War

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

"[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."

"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."

"Nervi belli pecunia infinita."

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

"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."

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

"Pro aris et focis."

"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!"

"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."

"Silent leges inter arma."

"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."

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

"'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!"

"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."

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

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

"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."

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

"[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."

"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."

"Silent enim leges inter arma."

"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.""

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

"'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.'"

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

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

"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."

"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."

"Politics is the domestication of war."

"The Campbells are comin'."

"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."

"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."

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

"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?"

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

"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."

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

"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."

"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."