War

"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!"

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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..."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"Exigui numero, sed bello vivida virtus."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Deos fortioribus adesse."

"A little more grape, Captain Bragg."

"Omnia prius experiri verbis quam armis sapientem decet."

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

"Never run against a war hero."

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

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

"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."

"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!"

"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."

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

"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."

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

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

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

"אין לך מלחמה שנוצחת שאין בה מזרעו של עשו"

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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!"

"Ratio et consilium propriæ ducis artes."