who drill you - diet you - treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts!"

"1. Defence of the Fatherland shall be the duty and obligation of a citizen of the Russian Federation. 2. Citizens of the Russian Federation shall perform military service in accordance with federal law. 3. In the event that their convictions or religious beliefs run counter to military service and in other cases established by federal law, citizens of the Russian Federation shall have the right to replace it with alternative civilian service"

"I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don't think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can't save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say : Let the damned thing go down the drain!"

"Any recruiter will tell you that the incentive for enlistment is that it [being drafted] is inevitable if you don't."

"At the present day, civilized opinion is a curious mental mixture. The military instincts and ideals are as strong as ever, but they are confronted by reflective criticisms which sorely curb their ancient freedom. Innumerable writers are showing up the bestial side of military service. Pure loot and mastery seem no longer morally allowable motives, and pretexts must be found for attributing them solely to the enemy."

"We must train and classify the whole of our male citizens, and make military instruction a regular part of collegiate education."

"War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."

"A young man who does not have what it takes to perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a living. Today's military rejects include tomorrow's hard core unemployed."

"Inquiry shall likewise be made about the professions and trades of those who are brought to be admitted to the faith. ... A soldier of the civil authority must be taught not to kill men and to refuse to do so if he is commanded, and to refuse to take an oath; if he is unwilling to comply, he must be rejected. ... If a catechumen or a believer seeks to become a soldier, they must be rejected, for they have despised God."

"Women should be permitted to volunteer for non-combat service,… they should not be accepted, voluntarily or through the draft, as combat soldiers…. We know of no comparable ways of training women and girls, and we have no real way of knowing whether the kinds of training that teach men both courage and restraint would be adaptable to women or effective in a crisis. But the evidence of history and comparative studies of other species suggest that women as a fighting body might be far less amenable to the rules that prevent warfare from becoming a massacre and, with the use of modern weapons, that protect the survival of all humanity. This is what I meant by saying that women in combat might be too fierce."

"Though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does."

"What is conscription? An act of property exercised over families by the government without warning, a robbery of men and money."

"No man who is not willing to bear arms and to fight for his rights can give a good reason why he should be entitled to the privilege of living in a free community."

"It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even his personal services to the defence of it, and consequently that the Citizens of America (with a few legal and official exceptions) from 18 to 50 Years of Age should be borne on the Militia Rolls, provided with uniform Arms, and so far accustomed to the use of them, that the Total strength of the Country might be called forth at a Short Notice on any very interesting Emergency,…"

"Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents, and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly or the wickedness of government may engage it?"

"[M]orale is the spiritual capacity of a people to endure pain and suffering, and not a campaign of bill posters, pep talks and band concerts."

"An American general defined morale as "when a soldier thinks his army is the best in the world, his regiment the best in the army, his company the best in the regiment, his squad the best in the company, and that he himself is the best blankety-blank soldier man in the outfit.""

"Since 2009, $287 million has been spent on programs aimed at improving morale within the US military, which has shouldered two major overseas combat deployments over the past decade. But these efforts may have been largely fruitless, as 52% of soldiers across all branches remain "pessimistic about their future in the military," according to an April USA Today report."

"A Brookings Institution report notes: "Observers regularly fretted over low morale during the defense drawdown of the 1990s, during the start of the Iraq War, during the Iraq Surge, during the Afghanistan Surge; and at practically all the points in between ... After each report of troop morale hitting 'rock bottom,' troop morale seems to slip lower yet and, still, the military soldiers on.""

"Unit cohesion can be considered a contributor to morale. Manning reviews various definitions of the terms morale and esprit de corps and suggests that morale is best thought of as “the enthusiasm and persistence with which a member of a group engages in the prescribed activities of the group” (Manning, 1994). He suggests that esprit de corps is the counterpart to cohesion at the level of the organization rather than at the level of the primary unit and that cohesion and esprit de corps are each contributors to one’s morale."

"An official policy statement issued in 1940 by the War Department (predecessor of the Defense Department) said that intermingling the races would "produce situations destructive to morale and detrimental to the preparation for national defense.""

"The Knight’s bones are dust, And his good sword rust;— His soul is with the saints, I trust."

"Better is it for each one of us that he should avenge his friend, than greatly mourn. Each of us must expect an end of living in this world; let him who may win glory before death: for that is best at last for the departed warrior."

"Once a warrior gentle of birth, Then a person of civic worth, Now a fellow to move our mirth. Warrior, person, and fellow -- no more: We must knight our dogs to get any lower. Brave Knights Kennelers then shall be, Noble Knights of the Golden Flea, Knights of the Order of St. Steboy, Knights of St. Gorge and Sir Knights Jawy. God speed the day when this knighting fad Shall go to the dogs and the dogs go mad."

"The two worst strategic mistakes to make are acting prematurely and letting an opportunity slip; to avoid this, the warrior treats each situation as if it were unique and never resorts to formulae, recipes or other people's opinions."

"We warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we may not understand how."

"Every Warrior of the Light has suffered for the most trivial of reasons. Every Warrior of the Light has, at least once, believed he was not a Warrior of the Light. Every Warrior of the Light has failed in his spiritual duties. Every Warrior of the Light has said "yes" when he wanted to say "no." Every Warrior of the Light has hurt someone he loved. That is why he is a Warrior of the Light, because he has been through all this and yet has never lost hope of being better than he is. Each stone, each bend cries welcome to him. He identifies with the mountains and the streams, he sees something of his own soul in the plants and the animals and the birds of the field. Then, accepting the help of God and of God's signs, he allows his personal legend to guide him toward the tasks that life has reserved for him. On some nights, he has nowhere to sleep, on others he suffers from insomnia. "That's just how it is," thinks the warrior. "I was the one who chose to walk this path." In these words lies all his power: He chose the path along which he is walking and so has no complaints."

"Warriors of the light are not perfect. Their beauty lies in accepting this fact and still desiring to grow and to learn."

"A warrior of the light never confuses tension with anxiety."

"Whence this sneaking admiration we all have for bullies and prize-fighters? Whence the self-congratulation of “dominant” races, as if “dominant” meant “righteous” and carried with it a title to inherit the earth? Whence the scorn of so-called weak or unwarlike races and individuals, and the very comfortable assurance that it is their manifest destiny to be wiped out as vermin before this advancing civilization? As if the possession of the Christian graces of meekness, non-resistance and forgiveness, were incompatible with a civilization professedly based on Christianity, the religion of love!"

"Love for distance and order, the ability to subordinate one's individualistic and passionate element to principles, the ability to take action and work above mere personhood, a feeling of dignity devoid of vanity are features of the true warrior spirit as essential those which refer to actual combat."

"Warrior spirit is characterised by direct, clear and loyal relations, based on fidelity and honour and a sound instinct for the various dignities, which it can well distinguish: it opposes everything which is impersonal and trivial."

"I am Ezina, I am born for the warrior -- I do not give up."

"In the American mainstream imagination, warriors were always male and military, and when they were Indian warriors they were usually Plains Indian males with headdresses. What of contemporary warriors? And what of the wives, mothers, and daughters whose small daily acts of sacrifice and bravery were usually unrecognized or unrewarded? These acts were just as crucial to the safety and well-being of the people...For the true warriors of the world, fighting is the last resort to solving a conflict. Every effort is made to avoid bloodshed."

"After I have conferred my power on the warrior, when he goes to war he knows no fear, he knows no faltering."

"And, though the warrior's sun has set, Its light shall linger round us yet, Bright, radiant, blest."

"Strategy is the craft of the warrior."

"It is said the warrior's is the twofold Way of pen and sword, and he should have a taste for both Ways. Even if a man has no natural ability he can be a warrior by sticking assiduously to both divisions of the Way. Generally speaking, the Way of the warrior is resolute acceptance of death."

"And the stern joy which warriors feel In foemen worthy of their steel."

"Warriors!—and where are warriors found, If not on martial Britain's ground? And who, when waked with note of fire, Love more than they the British lyre?"

"The painful warrior famoused for fight, After a thousand victories once foiled, Is from the book of honour razed quite, And all the rest forgot for which he toiled."

"The warrior is unique, he alone is the equal of many; Utu is unique, he alone is the equal of many. With your life you should always be on the side of the warrior; with your life you should always be on the side of Utu."

"Prostrate on earth the bleeding warrior lies, And Isr'el's beauty on the mountains dies. How are the mighty fallen! Hush'd be my sorrow, gently fall my tears, Lest my sad tale should reach the alien's ears: Bid Fame be dumb, and tremble to proclaim In heathen Gath, or Ascalon, our shame Lest proud Philistia, lest our haughty foe, With impious scorn insult our solemn woe."

"Home they brought her warrior dead."

"No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest With his martial cloak around him."

"Croesus said to Cambyses; That peace was better than war; because in peace the sons did bury their fathers, but in wars the fathers did bury their sons."

"Wars have never made peace or preserved it or fostered its ideals. To have peace you must make peace with your enemy. To make peace only with your friends is to avoid the issue, and to permit a great principle to become absurd. Far from making peace, wars invariably serve as classrooms and laboratories where men and techniques and states of mind are prepared for the next war."

"If we are serious about peace, then we must work for it as ardently, seriously, continuously, carefully, and bravely as we have ever prepared for war."

"An analysis of the history of mankind shows that from the year 1496 B.C. to the year 1861 of our era, that is, in a cycle of 3357 years, were but 227 years of peace and 3130 years of war: in other words, were thirteen years of war for every year of peace. Considered thus, the history of the lives of peoples presents a picture of uninterrupted struggle. War, it would appear, is a normal attribute to human life."

"We have men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner."

"He who did well in war just earns the right To begin doing well in peace."

"If it were possible for members of different nationalities, with different language and customs, and an intellectual life of a different kind, to live side by side in one and the same state, without succumbing to the temptation of each trying to force his own nationality on the other, things would look a good deal more peaceful. But it is a law of life and development in history that where two national civilizations meet they fight for ascendancy. In the struggle between nationalities, one nation is the hammer and the other the anvil: one is the victor and the other the vanquished."

"It is truer today than when Alfred Nobel realized it a half-century ago, that peace cannot be achieved in a vacuum. Peace must be paced by human progress. Peace is no mere matter of men fighting or not fighting. Peace, to have meaning for many who have known only suffering in both peace and war, must be translated into bread or rice, shelter, health, and education, as well as freedom and human dignity - a steadily better life. If peace is to be secure, long-suffering and long-starved, forgotten peoples of the world, the underprivileged and the undernourished, must begin to realize without delay the promise of a new day and a new life."

"War," says Machiavel, "ought to be the only study of a prince"; and by a prince he means every sort of state, however constituted. "He ought," says this great political doctor, "to consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes ability to execute military plans."

"Peace is a resistance to the terrible satisfactions of war."

"There's but the twinkling of a star Between a man of peace and war."

"In peace the cry is for mobility, in war for weight of shell."

"In War: Resolution In Defeat: Defiance In Victory: Magnanimity In Peace: Good Will"

"Cedant arma togæ."

"Equidem ad pacem hortari non desino; quae vel iniusta utilior est quam iustissimum bellum cum civibus."

"Mihi enim omnis pax cum civibus bello civili utilior videbatur."

"Mars gravior sub pace latet."

"Bella suscipienda sunt ob eam causam, ut sine injuria in pace vivatur."

"Bellum autem ita suscipiatur, ut nihil aliud, nisi pax, quæsita videatur."

"Ah, well! we talk of war,   But peace is so much kinder, That all our strife is for   Is just the hope to find her: And see!—how Spring, with look serene,   Is garlanding her halls in green!"

"War is an invention of the human mind. The human mind can invent peace with justice."

"O for a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of shade; Where rumor of oppression and deceit, Of unsuccessful or successful war, Might never reach me more."

"The working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace. Yours not to reason why; Yours but to do and die. That is their motto and we object on the part of the awakening workers of this nation. If war is right let it be declared by the people. You who have your lives to lose, you certainly above all others have the right to decide the momentous issue of war or peace."

"In time of trouble we are citizens. Shall we be citizens in war, and aliens in peace? Would that be just?"

"Such subtle Covenants shall be made, Till Peace it self is War in Masquerade."

"Peace will never be won if men reserve for war their greatest efforts, Peace, too, requires well-directed and sustained sacrificial endeavor. Given that, we can, I believe, achieve the great goal of our foreign policy, that of enabling our people to enjoy in peace the blessings of liberty."

"Peace without Justice is a low estate,— A coward cringing to an iron Fate! But Peace through Justice is the great ideal,— We'll pay the price of war to make it real."

"Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding. You cannot subjugate a nation forcibly unless you wipe out every man, woman, and child. Unless you wish to use such drastic measures, you must find a way of settling your disputes without resort to arms."

"There never was a good war or a bad peace."

"I am skeptical about preventing wars. I doubt if they can be prevented. There will always be wars. Judging by past experiences, working for peace now would be as ineffective as ever. It's a law of nature."

"War is obsolete. It could never have been done before. Only ten years ago... technology reached the point where it could be done. Since then the invisible technological-capability revolution has made it ever easier so to do. It is a matter of converting the high technology from weaponry to livingry. The essence of livingry is human-life advantaging and environment controlling. With the highest aeronautical and engineering facilities of the world redirected from weaponry to livingry production, all humanity would have the option of becoming enduringly successful... If realized, this historically greatest design revolution will joyously elevate all humanity to unprecedented heights."

"If we are to reach real peace in this world and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with children; and if they will grow up in their natural innocence, we won’t have to struggle, we won’t have to pass fruitless idle resolutions. But we shall go from love to love and peace to peace, until at last all the corners of the world are covered with that peace and love for which, consciously or unconsciously, the whole world is hungering."

"In the 21st century, there is a tendency to blur the distinction between the state of war and peace. Wars are no longer declared, and once they have begun, they do not proceed according to the pattern we are accustomed to."

"If you look at human society, it is very easy, of course, to compare our warfare and territoriality with the chimpanzee. But that's only one side of what we do. We also trade, we intermarry, we allow each other to travel through our territory. There's an enormous amount of cooperation. Indeed, among hunter-gatherers, peace is common 90 percent of the time, and war takes place only a small part of the time. Chimps cannot tell us anything about peaceful relations, because chimps have only different degrees of hostility between communities. Whereas bonobos do tell us something; they tell us about the possibility of having peaceful relationships."

"At the time, I was interested in reconciliation after fights, and I wanted to know how bonobos did it compared to chimpanzees. Very soon I discovered that they were much more sexual in everything they did, and that interested me—not so much for the sex part, even though that became a very hot topic, the peacemaking-through-sex thing—but much more how they have such a peaceful society, because they are much less violent than chimpanzees."

"War has made us a nation of great power and intelligence. We have but little to do to preserve peace, happiness and prosperity at home, and the respect of other nations. Our experience ought to teach us the necessity of the first; our power secures the latter."

"If you wish for peace, understand war."

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; or close the wall up with our English dead! In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility; but when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger; stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage."

"The only way to abolish war is to make peace heroic."

"In pace ut sapiens aptarit idonea bello."

"If we do not change course quickly, we will inevitably encounter an incident where that first domino is tipped—triggering a sequence of unstoppable events that will mark the end of our time on this tiny planet..."

"You have not been mistaken in supposing my views and feeling to be in favor of the abolition of war. Of my dispos[i]tion to maintain peace until its condition shall be made less tolerable than that of war itself, the world has had proofs, and more, perhaps, than it has approved. I hope it is practicable, by improving the mind and morals of society, to lessen the dispos[i]tion to war; but of its abolition I despair."

"Believing that the happiness of mankind is best promoted by the useful pursuits of peace, that on these alone a stable prosperity can be founded, that the evils of war are great in their endurance, and have a long reckoning for ages to come, I have used my best endeavors to keep our country uncommitted in the troubles which afflict Europe, and which assail us on every side."

"Oh! if I were Queen of France, or, still better, Pope of Rome, I would have no fighting men abroad and no weeping maids at home; All the world should be at peace; or if kings must show their might, Why, let them who make the quarrels be the only ones to fight."

"We love peace as we abhor pusillanimity; but not peace at any price. There is a peace more destructive of the manhood of living man than war is destructive of his material body. Chains are worse than bayonets."

"So let us here resolve that Dag Hammarskjöld did not live, or die, in vain. Let us call a truce to terror. Let us invoke the blessings of peace. And, as we build an international capacity to keep peace, let us join in dismantling the national capacity to wage war."

"What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children — not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women — not merely peace in our time but peace for all time."

"I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war—and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task."

"Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all peoples to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it."

"Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable—that mankind is doomed—that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are man made—therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings."

"The task of building the peace lies with the leaders of every nation, large and small. For the great powers have no monopoly on conflict or ambition. The cold war is not the only expression of tension in this world — and the nuclear race is not the only arms race. Even little wars are dangerous in a nuclear world. The long labor of peace is an undertaking for every nation — and in this effort none of us can remain unaligned. To this goal none can be uncommitted."

"We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not enough to say "We must not wage war." It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace. … We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody that is far superior to the discords of war. Somehow we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race which no one can win to a positive contest to harness man's creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all of the nations of the world. In short, we must shift the arms race into a "peace race". If we have the will and determination to mount such a peace offensive, we will unlock hitherto tightly sealed doors of hope and transform our imminent cosmic elegy into a psalm of creative fulfillment."

"We are all saddened by the barbarism of humanity. The most negative manifestation of free will is seen in outbursts of war. People refuse to think about the terrible currents they evoke by mass murder and the consequences it will bring. The ancient Scriptures correctly warned that he who lives by the sword will perish by the sword. There is a difference between the karma of aggression and that of defense. It can be shown how aggressors suffer the most grievous consequences... People delude themselves by thinking that great conquerors do not reap bad karma during their earthly lives... Aggressors burden their karma not only by killing but also by polluting the atmosphere... The poisoning of Earth and of the other spheres is long-lasting. You who intrude into the lands of your neighbors, has no one told you the consequences of your 'fratricide?' Our Abode has witnessed many wars, and We can testify how this evil is increasing in the most unexpected ways... How sad We are to see free will, which was bestowed as the Highest Gift, manifested in this horrible, uncontrolled way. 88."

"All right. It's instinctive. But the instinct can be fought. We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can stop it. We can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes. Knowing that we won't kill today. Contact Vendikar. I think you'll find that they're just as terrified, appalled, horrified as you are, that they'll do anything to avoid the alternative I've given you. Peace or utter destruction. It's up to you."

"Make love, not war."

"We're trying to sell peace, like a product, you know, and sell it like people sell soap or soft drinks. And it's the only way to get people aware that peace is possible, and it isn't just inevitable to have violence. Not just war — all forms of violence. People just accept it and think 'Oh, they did it, or Harold Wilson did it, or Nixon did it,' they're always scapegoating people. And it isn't Nixon's fault. We're all responsible for everything that goes on, you know, we're all responsible for Biafra and Hitler and everything. So we're just saying "SELL PEACE" — anybody interested in peace just stick it in the window. It's simple but it lets somebody else know that you want peace too, because you feel alone if you're the only one thinking 'wouldn't it be nice if there was peace and nobody was getting killed.' So advertise yourself that you're for peace if you believe in it."

"When we say "War is over if you want it," we mean that if everyone demanded peace instead of another TV set, we'd have peace."

"Ostendite modo bellum, pacem habebitis."

"Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies! But beautiful as songs of the immortals, The holy melodies of love arise."

"Buried was the bloody hatchet; Buried was the dreadful war-club; Buried were all warlike weapons, And the war-cry was forgotten. Then was peace among the nations."

"Could I have but a line a century hence crediting a contribution to the advance of peace, I would gladly yield every honor which has been accorded me in war."

"Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won. The skies no longer rain death; the seas bear only commerce. Men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world is quietly at peace. The holy mission has been completed. And in reporting this to you, the people, I speak for the thousands of silent lips, forever stilled among the jungles and the beaches and in the deep waters of the Pacific which marked the way. I speak for the unnamed brave millions homeward bound to take up the challenge of that future which they did so much to salvage from the brink of disaster... Men since the beginning of time have sought peace. Various methods through the ages have attempted to devise an international process to prevent or settle disputes between nations. From the very start workable methods were found insofar as individual citizens were concerned, but the mechanics of an instrumentality of larger international scope have never been successful. Military alliances, balances of power, leagues of nations, all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. We have had our last chance. If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advances in science, art, literature and all material and cultural developments of the past two thousand years, It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh."

"Go, with a song of peace," said Fingal; "go, Ullin, to the king of swords. Tell him that we are mighty in war; that the ghosts of our foes are many."

"The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, & most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care, vested the question of war in the Legislature. But the Doctrines lately advanced strike at the root of all these provisions, and will deposit the peace of the Country in that Department which the Constitution distrusts as most ready without cause to renounce it. For if the opinion of the President not the facts & proofs themselves are to sway the judgment of Congress, in declaring war, and if the President in the recess of Congress create a foreign mission, appoint the minister, & negociate a War Treaty, without the possibility of a check even from the Senate, untill the measures present alternatives overruling the freedom of its judgment; if again a Treaty when made obliges the Legislature to declare war contrary to its judgment, and in pursuance of the same doctrine, a law declaring war, imposes a like moral obligation, to grant the requisite supplies until it be formally repealed with the consent of the President & Senate, it is evident that the people are cheated out of the best ingredients in their Government, the safeguards of peace which is the greatest of their blessings."

"It is a settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute. The United States, while they wish for war with no nation, will buy peace with none."

"To have peace and not war, the drift toward a war economy, as facilitated by the moves and the demands of the sophisticated conservatives, must be stopped; to have peace without slump, the tactics and policies of the practical right must be overcome. The political and economic power of both must be broken. The power of these giants of main drift is both economically and politically anchored; both unions and an independent labor party are needed to struggle effective."

"The American elite does not have any real image of peace — other than as an uneasy interlude existing precariously by virtue of the balance of mutual fright. The only seriously accepted plan for peace is the full loaded pistol. In short, war or a high state of war-preparedness is felt to be the normal and seemingly permanent condition of the United States."

"Peace hath her victoriesNo less renowned than war."

"Peace hath her victories, No less renowned than war."

"This my dear friend is the one truly great contribution of my Wonder Woman strip to moral education of the young. The only hope for peace is to teach people who are full of pep and unbound force to enjoy being bound--enjoy submission to kind authority, wise authority, not merely tolerate such submission. Wars will only cease when humans enjoy being bound."

"We want no war of conquest…. War should never be entered upon until every agency of peace has failed."

"Sous le régime de la libre concurrence, la guerre entre les producteurs de sécurité cesse totalement d’avoir sa raison d’être. Pourquoi se feraient-ils la guerre ? Pour conquérir des consommateurs ? Mais les consommateurs ne se laisseraient pas conquérir. Ils se garderaient certainement de faire assurer leurs personnes et leurs propriétés par des hommes qui auraient attenté, sans scrupule, aux personnes et aux propriétés de leurs concurrents. Si un audacieux vainqueur voulait leur imposer la loi, ils appelleraient immédiatement à leur aide tous les consommateurs libres que menacerait comme eux cette agression, et ils en feraient justice. De même que la guerre est la conséquence naturelle du monopole, la paix est la conséquence naturelle de la liberté."

"It is the oldest ironies that are still the most satisfying: man, when preparing for bloody war, will orate loudly and most eloquently in the name of peace."

"When after many battles past, Both tir'd with blows, make peace at last, What is it, after all, the people get? Why! taxes, widows, wooden legs, and debt."

"We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war, we have to attack that way of life. Disarmament cannot be achieved nor can the problem of war be resolved without being accompanied by profound changes in the economic order and the structure of society."

"War is necessary. War brings pain, but war is necessary. War brings peace, because war is necessary. Get your warriors up."

"Peace is far more preferable to war. … I believe that peace is the only path to true security. … And there is no question that the only path to peace is through negotiations."

"So this is what America is prepared to do: Taking action against immediate threats, while pursuing a world in which the need for such action is diminished. The United States will never shy away from defending our interests, but we will also not shy away from the promise of this institution and its Universal Declaration of Human Rights — the notion that peace is not merely the absence of war, but the presence of a better life."

"Would you end war? Create great Peace."

"WAR IS PEACE."

"Adjuvat in bello pacatæ ramus olivæ."

"Wars are often the cause of further wars because they fuel deep hatreds, create situations of injustice and trample upon people's dignity and rights. Wars generally do not resolve the problems for which they are fought and therefore, in addition to causing horrendous damage, they prove ultimately futile. War is a defeat for humanity. Only in peace and through peace can respect for human dignity and its inalienable rights be guaranteed."

"You bring me the deepest joy that can be felt by a man whose invincible belief is that Science and Peace will triumph over Ignorance and War, that nations will unite, not to destroy, but to build, and that the future will belong to those who will have done most for suffering humanity."

"War its thousands slays, Peace its ten thousands."

"Paix entre nous, guerre aux tyrans"

"I, serial number 30743, Lieutenant General in reserves Yitzhak Rabin, a soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces and in the army of peace, I, who have sent armies into fire and soldiers to their death, say today: We sail onto a war which has no casualties, no wounded, no blood nor suffering. It is the only war which is a pleasure to participate in — the war for peace."

"Can we and all nations not live in peace? In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. And yet, I ask you, is not an alien force already among us? What could be more alien to the universal aspirations of our peoples than war and the threat of war?"

"Cannot swords be turned to plowshares? Can we and all nations not live in peace? In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. And yet, I ask you, is not an alien force already among us? What could be more alien to the universal aspirations of our peoples than war and the threat of war?"

"When every young man refuses to go to war, you will have peace. As long as you fight for gain and greed, there will be no peace. As long as one person commits acts of violence for the sake of peace, you will have war. Unfortunately it is difficult to imagine that all the young men in all of the countries will refuse to go to war at the same time. And so you must work out what violence has wrought. Within the next hundred years, that time may come. Remember, you do not defend any idea with violence. There is no man who hates but that hatred is reflected outward and made physical. And there is no man who loves but that love is reflected outward and made physical."

"Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace."

"There are two sides of war. There is a side that fights, and there is a side that keeps the schools and the factories and the hospitals open. There is a side that is focused on winning battles, and there is a side that is focused on winning life. There is a side that leads the front-line discussion, and there is a side that leads the back-line discussion. There is a side that thinks that peace is the end of fighting, and there is a side that thinks that peace is the arrival of schools and jobs. There is a side that is led by men, and there is a side that is led by women. And in order for us to understand how do we build lasting peace, we must understand war and peace from both sides. We must have a full picture of what that means."

"Beyond the worlds of war and peace, there is a field, and there are many women and men [who] are meeting there. Let us make this field a much bigger place. Let us all meet in that field."

"Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me work— I am the grass; I cover all. And pile them high at Gettysburg And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. Shovel them under and let me work. Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor: What place is this? Where are we now? I am the grass. Let me work."

"The memory of war weighs undiminished upon the people's minds. That is because deeper than material wounds, moral wounds are smarting, inflicted by the so-called peace treaties. … Material loss can be made up through renewed labor, but the moral wrong which has been inflicted upon the conquered peoples, in the peace dictates, leaves a burning scar on the people's conscience. … The Versailles Dictate cannot be an eternal document, because not only its economic, but also its spiritual and moral premises are wrong."

"When children's children shall talk of War as a madness that may not be; When we thank our God for our grief today, and blazon from sea to sea In the name of the Dead the banner of Peace … that will be Victory."

"That it should hold companionship in peace With honour, as in war; since that to both It stands in like request."

"To reap the harvest of perpetual peace, By this one bloody trial of sharp war."

"If they want peace, they and their relatives must stop the war."

"You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride."

"I myself have seen in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, hundreds and thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry and with bleeding feet. In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi, we fed thousands upon thousands of the families of rebel soldiers left on our hands, and whom we could not see starve. Now that war comes home to you; you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds and thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the government of their inheritance. But these comparisons are idle. I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect and early success."

"War is war, and not popularity-seeking. If they want peace, they and their relatives must stop the war."

"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling. This feeling assumes various shapes, but always comes back to that of Union. Once admit the Union, once more acknowledge the authority of the national Government, and, instead of devoting your houses and streets and roads to the dread uses of war, I and this army become at once your protectors and supporters, shielding you from danger, let it come from what quarter it may. I know that a few individuals cannot resist a torrent of error and passion, such as swept the South into rebellion, but you can point out, so that we may know those who desire a government, and those who insist on war and its desolation."

"Of a commonwealth, whose subjects are but hindered by terror from taking arms, it should rather be said, that it is free from war, than that it has peace. For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from force of character: for obedience is the constant will to execute what, by the general decree of the commonwealth, ought to be done. Besides that commonwealth, whose peace depends on the sluggishness of its subjects, that are led about like sheep, to learn but slavery, may more properly be called a desert than a commonwealth."

"Miseram pacem vel bello bene mutari."

"Bellum magis desierat, quam pax cœperat."

"The distance at which it can strike, and the destructive power of such a quasi-intelligent machine being for all practical purposes unlimited, the gun, the armor of the battleship and the wall of the fortress, lose their import and significance. One can prophesy with a Daniel's confidence that skilled electricians will settle the battles of the near future. But this is the least. In its effect upon war and peace, electricity offers still much greater and more wonderful possibilities. To stop war by the perfection of engines of destruction alone, might consume centuries and centuries. Other means must be employed to hasten the end."

"If wars in the future are to be prevented the nations must be united in their determination to keep the peace under law. Nothing is more essential to the future peace of the world than continued cooperation of the nations which had to muster the force necessary to defeat the conspiracy of the Axis powers to dominate the world. While these great states have a special responsibility to enforce the peace, their responsibility is based upon the obligations resting upon all states, large and small, not to use force in international relations except in the defense of law. The responsibility of the great states is to serve and not to dominate the world"

"I believe that we have learned the importance of maintaining military strength as a means of preventing war. We have found that a sound military system is necessary in time of peace if we are to remain at peace. Aggressors in the past, relying on our apparent lack of military force, have unwisely precipitated war. Although they have been led to destruction by their misconception of our strength, we have paid a terrible price for our unpreparedness."

"The recommendations I have made represent the most urgent steps toward securing the peace and preventing war. We must be ready to take every wise and necessary step to carry out this great purpose. This will require assistance to other nations. It will require an adequate and balanced military strength. We must be prepared to pay the price for peace, or assuredly we shall pay the price of war We in the United States remain determined to seek peace by every possible means, a just and honorable basis for the settlement of international issues."

"The United States has a tremendous responsibility to act according to the measure of our power for good in the world. We have learned that we must earn the peace we seek just as we earned victory in the war, not by wishful thinking but by realistic effort. At no time in our history has unity among our people been so vital as it is at the present time. Unity of purpose, unity of effort, and unity of spirit are essential to accomplish the task before us."

"Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum."

"Qui desiderat pacem, præparet bellum."

"Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed."

"My first wish is to see this plague to mankind banished from off the Earth, and the sons and Daughters of this world employed in more pleasing and innocent amusements, than in preparing implements and exercising them for the destruction of mankind: rather than quarrel about territory let the poor, the needy and oppressed of the Earth, and those who want Land, resort to the fertile plains of our western country, the second Promise, and there dwell in peace, fulfilling the first and great commandment."

"To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace."

"We do not with God's name make wanton play; We are not on such easy terms with Heaven; But in Earth's hearing we can verily say, "Our hands are pure; for peace, for peace we have striven," And not by Earth shall he be soon forgiven Who lit the fire accurst that flames to-day."

"When earth as if on evil dreams Looks back upon her wars, And the white light of Christ outstreams From the red disc of Mars, His fame, who led the stormy van Of battle, well may cease; But never that which crowns the man Whose victory was peace."

"From time immemorial, people have talked about peace without achieving it. Do we simply lack enough experience? Though we talk peace, we wage war. Sometimes we even wage war in the name of peace. [...] A collective as well as individual gratification of unconscious impulses, war may be too much a part of human behavior to be eliminated—ever."

"I am the friend of peace and mean to preserve it for America so long as I am able…. No course of my choosing or of theirs (nations at war) will lead to war. War can come only by the wilful acts and aggressions of others."

"It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts—for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free."

"To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness, and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other."

"A single inescapable fact; that mankind united with infinitely greater purpose in pursuit of war, than he ever did in pursuit of peace."

"Codification and mechanisms do not sufficiently ensure the right to peace. What is crucial is to develop a true culture of peace. This requires education for peace. Everyone – not only children – should be educated in compromise, cooperation, empathy, solidarity, compassion, restoration and reconciliation. In short, we must learn respect for others and how to live in harmony, even if we agree to disagree. Negotiation and mediation skills must be taught so as to prevent breaches of the peace and other forms of violence. A philosophical paradigm change is necessary, so that we are not caught in the old mind-set, in the prevailing culture of violence, the logic of war, aggressive attitudes, practices of economic exploitation and cultural imperialism."

"They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

"When He broke the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, “Come.” And another, a red horse, went out; and to him who sat on it, it was granted to take peace from the earth, and that men would slay one another; and a great sword was given to him."

"Yesterday, President Biden said that in his opinion, war crimes have been committed in Ukraine. Personally, I agree. Intentionally targeting civilians is a war crime. After all the destruction of the past three weeks, I find it difficult to conclude that the Russians are doing otherwise. The consequences of Moscow's war are being felt around the world ... We'll make sure that our findings help international efforts to investigate war crimes and hold those responsible accountable."

"There had been fearful slaughters of soldiers in the First World War, and much of the accumulated treasure of the nations was consumed. Still, apart from the excesses of the Russian Revolution, the main fabric of European civilisation remained erect at the close of the struggle. When the storm and dust of the cannonade passed suddenly away, the nations despite their enmities could still recognise each other as historic racial personalities. The laws of war had on the whole been respected. There was a common professional meeting-ground between military men who had fought one another. Vanquished and victors alike still preserved the semblance of civilised states. A solemn peace was made which, apart from unenforceable financial aspects, conformed to the principles which in the nineteenth century had increasingly regulated the relations of enlightened peoples. The reign of law was proclaimed, and a World Instrument was formed to guard us all, and especially Europe, against a renewed convulsion. In the Second World War every bond between man and man was to perish. Crimes were committed by the Germans, under the Hitlerite domination to which they allowed themselves to be subjected, which find no equal in scale and wickedness with any that have darkened the human record. The wholesale massacre by systematised processes of six or seven millions of men, women, and children in the German execution camps exceeds in horror the rough-and-ready butcheries of Genghis Khan, and in scale reduces them to pigmy proportions. Deliberate extermination of whole populations was contemplated and pursued by both Germany and Russia in the Eastern war. The hideous process of bombarding open cities from the air, once started by the Germans, was repaid twenty-fold by the ever-mounting power of the Allies, and found its culmination in the use of the atomic bombs which obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We have at length emerged from a scene of material ruin and moral havoc the like of which had never darkened the imagination of former centuries. After all that we suffered and achieved, we find ourselves still confronted with problems and perils not less but far more formidable than those through which we have so narrowly made our way."

"Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation."

"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?"

"I am getting really sick of people who whine about "civilian casualties". Maybe I'm a hard-hearted guy, but when I see in the newspapers that civilians in Afghanistan or the West Bank were killed by American or Israeli troops, I don't really care. In fact, I would rather that the good guys use the Air Force to kill the bad guys, even if that means some civilians get killed along the way. One American soldier is worth far more than an Afghan civilian."

"You know, those who are going to be killed in Iraq are not collateral damage. They are human beings of flesh and blood. They are children. They are mothers. They are brothers. They are grandfathers. You know what? They are our sisters and brothers, for we belong in one family. We are members of one family, God’s family, the human family. And how can we say we want to drop bombs on our sisters and brothers, on our children?"

"The kind of fraternal assistance that the Soviet Union is according to Czechoslovakia is exactly the same kind that Cain gave to Abel."

"Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No, I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years."

"Even the majority of authoritarian regimes were quite content to persecute internal enemies and bicker with their neighbours over borders. Stalin had no strong interest in the acquisition of more territory; he already possessed a vast empire. Military dictators like Franco were more likely to wage civil war than inter-state war; as a conservative he understood that foreign wars ultimately helped domestic revolutionaries. Only three countries aspired to territorial expansion and war as a means to achieve it. They were Italy, Germany and Japan. Their dreams of empire were the proximate cause of the multiple wars we know as the Second World War. As we shall see, however, those dreams were far from being irrational responses to the Depression. Why did only these three authoritarian regimes adopt and act upon aggressive foreign policies? A conventional answer might be that they were in thrall to anachronistic notions of imperial glory. All certainly harked back to stylized histories of their countries, Mussolini invoking the memory of the Romans to justify his African adventures, Hitler laying claim to the 'lost territories' of the Teutonic knights, the Japanese imagining their 'Yamato race' as if it were more than a mere offshoot of Chinese civilization. Yet there was nothing anachronistic about the idea of empire in the 1930s. In a world without free trade, empires offered all kinds of advantages to those who had them. It was undoubtedly advantageous to Britain to be at the centre of a vast sterling bloc with a common currency and common tariffs. And what would Stalin's Soviet Union have been if it had been confined within the historic frontiers of Muscovy, without the vast territories and resources of the Caucasus, Siberia and Central Asia?"

"An order issued March 6, 1918, directed that a psychological examination should be made of all conscientious objectors. This examination, as usually conducted, covered a wide range, and was intended to reach into the utmost recesses of the objector’s mind. The objector was given a rating psychologically, and any inconsistencies in his testimony were noted, and submitted to the Board upon its visitation."

"A soldier of the civil authority must be taught not to kill men and to refuse to do so if he is commanded. ... If he is unwilling to comply, he must be rejected. A military commander ... must resign or be rejected. If a catechumen or a believer seeks to become a soldier, they must be rejected, for they have despised God."

"The Conference affirms that war as a method of settling international disputes is incompatible with the teaching and example of our Lord Jesus Christ."

"They would choose to die rather than kill someone. Consequently, I am sure if only Jehovah’s Witnesses lived on the earth then wars would not break out anywhere."

"The denomination of Christians calling themselves Seventh-day Adventists, taking the Bible as their rule of faith and practice, are unanimous in their views that its teaching are contrary to the spirit and practice of war; hence, they have ever been conscientiously opposed to bearing arms."

"Do not do what you hate, for all things are plain in the sight of heaven."

"“Religious Training and/or belief: Belief in an external power or ‘being’ or deeply held moral or ethical belief, to which all else is subordinate or upon which all else is ultimately dependent, and which has the power or force to affect moral well-being. The external power or ‘being’ need not be one that has found expression in either religious or societal traditions. However, it should sincerely occupy a place of equal or greater value in the life of its possessor. Deeply held moral or ethical beliefs should be valued with the strength and devotion of traditional religious conviction. The term ‘religious training and/or belief’ may include solely moral or ethical beliefs even though the applicant may not characterize these beliefs as ‘religious’ in the traditional sense, or may expressly characterize them as not religious. The term ‘religious training and/or belief’ does not include a belief that rests solely upon considerations of policy, pragmatism, expediency, or political views.”"

"I assure you very explicitly, that in my opinion the conscientious scruples of all men should be treated with great delicacy . . . it is my wish and desire, that the laws may always be extensively accommodated to them, as a due regard to the protection and essential interests of the nation may justify and permit."

"The courts properly decided that if government says that one religious tradition—Amish, Quaker, or Mennonites—is a valid religious basis for being a conscientious objector, but that some other religion is not a valid religion for being a conscientious objector, that decision constitutes backhandedly an establishment of religion, which the U. S. Constitution prohibits."

"Lutherans and Catholics began to say that they have a right to equal protection before the law for their ethical teachings. They argued: "If a Quaker says, 'I cannot go to any war,' he is doing what his church tells him to do. If a Catholic says, 'I could go to a good war but not a bad one,' he is doing what his Church tells him to do. Why does the government make provision for the Mennonite who follows his church's teaching but not for the Catholic who does?” Logically, that is a valid argument, but it is not valid in American law."

"[T]he nation’s history of military draft laws shows an ongoing effort to find ways to accommodate at least some individuals who object to being forced to kill. That protection has never been complete or absolute. But the overall arc of this history shows a longstanding effort to protect conscientious objectors to military service, with steadily broader protections being introduced over time."

"Many early American state constitutions and conscription statutes contained conscience-protection clauses for at least some religious objectors. These protections varied: many were limited to members of particular religious denominations, and many required objectors to pay a fee considered “equivalent” to personal service in the military. New York, for example, exempted Quakers from having to bear arms based on “[s]cruples of con[s]cience” so long as they gave “the State [s]uch [s]um[s] of money, in lieu of their per[s]onal [s]ervice, as the [s]ame may, in the judgment of the legi[s]lature, be worth.” Pennsylvania likewise required conscientious objectors to pay a tax or fine to support the military effort, which was often called an “equivalent” to military service. Pennsylvania’s protection for objectors was very broad in some respects. For example, Pennsylvania went so far as to even exempt government employees from compiling lists of persons eligible for military service if the employee’s refusal to do so “proceed[ed] from conscientious motives.” Rhode Island provided perhaps the broadest protection for any conscientious objector: Noe person nor persons [within this colony], that is or hereafter shall be persuaded in his, their conscience, or consciences [and by him or them declared], that he nor they cannot nor ought not to trayne, to learned to fight, nor to war, nor kill any person or persons . . . nor shall suffer any punishment, fine, distraint, penalty nor imprisonment. With this language, Rhode Island extended the exemption beyond members of particular religious groups and eliminated even the common requirement of having to pay for an equivalent."

"While many colonial and state governments protected a right of conscientious objection to military service, efforts to expressly include such a provision in the Federal Constitution failed. Early drafts of the Second Amendment stated that “no person religiously scrupulous shall be compelled to bear arms.” While this proposed amendment was approved by the required two-thirds supermajority in the House, the Senate rejected this language, and our current Second Amendment is silent on the issue."

"The development of federal conscientious objector laws began with the Civil War. As the Supreme Court explained in United States v. Seeger, the Federal Militia Act of 1862 left control of conscription primarily to the states. However, pursuant to General Order No. 99, later enacted as the Federal Conscription Act of 1863, the federal government struck “from the conscription list those who were exempted by the States.” The federal system also “established a commutation or substitution system fashioned from earlier state enactments.” This reliance on state conscientious objector laws ended with the Federal Conscription Act of 1863. At that point “the Federal Government occupied the field entirely.” In the 1864 Draft Act, the federal government directly “extended exemptions to those conscientious objectors who were members of religious denominations opposed to the bearing of arms and who were prohibited from doing so by the articles of faith of their denominations.” Additionally, an exemption from combat may not have been an exemption from aiding the war effort entirely. The Draft Act instead provided that bona fide conscientious objectors would “be assigned by the Secretary of War to duty in the hospitals, or to the care of freedman.” An objector could obtain relief from military service altogether only if he agreed to pay the government a fee that would assist wounded soldiers."

"When the federal government instituted a draft again in World War I, the provisions governing conscientious objectors largely tracked the 1864 Draft Act. Yet the law encountered criticism for not accommodating “individual objectors,” that is, those without ties to an organized religion. President Woodrow Wilson accordingly issued an Executive Order that guided the Act’s implementation to apply equally to “other conscientious scruples” along with religious objectors."

"The Selective Service Act allowed an individual to base a conscientious objection on “religious training and belief,” which the Act defined as “an individual’s belief in a relation to a Supreme Being involving duties superior to those arising from any human relation, but does not include essentially political, sociological, or philosophical views or a merely personal moral code.” The Act required that the objector be “conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form.” Over time, the Court interpreted the Selective Service Act of 1940 to broaden the definition of “religious training and belief.” For example, in United States v. Seeger, the Court considered Congress’s choice to “deliberately broaden[]” the scope of objections by allowing individuals to reference a “Supreme Being” rather than “God” as their source of objection in the Selective Service Act. After reviewing the statutory developments under the Act, the Court stated a broad test for conscientious objection, which includes not only religious objections but also moral and ethical objections: A sincere and meaningful belief which occupies in the life of its possessor a place parallel to that filled by the God of those admittedly qualifying for the exemption comes within the statutory definition. This construction avoids imputing to Congress an intent to classify different religious beliefs, exempting some and excluding others, and is in accord with the well-established congressional policy of equal treatment for those whose opposition to service is grounded in their religious tenets. The Seeger Court recognized that the exemption provision needed to “deal[] with the beliefs of different individuals who will articulate them in a multitude of ways,” and focused its test simply on the sincerity of the individual’s conscientious objection. Even this broadened approach to conscientious objection remains focused on individuals who are opposed to participating in any war, as opposed to those who are opposed to participating in a particular war. This leaves certain people who have moral objections to participation in particular wars—for example, someone who subscribes to “just war theory,” which condemns some, but not other, wars—without protection."

"Under current Department of Defense guidelines, a conscientious objector is someone who has “[a] firm, fixed, and sincere objection to participation in war in any form or the bearing of arms, by reason of religious training and/or belief.” The guidelines define “religious training and/or belief” as including not only traditional religious views, but also “solely moral or ethical beliefs even though the applicant may not characterize these beliefs as ‘religious’ in the traditional sense.” The guidelines also allow for two different types of objectors: those for whom non-combatant participation in the military effort is morally permissible and those who have conscience-based objections to any type of support for the military. Objectors “whose convictions are such as to permit military service in a non-combatant status” may be assigned to such service; those who “sincerely object[] to participation in military service of any kind” are eligible for discharge."

"Despite the breadth of the modern conscientious objector regulations, they continue to limit the availability of the exemption to those who selectively object to participation in particular wars. According to the Department of Defense, “An individual who desires to choose the war in which he or she will participate is not a Conscientious Objector under the law. The individual’s objection must be to all wars rather than a specific war.” To date, the Supreme Court has always treated conscientious objector provisions in the military context as matters of legislative grace rather than constitutional entitlement."

"See, e.g., Hamilton v. Regents of the Univ. of Cal., 293 U.S. 245, 264 (1934) (“The conscientious objector is relieved from the obligation to bear arms in obedience to no constitutional provision, express or implied; but because, and only because, it has accorded with the policy of Congress thus to relieve him.”); United States v. Macintosh, 283 U.S. 605, 624 (1931) (rejecting claim of constitutional right to refrain from military service based on the “well-nigh limitless extent of the war powers”), abrogated in part by Girouard v. United States, 328 U.S. 61 (1946). Lower courts have largely, though not completely, followed this trend. See United States v. Burns, 450 F.2d 44, 46 (10th Cir. 1971); United States v. Boardman, 419 F.2d 110, 112 (1st Cir. 1969); United States v. Crouch, 415 F.2d 425, 430 (5th Cir. 1969); Korte v. United States, 260 F.2d 633, 635 (9th Cir. 1958) (“It is well settled that exemption from military service is a matter of legislative grace and not a matter of right.”"

"As Eisenhower delivered his somber address, the foundations of the military-industrial complex were already set and began multiplying and manifesting in different institutions, disciplines, fields of research, and social institutions. The military-industrial complex was but part of a larger revolution bent on remaking American society, Western Europe, and ultimately the entire globe in its own image of power, subjugation, and profit. At the same time, its autonomy congealed within basic paradigms or structures rooted in imperatives of control, domination, efficiency, and profit within various hierarchical systems of rule. In this sense, as Noam Chomsky has described it, the military-industrial complex is "a misnomer . . . There is no military-industrial complex: it’s just the industrial system operating under one or another pretext.""

"These systems, moreover, interrelate and reinforce one another. We can see this, for instance, in how the constellation in which the academic industrial complex does research for the medical industrial complex and Big Pharma, exploiting the nonhuman animal slaves of the animal industrial complex in university, military, and private vivisection laboratories and producing fraudulent research financed by and for pharmaceutical capital. The dubiously researched drugs are patented, typically fast-tracked into market sales by the obliging Food and Drug Administration, and then advertised through the media industrial complex. Up to 115 million animals die worldwide annually to perpetuate this fraud, and the human victims of research-for-profit succumb to the medical industrial complex for costly "disease management" (not "health care") treatment that treats only symptoms to focus on the ultimate objective of profit. The dissent of animal rights activists is criminalized by the security industrial complex, and many are sent off to languish, along with one out of every one hundred adults in the U.S. population incarcerated in the prison industrial complex."

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

"What I mean by saying that war is wrong is not only that it is bad but that it ought not to be waged, that governments ought not to declare and fight wars, societies ought not to provide them with the means by which to do so, and individuals ought not to sanction, support and participate in wars."

"It is not nuclear violence alone that is the threat to mankind. It is the willingness to kill our fellow human beings – the innocent as well as the noninnocent- for political ends. Unless we are willing to redirect our time, energy, and resources away from perfecting the means of mass destruction of whatever sort and into exploring nonviolent alternatives to war itself, our efforts to combat the threat of nuclear war are likely to be of no avail."

"Sending lethal western capabilities to the front lines has been a direct investment in America’s own security in a number of concrete ways."

"When I was bleeding to death in my Black Hawk helicopter after I was shot down, I didn't care if the American troops risking their lives to help save me were gay, straight, transgender, black, white or brown."

"Only when both social and task cohesion were low did people rate overall cohesion as low. The negative effects of too much social bonding were mentioned as well. . . . even those who longed for the “good old days” of high social cohesion admitted that some now-abandoned types of social bonding between men were actually unprofessional and detracted from the work environment. [pp. 58–59] . . . That task cohesion was strong and took precedence over social cohesion was expressed in a number of different ways: . . . “We all have our own thing going but when we need to get together for a goal the ship works together well.” “When an actual casualty occurs everyone joins together for the common good.” . . . “Although we don’t get along we are all ready for a fight.” [p. 60]"

"In the years immediately after World War II, several scholars argued, based on information collected from German and American soldiers, that unit cohesion is essential to military effectiveness. Their conclusions gained considerable influence within the military. As we discuss below, our understanding of the concept of cohesion and its relationship to military performance has evolved in the years since, but the importance of the general concept of cohesion remains widely appreciated in the military."

"In the years immediately after World War II, Marshall (1947), Shils and Janowitz (1948), and Stouffer et al. (1949) argued that social cohesion within the soldier’s primary group is essential to military effectiveness. Shils and Janowitz offered the following (1948, p. 281): It appears that a soldier’s ability to resist is a function of the capacity of his immediate primary group (his squad or section) to avoid social disintegration. When the individual’s immediate group, and its supporting formations, met his basic organic needs, offered him affection and esteem from both officers and comrades, supplied him with a sense of power and adequately regulated his relations with authority, the element of self-concern in battle, which would lead to disruption of the effective functioning of his primary group, was minimized. Nevertheless, it is not clear that social cohesion was the driving force behind combat motivation, even during World War II. Stouffer et al. (1949) reported that when soldiers were asked, “What was most important to you in making you want to keep going and do as well as you could?” only 14 percent cited “solidarity with the group”; the most popular response (cited by 39 percent) was “ending the task.”"

"The post-Vietnam–era military scholars began articulating a view of cohesion that emphasizes the importance of task cohesion. For example, an influential definition of military cohesion was offered by Wm. Darryl Henderson in his 1985 book, Cohesion: The Human Element in Combat. His vision is clearly more in accord with task cohesion than social cohesion: Cohesion exists in a unit when the day-to-day goals of the individual soldier, of the small group with which he identifies, and of unit leaders, are congruent— with each giving his primary loyalty to the group so that it trains and fights as a unit with all members willing to risk death and achieve a common objective. (Henderson, 1985, p. 4)"

"Siebold (2007) describes the “standard model” of cohesion as involving peer (horizontal), leader (vertical), organizational, and institutional bonding, each having an affective component and an instrumental component. He focuses on the role of trust and teamwork, as well as self-interest, in building cohesion: The essence of strong primary group cohesion, which I believe to be generally agreed on, is trust among group members (e.g., to watch each other’s back) together with the capacity for teamwork (e.g., pulling together to get the task or job done). [p. 288] . . . Combat group members try to develop strong bonding as a collective good, at least in part, because it is in their own self-interest for survival to do so. [p. 289] . . . While it is true that a few researchers have focused on intimate personal bonds and informal rituals, I submit that the majority of researchers . . . have used some form or part of the standard model in their approach, especially during the past twenty years, which does not dwell on intimate relations or masculine rituals but rather emphasizes interpersonal trust and teamwork built through many experiences including arduous training and drills. [p. 291] . . . [M]ere friendship or comradeship is not the essence of cohesion. [p. 292]"

"In their interviews with members of the Army, Navy, and Marines regarding the integration of women in units, Harrell and Miller (1997) argue that their respondents seemed to recognize the distinction between task and social cohesion: Only when both social and task cohesion were low did people rate overall cohesion as low. The negative effects of too much social bonding were mentioned as well. . . . even those who longed for the “good old days” of high social cohesion admitted that some now-abandoned types of social bonding between men were actually unprofessional and detracted from the work environment. [pp. 58–59] . . . That task cohesion was strong and took precedence over social cohesion was expressed in a number of different ways: . . . “We all have our own thing going but when we need to get together for a goal the ship works together well.” “When an actual casualty occurs everyone joins together for the common good.” . . . “Although we don’t get along we are all ready for a fight.” [p. 60]"

"In the theater of operations . . . the presence of the enemy, and his capacity to injure and kill, give the dominant emotional tone to the combat outfit. . . . The impersonal threat of injury from the enemy, affecting all alike, produces a high degree of cohesion so that personal attachments throughout the unit become intensified. Friendships are easily made by those who might never have been compatible at home, and are cemented under fire. Out of the mutually shared hardships and dangers are born an altruism and generosity that transcend ordinary individual selfish interests. So sweeping is this trend that the usual prejudices and divergences of background and outlook, which produce social distinction and dissension in civil life, have little meaning to the group in combat. Religious, racial, class, schooling or sectional differences lose their power to divide the men. What effect they have is rather to lend spice to a relationship which is now based principally on the need for mutual aid in the presence of enemy action. Such powerful forces as antisemitism, anticatholicism or differences between Northerners and Southerners are not likely to disturb interpersonal relationships in a combat crew. . . . Their association is not limited to working hours but includes their social activities. . . . The most vital relationship is not the purely social. It is the feeling that the men have for each other as members of combat teams and toward the leaders of those teams, that constitutes the essence of their relationship."

"Elsewhere, Moskos, as cited in Marlowe (1979), referred to this social compact as “instrumental and self-serving.” But a less cynical framing is provided by the growing literature on the importance of “swift trust” in high-stakes settings (Kramer, 1999; Majchrzak, Jarvenpaa, and Hollingshead, 2007; Meyerson, Weick, and Kramer, 1996). Trust that is based on strong interpersonal bonds can take a long time to develop (McAllister, 1995; Webber, 2008). But Meyerson, Weick, and Kramer (1996) note that professional teams often “have a finite life span, form around a shared and relatively clear goal or purpose, and their success depends on a tight and coordinated coupling of activity.” Majchrzak, Jarvenpaa, and Hollingshead (2007) examined various case studies in the development of swift trust among complete strangers in response to natural disasters. Kramer (1999) reviewed evidence for several different ways in which this kind of swift trust develops, including category-based trust (based on knowledge of the other person’s membership in trusted groups), role-based trust (e.g., using high rank as a measure of one’s past experience and performance), and rule-based trust (based on “shared understandings regarding the system of rules regarding appropriate behavior,” p. 579). These mechanisms may work through either task cohesion or social cohesion, depending on the setting. Thus, when people rely on someone’s professional certification (e.g., as a surgeon, engineer, or musician), there may be a rapidly established task cohesion. If, however, one were to rely on credentials from a fraternal organization, the swift trust might rapidly create social cohesion. Similarly, rule-based trust might promote task cohesion in professional settings but social cohesion in social organizations.Of course, these routes are not mutually exclusive; professional conferences organize social outings, and fraternal groups organize charitable works."

"Several recent studies have examined the effects of race, ethnicity, and gender on military cohesion. Siebold and Lindsay (2000) noted that “a central tenet of current personnel policy is that the Army can recruit 17- to 21-year-old men [sic] . . . from different demographic backgrounds, train them, and assign them to groups with leaders, who also have different demographic backgrounds, to form cohesive, motivated, and competent combat units.” They report on an Army Research Institute study of 60 light infantry platoons (955 soldiers) at the U.S. Army Joint Readiness Training Center and NTC. Soldiers completed a detailed questionnaire assessing squad cohesion and related attitudes. The average self-reported cohesion rating was around 3.4 on a 5-point scale (5=high cohesion), with no differences in self-reported cohesion ratings for white, black, Hispanic, and Asian soldiers. The researchers noted that “[t]his pattern of little differentiation based on racial or ethnic (demographic) group membership is typical. The unit’s internal conditions, including leadership quality, appear to be the dominant influences on soldier cohesion and motivation.”"

"Joshi and Roh note that their analysis helps to pinpoint “the specific conditions under which diversity can have beneficial or detrimental effects on performance outcomes” (p. 618)—specifically, sociodemographic diversity is most likely to be deleterious when it is unbalanced (large majority, small minority) in highly task-interdependent teams. But it is important to bear in mind that these negative effects are quite small.14 Thus, Joshi and Roh note that “our findings challenge the assumption, born from social categorization theory, that some aspects of diversity necessarily have detrimental effects on team performance.” Similarly, King, Hebl, and Beal (2009) suggest that “although social categorization theory (the primary model that would apply to cooperative behaviors) would typically suggest that similarity fosters cooperation, there is substantial evidence that this is not always the case.”"

"We believe this because we examined dozens of empirical studies, both published and unpublished, of team cohesion and performance in military units, industrial and sports teams and other groups. We also analyzed the political and organizational process by which African Americans were integrated into the military in the 1940s and 1950s, despite tenacious racial animosities among service personnel and vigorous opposition by military leadership. Further, we investigated how nondiscrimination policies for gays and lesbians are working in practice in U.S. police and fire departments and in Israeli and European military forces. Too often, this evidence is dismissed as irrelevant, without serious consideration or refutation. Indeed, a wealth of evidence, including the military's own research, debunks the claim that gays would irreparably damage "task cohesion." Liking all the members of one's group on an interpersonal level--"social cohesion"--either has no measurable influence on performance or, at very high levels, actually may have a detrimental impact. In short, the military learned long ago that professionalism does not require you to like someone to work effectively with him or her."

"'White soldiers will not shower or sleep in the same barracks as African-Americans. Mixing African-American troops with whites will weaken a unit's cohesion. ' These are arguments that opponents of integration were making 50 years ago," said David M. Smith, spokesman for the Campaign for Military Service, a coalition of gay and civil rights groups battling the Pentagon's ban on gays. "Substitute 'gay' and 'lesbian' and it's the same arguments being heard today. The common denominator is prejudice."

"An official policy statement issued in 1940 by the War Department (predecessor of the Defense Department) said that intermingling the races would "produce situations destructive to morale and detrimental to the preparation for national defense.""

"We may as bootless spend our vain command Upon the enraged soldiers in their spoil As send precepts to the leviathan To come ashore."

"Pirates may make cheap pennyworths of their pillage, And purchase friends, and give to courtesans, Still revelling like lords till all be gone."

"I’ll be so bold to take what they have left. The cry of “Talbot” serves me for a sword; For I have loaden me with many spoils, Using no other weapon but his name."

"Our greedy seamen rummage every hold, Smile on the booty of each wealthier chest; And, as the priests who with their gods make bold, Take what they like, and sacrifice the rest."

"As previous work has pointed out, the nuking of a sufficiently large city would be enough to generate a global-scale nuclear autumn. Take Los Angeles, for example, a city that extends for 500 square miles. The explosion and resulting fires would send an estimated 5.5 million tons of ash and soot into the stratosphere, causing sunlight, temperatures, and rainfall to temporarily decrease around the world. Globally, this would result in diminished growing seasons for the next half-decade, and temperatures would be the lowest in a thousand years. In some parts of the world, rainfall would be down by as much as 80 percent."

"City fighting also places enormous challenges on ground forces. Fighting in urban terrain generally favors the defenders, who can place snipers in windows and hide down narrow alleys. Even with precision munitions, it is difficult to use air and artillery power in a dense urban battle. Much of the fighting falls on the shoulders of the individual soldiers, who have to clear the city block by block."

"A single pipe broken by a high-impact explosive weapon can deprive 100,000 people of water. That same weapon may also destroy the neighbourhood’s sewage system, causing thousands to fall ill and placing further strain on already overstretched hospitals. Local economies collapse and populations flee, leaving fewer doctors and engineers, and no money to pay the salaries of those who remain. The acute pain caused by one attack triggers a ripple effect of long-term suffering that leaves no part of life unscathed."

"The US now has training camps featuring imitation “Arab” urban districts, and has picked up the Israeli practice of entering a dense neighbourhood not via the street, but by crossing through homes – a parallel pathway to the street, running from one interior room to another by carving holes in contiguous walls, and dealing with the inhabitants as they come across them. They have learned, above all, that the city itself has become an obstacle. And while it is true that they can simply bomb a city to pieces – as we’ve seen with the bombing of Aleppo and other cities by Syria’s government and its allies – we have not recently seen the total destruction of the Hiroshima nuclear attack or the fire-bombing of Dresden."

"Urban warfare remains characterized by slow, massive destruction. Yet 50 years ago, there were no computers, no internet, no GPS, no UAVs, no digital communications, no night-vision devices, and no precision strikes. Two facts account for the lack of change in tactics. First, cities are constructed of steel and concrete, with streets providing the open spaces, which are usually linear. Any fighter in the open is quickly cut down. No technology can accurately detect and count humans inside buildings and tunnels. So the attacker must advance by blasting through the sides of buildings and slowly, slowly search every room. Second, tens to hundreds of thousands of civilians can be trapped in the cities. The terrorists in Mosul have prevented the civilians from leaving in order to use them as shields."

"The bugle echoes shrill and sweet, But not of war it sings to-day. The road is rhythmic with the feet ⁠Of men-at-arms who come to pray. The roses blossom white and red ⁠On tombs where weary soldiers lie; Flags wave above the honored dead ⁠And martial music cleaves the sky. Above their wreath-strewn graves we kneel, ⁠They kept the faith and fought the fight. Through flying lead and crimson steel ⁠They plunged for Freedom and the Righteousness. May we, their grateful children, learn ⁠Their strength, who lie beneath this sod, Who went through fire and death to earn ⁠At last the accolade of God.In shining rank on rank arrayed They march, the legions of the Lord; He is their Captain unafraid, The Prince of Peace . . . Who brought a sword."

"If and when America and American freedom are really threatened, I have no doubt that American men and women will rise to the occasion and show the kind of nobility and heroism that was evident in the Revolution and the Civil War. But in the meantime, we need to stop glorifying all these wars that were criminal, or that could have been avoided. Memorial Day should be a day to demand peace, a day to demand an end to a military-industrial complex that claims nearly half of the nation’s general funds, a day to focus on the real threats to American’s “cherished ideals,” most of which are purely domestic, and a day to celebrate what those ideals are: , freedom of speech and assembly, freedom from government intrusion in our lives, the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty by a jury of our peers, and the right to stand up and say that our political leaders are, for the most part, crooks, charlatans and even war criminals."

"Out of the blood of a conflict fraternal, ⁠Out of the dust and the dimness of death, Burst into blossoms of glory eternal ⁠Flowers that sweeten the world with their breath. Flowers of charity, peace, and devotion ⁠Bloom in the hearts that are empty of strife; Love that is boundless and broad as the ocean ⁠Leaps into beauty and fulness of life. So, with the singing of pæans and chorals, ⁠And with the flag flashing high in the sun, Place on the graves of our heroes the laurels ⁠Which their unfaltering valor has won!"

"Memorial Day has the tendency to conjure up old arguments about the Civil War. That’s understandable; it was created to mourn the dead of a war in which the Union was nearly destroyed, when half the country rose up in rebellion in defense of slavery."

"The link between power and gender, as expressed through the gender hierarchy of men/masculinity over women/feminity, becomes especially pronounced in times of war. War fighting and masculinity are both 'symbolically and practically linked'. The masculinity that is promoted and privileged is a militarized masculinity: 'how masculinities and men become militarized, [and] about the ways in which masculinity and the military become linked'. Men, as citizen-warriors, go to war to protect innocent civilians, namely women and children. Women, of course, also matter for the state in times of war as daughters, mothers and wives of soldiers. thereby reinforcing their domestic identity."

"The assumption that it is the men who should be warriors seems to be almost universal through time and across cultures and, while there are examples of women warriors, the overwhelming majority of those who have fought are men. And when rules of war have developed in different societies, women, along with old people, children and, sometimes, priests have been classified as non-combatants. The reasons why men have largely done the fighting and women have not are as much debated as the origins of war itself, and again the explanations range from the biological to the cultural. If gender differences are averaged, men come out higher on the scale of strength and size and possibly aggression, but there are many big strong women who can match and surpass men. The fact that men have more testosterone than women may make them more prone to being aggressive – although scientists are far from reaching a consensus – but there are many men who are gentle by nature and do not want to fight. Militaristic societies such as Sparta or the military through the ages would not have spent so much time on training which inculcates the ‘right’ attitudes if the great majority of men were natural-born killers. Women, when they choose or are obliged to fight, can be as fierce as men."

"Perhaps the existence in different cultures of war-making goddesses – Astarte, Athena, Kali, the Valkyrie – or the legends surrounding warrior queens such as Zenobia of Palmyra is a recognition of women’s potential. It is also a way of limiting it to divine or perhaps unnatural women. From Boudicca, the British queen of the first century ad, who is often portrayed in her war chariot, to the Rani of Jhansi, who led her troops against the British in the Indian Mutiny of 1857, many cultures have stories, some legend and some based on fact, of individual women warriors. Some have fought as women but many disguised themselves as men, including Deborah Sampson, who was in the American War of Independence, and Lizzie Compton and Frances Hook in the American Civil War, who kept reenlisting when their identities were discovered. Just like the women warriors in films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Wonder Woman and Kill Bill, however, they are exceptions, seen as outside the normal order of things where war is the male sphere."

"We have been so consumed with seemingly objective discussions of politics, tactics, weapons, dollars and casualties. This is the language of sterility. [...] We are missing stories of women who are literally keeping life going in the midst of wars. Do you know -- do you know that people fall in love in war and go to school and go to factories and hospitals and get divorced and go dancing and go playing and live life going? And the ones who are keeping that life are women."

"There are two sides of war. There is a side that fights, and there is a side that keeps the schools and the factories and the hospitals open. There is a side that is focused on winning battles, and there is a side that is focused on winning life. There is a side that leads the front-line discussion, and there is a side that leads the back-line discussion. There is a side that thinks that peace is the end of fighting, and there is a side that thinks that peace is the arrival of schools and jobs. There is a side that is led by men, and there is a side that is led by women. And in order for us to understand how do we build lasting peace, we must understand war and peace from both sides. We must have a full picture of what that means."

"They are women who are standing on their feet in spite of their circumstances, not because of it. Think of how the world can be a much better place if, for a change, we have a better equality, we have equality, we have a representation and we understand war, both from the front-line and the back-line discussion."

"We know that conflict is gendered: that men and women have different experiences and play different roles. We also know that although women are often politically, economically and socially marginalised, they still play a significant role in peace and stability."

"The Prophet passed by me at a place called Al-Abwa or Waddan, and was asked whether it was permissible to attack the pagan warriors at night with the probability of exposing their women and children to danger. The Prophet replied, "They (i.e. women and children) are from them (i.e. pagans)." I also heard the Prophet saying, "The institution of Hima is invalid except for Allah and His Apostle.""

"And you degenerate, you ingrate revolts, You bloody Neroes, ripping up the womb Of your dear mother England, blush for shame! For your own ladies and pale-visag’d maids Like Amazons come tripping after drums, Their thimbles into armed gauntlets change, Their needles to lances, and their gentle hearts To fierce and bloody inclination."

"Iran has little capability to project conventional forces across the Gulf beyond firing missiles and sending drones. But if U.S. air and naval forces were ever withdrawn and the Iranians were able to put a large land force on the southern side of the Gulf, that would pose a major challenge..."

"Unlike many who have a finger in the world of national security, I've never found Iran to be strategically threatening. Iran's army is designed to oppress its own population, not march on its neighbors. Its air force hasn't been updated since the fall of the shah in 1979, and the Iranians are running out of jets to fall out of the sky. It's navy…well, it doesn't have a navy. It has a bunch of speedboats."

"Nobody in the White House could claim not to know the horrors that had been visited upon East Pakistan. In a major report in September, the CIA guessed that “some 200,000 or more residents of the area have been killed,” and noted that East Pakistan had experienced “one of the largest and most rapid population transfers in modern times.”"

"Valley Forge, Custer's ranks, San Juan Hill and Patton's tanks, And the Army went rolling along Minutemen, from the start, Always fighting from the heart, And the Army keeps rolling along."

"Those heralding the demise of the tank are premature. The tank – the tracked, armoured and heavily-armed fighting vehicle that has dominated land warfare for a century – is wounded, not dead. Drones are responsible for the wounding, of course. But it’s not a fatal injury."

"When Russia widened its war on Ukraine two years back, tanks led the attack – and led the defense, too. The Russian army that rolled farther into Ukraine included as many as 2,000 tanks including some of the latest T-72 and T-90 models. Each had three crew and a 125-millimeter stabilized main gun and weighed more than 40 tons. Ukrainian tanks, around a thousand of them including locally-made T-64s – also with three crew and a stabilized 125-millimeter gun – met the Russian force and first battled it to a standstill before counterattacking and, over the next nine months, driving the Russians back to the current front line in southern and eastern Ukraine. The fighting was brutal, and it didn’t spare the tanks despite the vehicles’ hundreds of millimeters of steel and composite armor. From the start of the wider war until the culmination of Ukraine’s fall 2022 counteroffensive, when the front line froze around their present positions, the Russians lost around a thousand tanks – and the Ukrainians a couple of hundred. The weapons that killed those tanks were, for the most part, the weapons everyone expected from decades of warfare: mines, artillery, anti-tank missiles and – yes – other tanks. But then, as the war ground on, something changed. Both sides, and the Ukrainians in particular, began weaponizing small drones. The kind you can buy online for a few hundred dollars."

"Ukraine now builds and deploys more than 50,000 single-use drones a month; Russia seemingly builds and deploys slightly fewer. In any event, the tiny robots are wreaking havoc on tanks on both sides. The Russians losses now exceed 2,600 tanks. That’s more than 10 times as many tanks as are in the entire British Army. Ukrainian tank losses exceed 600. The Russians in particular have lost so many tanks that their factories can’t produce enough new tanks to make good their losses; instead, they are pulling thousands of old tanks leftover from the Cold War out of long-term storage and giving them a quick overhaul before shipping them off to the front."

"The drone apocalypse the Russian and Ukrainian tank corps are experiencing might seem to argue for an end to the tank’s 100-year domination of land-war theory. But that argument misses a key point. That point: it’s a fairly straightforward adjustment for engineers to rebalance a tank’s design and add armor to the top at the expense of the front. That should offer reasonably good protection against small drones. Indeed, Swedish engineers did this years ago when they added thick armor to the tops of their Strv 122 tanks, local versions of the German-made Leopard 2, which itself is broadly similar to the M-1. The Swedes were worried about top-down missile attacks, but their solution to that problem fortuitously addressed a future problem, too. The drone problem. Sweden donated 10 Strv 122s to Ukraine, and it’s worth noting that these tanks have survived multiple attacks by Russian drones. To survive in this dangerous new era, tanks need to be more like the Strv 122 and less like the T-72, T-90, M-1 or Leopard 2. With some small tweaks, tanks – with their combination of protection, firepower and speed – can and should continue to play the central role in ground combat that they’ve played since World War I."

"Find the reporter, Trombley. If Little Miss Rolling Stone gets run over by an Iraqi tank, Ray's band won't make the cover."

"We call ourselves the "6th Panzer Army", because we've only got 6 Panzers left."

"Der Motor des Panzers ist ebenso seine Waffe wie die Kanone."

"If the tanks succeed, then victory follows."

"Russia continues to produce T-90M tanks, the best tank in the world — according to Putin anyway – at a slow, steady rate. As soon as these tanks appear on the front, they are spotted by the omnipresent surveillance drones which watch every inch of the front, and targeted."

"Losing a tank track is like having a bicycle chain break. It stops the vehicle from moving, but is fairly easy to repair. If spare track segments are available, the tank crew can replace it in an hour or so. This is impossible when you are under fire, but an armored recovery vehicle can tow the tank back to safety. Russian engineers have the BREM-1M T-90 recovery vehicle for exactly this job — but it has to get there before the demolition drones."

"It is hard to exaggerate just how many tanks the drones are destroying. One exceptional Ukrainian FPV operator was recently decorated for destroying 42 Russian tanks and 82 other armored vehicles over a 5-month period. It would be hard to match these numbers with any other weapon; missiles like Javelin simply are not supplied in large enough quantities. But Ukraine aims to produce 1.5 million drones this year, enough for multiple FPVs not just to attack every tank but every Russian soldier. The Russians aim to produce a similar number."

"Western tanks are not invulnerable either, and both U.S. Abrams and British Challenger 2 tanks have been lost to Russian FPV attacks. The Ukrainians have taken to adding extra layers of reactive armor to their Western tanks, but the Russian experience suggests this will not greatly improve them. The only way for tanks to survive currently is simply not to get within FPV range. Many reports indicate the Russians now have a no-tank zone stretching back six miles from the front line. “The heavy armor no longer comes close to the front,” one soldier told Ukrainian-American freelance journalist David Kirichenko last month. “They move on motorcycles and ATVs [all-terrain vehicles] now. I don’t remember the last time I saw an enemy tank.” Similarly, in April Ukraine reportedly withdrew its Abrams tanks from the front line in April due to the drone threat. There have been very few sightings of Western tanks during the Kursk offensive. The Russians will continue to bolt Mad Max armor to their tanks and send them forward, but at present armored advances are producing heavy casualties rather than gaining ground. The only way to survive is to stay back."

"As explosive drones gain battlefield prominence, even the mighty U.S. Abrams tank is increasingly vulnerable."

"The drone combat in Ukraine that is transforming modern warfare has begun taking a deadly toll on one of the most powerful symbols of American military might — the tank — and threatening to rewrite how it will be used in future conflicts."

"We remember the fields, where our tanks held the line We remember our brothers in arms"

"Whether it storms or snows, Whether the sun smiles upon us, [Whether in] The day's scorching heat, Or the ice-cold of the night, Dusty are the faces, But joyful are our minds, Yes, our minds. Our tank roars there, Along in the storm winds."

"With thundering engines, Quick as lightning, Towards the enemy, Protected in the tank. Ahead of our comrades, In combat we stand alone, We stand alone. So we strike deep Into the enemy's ranks."

"Nations possessing nuclear weapons threaten each other with “Mutually Assured Destruction”, which has the very appropriate acronym MAD. What does this mean? Does it mean that civilians are being protected? Not at all. Instead they are threatened with complete destruction. Civilians here play the role of hostages in the power games of their leaders."

"The threat of mutually assured destruction worked for the United States during the Cold War because it had proved its willingness to drop nuclear bombs on enemy cities at the end of World War II."

"The world of Mutual Assured Destruction did in its mad way maintain the peace between the superpowers, although it came desperately close to failing in a series of errors, false alarms and miscalculations, most spectacularly in 1962 and in 1983. The world was lucky to have survived. Very lucky."

"What never happened, despite universal fears that it might, was a full-scale war involving the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies. The leaders of these countries were probably no less belligerent than those who had resorted to war in the past, but their bellicosity lacked optimism: for the first time in history no one could be sure of winning, or even surviving, a great war. Like the barbed wire along the Hungarian border, war itself-—at least major wars fought between major states—had become a health hazard, and therefore an anachronism. The historical currents that produced this outcome are not difficult to discern. They included memories of casualties and costs in World War II, but these alone would not have ruled out future wars: comparable memories of World War I had failed to do so. J. Robert Oppenheimer hinted at a better explanation when he predicted in 1946 that "if there is another major war, atomic weapons will be used." The man who ran the program that built the bomb had the logic right, but the Cold War inverted it: what happened instead was that because nuclear weapons could be used in any new great power war, no such war took place. By the mid-1950s these lethal devices, together with the means of delivering them almost instantly anywhere, had placed all states at risk. As a consequence, one of the principal reasons for engaging in war in the past—the protection of one's own territory—no longer made sense. At the same time competition for territory, another traditional cause of war, was becoming less profitable than it once had been. What good did it do, in an age of total vulnerability, to acquire spheres of influence, fortified defense lines, and strategic choke-points? It says a lot about the diminishing value of such assets that the Soviet Union, even before it broke up, peacefully relinquished so many of them."

"We simply don't know whether nuclear weapons have been effective as a deterrent...whether they are effective today or can be expected to be so in the future. Nuclear policy has for years been framed in ignorance of the facts most central to its justification."

"The threat to retaliate massively in the event of a nuclear attack is not rationale...contrary to the usual wisdom, we have no good reason to believe that nuclear deterrence has worked in the past, or that if it has, it will continue to do so in the future...even if nuclear deterrence should be one hundred percent effective, it still increases the probability of nuclear war."

"There is only one way safely and legitimately to reduce the cost of national security, and that is to reduce the need for it. And this we're trying to do in negotiations with the Soviet Union. We're not just discussing limits on a further increase of nuclear weapons; we seek, instead, to reduce their number. We seek the total elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth. Now for decades, we and the Soviets have lived under the threat of mutual assured destruction; if either resorted to the use of nuclear weapons, the other could retaliate and destroy the one who had started it. Is there either logic or morality in believing that if one side threatens to kill tens of millions of our people, our only recourse is to threaten killing tens of millions of theirs?"

"The fact is that the two major nuclear powers have not gone to war against each other—because, I believe, nuclear weapons are achieving their purpose as a deterrent that makes the prospect of war too horrific. It is noteworthy that, since the last world war, there have been 140 conventional wars, fought with ordinary weapons, which are themselves horrific, and that nuclear weapons have been a deterrent to war. I therefore believe that we should keep them."

"Blome's admirers at Camp Detrick could not protect him from indictment. Instead they concentrated on securing his acquittal. Blome put up a spirited defense."

"There were some episodes of infection, but they weren't all that bad. In any case, anything that did happen on the post was restricted to the post. Nobody got infected at Camp Detrick and started an epidemic outside in Frederick, Maryland. It was contained on the post. I mention this because all of the horrifying scenarios that have been written by molecular biologists and science fiction writers don't have to happen. Many of these proved methods and techniques of handling organisms and storing them, having access to them, were developed in Camp Detrick. These are still the criteria by which most people in pathogenic microbiology operate."

"Painstakingly, the germ-development program at Fort Detrick had tested prospective germ weapons on nearly a thousand American soldiers, in sealed chambers and the wilds of the Utah desert. Reaching beyond the military, it had exposed prisoners at the Ohio State Penitentiary, where volunteers were carefully monitored. Clandestinely, it also sprayed American cities with mild germs to investigate the likely impact of deadly pathogens."

"Around the corner from Jahrling's office is a room known as the Secure Room, which is always kept locked. Inside it there is a stew phone, a secure fax machine, and several safes with combination locks. Inside the safes are sheets of paper in folders. The sheets contain formulas for biological weapons. Some of the weapons may be Soviet, some possibly may be Iraqi, and a number of the formulas are American and were developed at Fort Detrick in the nineteen sixties, before offensive bioweapons research in the United States was banned."

"In 1940, with Europe into its second great war, the federal government leased the field for use in its Cadet Pilot Training Program. The Army erected the barracks and the large hangar, and poured concrete for an aircraft tie-down ramp, a taxiway, and sidewalks. That was the physical state of the place when on March 9, 1943, the Army Chemical Warfare Service took formal possession of Detrick Field, annexed some of the surrounding farmland for field trials, and renamed it Camp Detrick. Personnel started arriving in April. They were not pilots or even, for the most part, military men. They were civilian biologists whose task was to mass-produce germ weapons. Their first order of business was to fill the British production order for "three kilo dried X.""

"In 1943, the United States began research into the use of biological agents for offensive purposes. This work was started, interestingly enough, in response to a perceived German biological biological warfare (BW) threat as opposed to a Japanese one. The United States conducted this research at Camp Detrick (now Fort Detrick), which was a small National Guard airfield prior to that time, and produced agents at other sites until 1969, when President Nixon stopped all offensive biological and toxin weapon research and production by executive order."

"The United States also condemns Russia’s decision to grant expedited Russian citizenship to Ukrainians living in the Russia-controlled Donbas. Through this highly provocative action, Russia is clearly intensifying its assault on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Mr. President, Donbas is Ukraine, and the people there are Ukrainian—regardless of which language they prefer to speak. Conferring citizenship en masse to the citizens of another state undermines and violates the principle of sovereignty. Russia’s actions subvert the principles on which the Minsk agreements are based: that the Donbas is an integral part of Ukraine and the Ukrainian government must reestablish its control over this territory."

"Russia signed the Minsk agreements in 2014 and 2015, and President Poroshenko and President-elect Zelenskyy have reaffirmed that these agreements are the best vehicle for ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine. It is unacceptable that Russia would take steps to stymie the peace process just four days after Ukraine’s presidential elections. We welcome President-elect Zelenskyy’s expressed commitment to implement the Minsk agreements and redouble efforts to support Ukrainian citizens living in territories controlled by Russia."

"Mr. President, this council was convened today to discuss the implementation of the Minsk Agreements, a goal that we all share, despite Russia’s persistent violations. These agreements, which were negotiated in 2014 and 2015 and signed by Russia, remain the basis for the peace process to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine. This council’s primary responsibility – the very reason for its creation – is the preservation of peace and security. As we meet today, the most immediate threat to peace and security is Russia’s looming aggression against Ukraine."

"The ongoing war in the Donbas region in southeastern Ukraine was supposed to stop when the Minsk agreements were signed in 2014 and 2015 by the members of the Trilateral Contact Group—consisting of Ukraine, Russia, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and representatives of the self-proclaimed republics. Indeed, even heads of state Angela Merkel, François Hollande, and Vladimir Putin gave the final version a high-profile public blessing."

"As we know, peace did not ensue after Minsk. In spite of the agreements, the military operations conducted in eastern Ukraine continued with variable intensity. Ukraine and Russia blamed each other for their non-implementation. Why did the agreements fail? Now that nominal efforts are underway to discuss a possible peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine, it’s important to understand the myriad ways in which the Minsk agreements were inadequate and improbable, so that lessons can be learned from its failures. Perhaps the biggest failure of all was context. As the saying goes, possession is nine-tenths of the law. Indeed, diplomacy can only go so far if one party maintains possession of a territory and the military force to hold it."

"On the other hand, the European authors of this article consider that they have a responsibility concerning the misdeeds of colonialism in Africa. Like Italy, Spain also resorted to a strategy of scorched earth in its colonies, including the use of poison gas."

"He (Sikandar) offered up suitable thanksgivings for his success, and the royal troops spoiled and plundered in all directions, rooting up all the trees of the gardens which shaded Dhulpur to the distance of seven kos."

"They pursued the enemy to the gates and set everything on fire. They burnt down all those gardens and groves. That paradise of idol-worshippers became like hell. The fire-worshippers of Bud were in alarm and flocked round their idols…"

"When the blessed canopy had been fixed about a mile from the gate of Arangal, the tents around the fort were pitched together so closely that the head of a needle could not go between them… Orders were issued that every man should erect behind his own tent a kathgar, that is wooden defence. The trees were cut with axes and felled, notwithstanding their groans; and the Hindus, who worship trees, could not at that time come to the rescue of their idols, so that every cursed tree which was in that capital of idolatry was cut down to the roots…"

"The king seizes the Brahmanas, pollutes their caste and even takes their lives. If a conch-shell is heard to blow in any house, its owner is made to forfeit his wealth, caste and even life. The king plunders the houses of those who wear sacred threads on the shoulder and put scared marks on the forehead, and then binds them. He breaks the temples and uproots tulsi plants… The bathing in Ganga is prohibited and hundreds of scared asvattha and jack trees have been cut down."

"Sikandar on entering the fort, fell down on his knees, and returned thanks to God, and celebrated his victory. The whole army was employed in plundering and the groves which spread shade for seven kos around Bayana were tom up from the roots'... the Sultan ordered the temples and idols to be demolished, and mosques to be constructed. After leaving Mian Makan and Mujahid Khan to protect the fort, he himself moved out on a plundering expedition into the surrounding country, where he butchered many people, took many prisoners, and devoted to utter destruction all the groves and habitations; and after gratifying and honouring himself by this exhibition of holy zeal he returned to his capital Bayana."

"The Emperor, within a short time, reached Udaipur and destroyed the gate of Dehbari, the palaces of Rana and the temples of Udaipur. Apart from it, the trees of his gardens were also destroyed."

"I very much lament for what has happened to the groves in Madhura. The coconut trees have all been cut and in their place are to be seen rows of iron spikes with human skulls dangling at the points."

"Sultãn Muzaffar… started for Îdar. When he arrived in the town of Mahrãsã, he sent armies for destroying Îdar. The Rãjã of Îdar evacuated the fort and took refuge in the mountain of Bîjãnagar. The Sultãn, when he reached Îdar, found there ten Rajpûts ready to lay down their lives. He heaped barbarities on them and killed them. He did not leave even a trace of palaces, temples, gardens and trees…"

"“He started for the conquest of Mandalgadh on 26 Muharram, AH 861 (AD 24 December, 1456) after making full preparation… Reaching there the Sultãn issued orders that ‘trees should be uprooted, houses demolished and no trace should be left of human habitation’… A great victory was achieved on 1 Zilhijjã, AH 861 (AD 20 October, 1457). Sultãn Mahmûd offered thanks to Allãh in all humility. Next day, he entered the fort. He got the temples demolished and their materials used in the construction of a Jãmi‘ Masjid. He appointed there a qãzi, a muftî, a muhtasib, a khatîb and a mu‘zzin and established order in that place…”"

"Halfway down the trail to Hell, In a shady meadow green Are the Souls of all dead Troopers camped, Near a good old-time canteen. And this eternal resting place Is known as Fiddlers’ Green.Marching past, straight through to Hell The Infantry are seen, Accompanied by the Engineers, Artillery and Marines, For none but the shades of Cavalrymen Dismount at Fiddlers’ Green."

"If you want to have a good time, jine the cavalry! Jine the cavalry! Jine the cavalry! If you want to catch the Devil, if you want to have fun, If you want to smell Hell, jine the cavalry!"

"At dawn the drums of war were beat, Proclaiming, “Thus saith Mohtasim, ‘Let all my valiant horsemen meet, And every soldier bring with him A spotted steed.’” So rode they forth, A sight of marvel and of fear; Pied horses prancing fiercely north, Three lakhs—the cup borne in the rear!"

"[T]he cavalry will never be scrapped to make room for the tanks; in the course of time cavalry may be reduced as the supply of horses in this country diminishes. This greatly depends on the life of fox-hunting, for which the class of horse required in the cavalry is used."

"Если хочешь быть красивым, поступи в гусары."

"‘With burnish’d brand and musketoon So gallantly you come, I read you for a bold Dragoon, That lists the tuck of drum.’"

"Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. "Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!" he said: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred."

"There is no freer man alive than a captain of cavalry in command of his own troop."

"A game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books."

"Strange game. The only winning move is not to play."

"The great house is all agleam with bronze. War has bedecked the whole roof with bright helmets, from which hang waving horse-hair plumes to make adornment for the heads of men."

"Then Sohrab with his sword smote Rustum’s helm, Nor clove its steel quite through; but all the crest He shore away, and that proud horsehair plume Never till now defil’d, sunk to the dust."

"They had their heads armed with a Morion, upon which they had hornes graven, or the representations of birds, or some foure footed beast, which was the cause that Caesars ninth Legion consisting of Gaules was called Alouette or Larke, for that on the head peeces of the souldiers of this Legion, there were Larkes graven, or else the crests. Or else it was so named as some thinke, for that the souldiers used Morions made like the crest of a Larke."

"Pitifully—under a great soldier’s helmet, a cricket sings"

"The billmen and pikemen wore salades and morions. Steel caps were made to the shape of the head and sometimes called scull-caps; a woollen cap was worn within."

"His Helmet now, shall make a hive for Bees."

"Grabbing a short capstan bar, he fetched me such a clip on top of my brain-bucket as to drive all my senses clear down into my boots."

"Many a time, but for a sallet, my brainpan had been cleft with a brown bill."

"The very casques That did affright the air at Agincourt."

"Let me harness you a chariot of lapis lazuli and gold, its wheels shall be gold and its horns shall be amber. Driving lions in a team and mules of great size, enter our house amid the sweet scent of cedar!"

"A brave captain is a root, out of which as branches the courage of his soldiers doth spring."

"Who can look for modestie and sobrietie in the souldiers, where the captaine is given to wine, or women, and spendeth his time in riot and excesse?"

"That in the captain's but a choleric word, Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy."

"As many are soldiers that are not captains So many are captains that are not soldiers."

"I take a bold Step, a rakish toss, a smart Cock, and an impudent Air to be the principal ingredients in the Composition of a Captain."

"A captain cannot be too careful of the company the state has committed to his charge. He must pay the greatest attention to the health of his men, their discipline, arms, accoutrements, ammunition, clothes and necessaries.His first object should be, to gain the love of his men, by treating them with every possible kindness and humanity, enquiring into their complaints, and when well founded, seeing them redressed. He should know every man of his company by name and character. He should often visit those who are sick, speak tenderly to them, see that the public provision, whether of medicine or diet, is duly administered, and procure them besides such comforts and conveniencies as are in his power. The attachment that arises from this kind of attention to the sick and wounded, is almost inconceivable; it will moreover be the means of preserving the lives of many valuable men.He must divide his company into four squads, placing each under the particular care of a non-commissioned officers, who is to be answerable for the dress and behavior of the men of his squad. He must be very particular in the daily and weekly inspections of his men, causing all deficiencies to be immediately supplied; and when he discovered any irregularity in the dress or conduct of any soldier, he must not only punish him, but the non-commissioned officer to whose squad he belongs.He must keep a strict eye over the conduct of the non-commissioned officers; oblige them to do their duty with the greatest exactness; and use every possible means to keep up a proper subordination between them and the soldiers: For which reason he must never rudely reprimand them in presence of the men, but at all times treat them with proper respect.He must pay the utmost attention to every thing which contributes to the health of the men, and oblige them to keep themselves and every thing belonging to them in the greatest cleanliness and order. He must never suffer a man who has any infectious disorder to remain in the company, but send him immediately to the hospital, or other place provided for the reception of such patients, to prevent the spreading of the infection. And when any man is sick, or otherwise unfit for duty, or absent, he must see that his arms and accoutrements are properly taken care of, agreeably to the regulations prescribed.He must keep a book, in which must be entered the name and description of every non-commissioned officer and soldier of his company; his trade or occupation; the place of his birth and usual residence; where, when and for what term he enlisted; discharges, furloughs, copies of all returns, and every casualty that happens in the company. He must also keep an account of all arms, accoutrements, ammunition, clothing, necessaries and camp equipage delivered his company, that on inspecting it he may be able to discover any deficiencies.When the company arrive at their quarters after a march, he must not dismiss them till the guards are ordered out, and (if cantoned) the billets distributed, which must be as near together as possible; and he must strictly prohibit his men from vexing the inhabitants, and cause to be punished any that offend in that respect.He must acquaint them with the hours of roll-call and going for provisions, with their alarm post, and the hour of march in the morning.If the company make any stay in a place, he must, previous to their marching, inspect into their condition, examine their knapsacks, and see that they carry nothing but what is allowed, it being a material object to prevent the soldier loading himself with unnecessary baggage."

"[Insert French text]"

"The captain, in the first place, is lord paramount. He stands no watch, comes and goes when he pleases, and is accountable to no one, and must be obeyed in everything."

"The company is the true unit of discipline, and the captain is the company. A good captain makes a good company, and he should have the power to reward as well as punish. The fact that soldiers would naturally like to have a good fellow for their captain is the best reason why he should be appointed by the colonel, or by some superior authority, instead of being elected by the men."

"A loud-mouthed, profane captain who is careless of his personal appearance will have a loud-mouthed, profane, dirty company. Remember what | tell you. Your company will be the reflection of yourself. If you have a rotten company it will be because you are a rotten captain."

"There is no freer man alive than a captain of cavalry in command of his own troop."

"The company commander is a living example to every man in his organization. To be an officer means to set an example for the men. The officer must be his soldier’s incarnation of soldiery, his model. If the German officer is inspired by this mission, the best and deepest qualities of his soul will be awakened; his life’s aim will be fulfilled if he succeeds, through knowledge, demeanor, and conviction, in forcing his troops to follow him. This is the manly purpose for which it is worthwhile to stake life in order to win life."

"The Captain had brushed his project aside in a way that captains have."

"Cook was a captain of the Admiralty When sea-captains had the evil eye, Or should have, what with beating krakens off And casting nativities of ships; Cook was a captain of the powder-days When captains, you might have said, if you had been Fixed by their glittering stare, half-down the side, Or gaping at them up companionways, Were more like warlocks than a humble man— [...]Cook was a captain of the sailing days When sea-captains were kings like this, Not cold executives of company-rules Cracking their boilers for a dividend Or bidding their engineers go wink At bells and telegraphs, so plates would hold Another pound. Those captains drove their ships By their own blood, no laws of schoolbook steam, Till yards were sprung, and masts went overboard— Daemons in periwigs, doling magic out, Who read fair alphabets in stars Where humbler men found but a mess of sparks, Who steered their crews by mysteries And strange, half-dreadful sortilege with books, Used medicines that only gods could know The sense of, but sailors drank In simple faith."

"A Shipman was ther, woning fer by weste: For aught I woot, he was of Dertemouthe. He rood up-on a rouncy, as he couthe, In a gowne of falding to the knee. A daggere hanging on a laas hadde he Aboute his nekke under his arm adoun. The hote somer had maad his hewe al broun; And, certeinly, he was a good felawe. Ful many a draughte of wyn had he y-drawe From Burdeux-ward, whyl that the chapman sleep. Of nyce conscience took he no keep. If that he faught, and hadde the hyer hond, By water he sente hem hoom to every lond. But of his craft to rekene wel his tydes, His stremes and his daungers him bisydes, His herberwe and his mone, his lodemenage, Ther nas noon swich from Hulle to Cartage. Hardy he was, and wys to undertake; With many a tempest hadde his berd been shake. He knew wel alle the havenes, as they were, From Gootlond to the cape of Finistere, And every cryke in Britayne and in Spayne; His barge y-cleped was the Maudelayne."

"Our great captain’s captain."

"Who does i' the wars more than his captain can Becomes his captain's captain."

"The demi-brigades are expressly forbidden to carry with them more women than the laundresses the law provides for. Every woman found with the army and not duly authorized shall be publicly whipped."

"The Field Marshal desires that when the Commanding Officers of regiments of cavalry, battalions of infantry, and troops and companies of artillery, send non-commissioned officers or soldiers to England from the corps under their command respectively, on any occasion whatever, they will take care that such men do not take with them from this country any woman who is not married to the person with whom she may cohabit.The Commanding Officer of any detachment which may be sent to England is to have a certificate specifying the names of the men accompanied by their wives, and the number of women returning to England; and any individual taking a woman over to England is to have a certificate from his Commanding Officer that she is his wife."

"Major, tell my father I died with my face to the enemy."

"Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead! There’s none of these so lonely and poor of old, But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold. These laid the world away; poured out the red Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene, That men call age; and those who would have been, Their sons, they gave, their immortality."

"Went the day well? We died and never knew; But well or ill, England, we died for you."

"When you go home, tell them of us, and say ‘For your to-morrows these gave their to-day.’"

"Yet for my sons I thank ye, gods! ’tis well; Well have they perish’d, for in fight they fell. Who dies in youth and vigour, dies the best, Struck through with wounds, all honest on the breast."

": mors et fugacem persequitur virum nec parcit inbellis iuventae poplitibus timidove tergo."

"Much work for tears in many an English mother, Whose sons lie scattered on the bleeding ground; Many a widow’s husband groveling lies, Coldly embracing the discolor’d earth."

"And, like a troop of jolly huntsmen, come Our lusty English, all with purpled hands, Dyed in the dying slaughter of their foes."

"If the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopp’d off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all, “We died at such a place”; some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of anything, when blood is their argument?"

"Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once."

"Τεθνάμεναι γὰρ καλὸν ἐνὶ προμάχοισι πεσόντα ἄνδρ᾿ ἀγαθὸν περὶ ᾗ πατρίδι μαρνάμενον."

"Slowly and sadly we laid him down, From the field of his fame fresh and gory; We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone, But we left him alone with his glory."

"Others did fortify and rampire their walls, set up little fortresses, bastions, squared ravelins, digged trenches, cleansed countermines, fenced themselves with gabions, contrived platforms, emptied casemates, barricaded the false brays, erected the cavaliers, repaired the counterscarps, plastered the curtains, lengthened ravelins, stopped parapets, morticed barbacans, assured the portcullises, fastened the herses, sarasinesques, and cataracts, placed their sentries, and doubled their patrol."

"Then next, the way to fortify your men; In champion grounds what figure serves you best, For which the quinque-angle form is meet, Because the corners there may fall more flat Whereas the fort may fittest be assail’d, And sharpest where th’ assault is desperate: The ditches must be deep; the counterscarps Narrow and steep; the walls made high and broad; The bulwarks and the rampires large and strong, With cavalieros and thick counterforts, And room within to lodge six thousand men; It must have privy ditches, countermines, And secret issuings to defend the ditch; It must have high argins and cover’d ways To keep the bulwark-fronts from battery, And parapets to hide the musketeers, Casemates to place the great artillery, And store of ordnance, that from every flank May scour the outward curtains of the fort, Dismount the cannon of the adverse part, Murder the foe, and save the walls from breach."

"Hast thou not seen my horsemen charge the foe, Shot through the arms, cut overthwart the hands, Dying their lances with their streaming blood, And yet at night carouse within my tent, Filling their empty veins with airy wine, That, being concocted, turns to crimson blood, And wilt thou shun the field for fear of wounds?"

"At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He conceived persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy. He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage."

"Uxbridge: By God, sir, I've lost my leg! Wellington: By God, sir, so you have!"

"Edmund Burke, the statesman and orator in England, recounts: He [Haidar] became at length so confident of his force, so collected in his might, that he made no secret whatsoever of his dreadful resolution. Having terminated his disputes with every enemy, and every rival, who buried their mutual animosities in their common detestation against the creditors of the Nabob of Arcot, he drew from every quarter whatever a savage ferocity could add to his new rudiments in the arts of destruction; and compounding all the materials of fury, havoc, and desolation, into one black cloud, he hung for a while on the declivities of the mountains. Whilst the authors of all these evils were idly and stupidly gazing on this menacing meteor, which blackened all their horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured down the whole of its contents upon the plains of the Carnatic. Then ensued a scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart conceived, and which no tongue can adequately tell. All the horrors of war before known or heard of, were mercy to that new havoc. A storm of universal fire blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed every temple. The miserable inhabitants flying from their flaming villages, in part were slaughtered; others, without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank, or sacredness of function; fathers torn from children, husbands from wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and amidst the goading spears of drivers, and the trampling of pursuing horses, were swept into captivity, in an unknown and hostile land. Those who were able to evade this tempest, fled to the walled cities. But escaping from fire, sword, and exile, they fell into the jaws of famine."

"Innes Munro, an eyewitness and a captain in the late 73rd or Lord Macleod’s Regiment of Highlanders, records the horrors that this invasion of the Carnatic by Haidar brought in its wake: All the villages blazing on every quarter within view of this garrison, and as many of the inhabitants as could escape with their lives flying towards us in immense droves from all parts of the country, whose cries and lamentations were distinctly heard a full mile off, being closely pursued by those inhuman barbarians, who brandished their bloody swords in triumph as they galloped along . . . aged parents borne . . . upon the bleeding shoulders of their offspring, who were wantonly mutilated; mothers bewailing the loss of their helpless infants that had fallen a sacrifice to the fury of the enemy on the first surprise; and innocent virgins clinging for protection to the arms of their lacerated brothers. This was indeed a melancholy spectacle, which made the deepest impression upon our sympathizing minds, as yet unaccustomed to such scenes of brutality and horror; but which a poor soldier must not only learn to behold, but participate in, with calmness and indifference. Such was the extreme terror of those inoffensive and unhappy people, that they never once slackened their pace until they found themselves immersed in the ditch of Pondmalee."

"Robson mentions the plunder of Hindu temples in Tanjore: Hyder entered the Tanjore country, plundering and burning every village in their way; spreading desolation everywhere; even the Gentoo [Hindu] temples, which hitherto were held sacred by all castes, were plundered of their swamies, or idols, by his people of the Moorish [Muslim] sect. About this time a Gentoo subidar or captain in his service, requested his permission to bear a Gentoo flag, with the figure of the Swamie Annamoontoo [possibly Hanumanta?] on it. On which, Hyder desired to know who this Annamoontoo was; in the course of the subidar’s narration, he said Annamoontoo was born of a man; Hyder then observed his father was certainly the devil, to which the subidar assenting, Hyder ordered a flag to be made, with the figure of a devil evacuating Annamoontoo from behind, which he shrewdly observed, was the only aperture he could escape at; and obliged that subidar’s company to bear it. The same flag was afterwards taken from them by the English, near Negapatam [Nagapattinam]."

"Kirmani proudly recounts the manner in which Tanjore was ravaged by the forces of Tipu: Prince Tippoo with seven thousand horse, four thousand regular and irregular foot and five guns, [marched] towards Tujawur [Tanjore] and Nuthurnuggur [Tiruchirapalli]. With this force, the Prince Tippoo boldly advanced into the country of Tujawur. His soldiers, brave as Roostum, in obedience of his orders, plundered and destroyed the environs of that town, which in population and fertility, may be called equal to Kashmere . . . the habitations and idol temples of that country, which threw shame on the best paintings of China, and resembled the beauties of Paradise, they levelled with the ground, and setting fire to most of the houses, shops and bazaars, they laid waste the whole of the country. They set the country in a blaze, they took the lock or latch, and set fire to the door. By the hoofs of the Islam horse, plains and mountains were rendered indistinguishable. Sacks upon sacks of corn, herd upon herd of cattle, flocks of sheep and goats, with other articles considered worthy the notice of Hydur were sent to him . . . and plundered Seerung [Srirangam?] and Jhumgiri [?], ancient temples, seated between the waters of the Kaveri and Kaverum held in great veneration by the Hindoos, and the gaze and delight of the world . . . the young men, fond of beauty and enjoyment, obtained lovely virgins and slave girls, of the Brahmun caste, and Bayaderes, beautiful as the moon, arrayed with ornaments of gold and jewels, to their hearts desire, and warmed themselves thoroughly in the arms of beauty. Of the whole of the plunder taken, one fourth was returned to the Sirkar.30"