War

"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."