Great War Quotes - Page 2

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

  George Santayana

  Military, War, Philosophical

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• War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Peace, War, Loss

  Letter to John Sinclair, 1798.

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• Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.

  Ronald Reagan

  Love, Peace, War

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• War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

  Bertrand Russell

  Peace, Military, War

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

  James Madison

  Freedom, War, Democracies Have

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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• Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.

  George Washington

  Memorial Day, War, 4th Of July

  George Washington (1810). “Washington's Farewell Address to the People of the United States”, p.17

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• 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 or democracy?

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Peace, War

  Non-Violence in Peace and War (1942) vol. 1, ch. 142

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• Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have.

  Ronald Reagan

  Courage, War, Patriotic

  First Inaugural Address, delivered 20 January 1981

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• 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.

  Ulysses S. Grant

  Art, Peace, Military

  Statement to John Hill Brinton at the start of his Tennessee River Campaign, early 1862. "Personal Memoirs of John H. Brinton, Major and Surgeon U.S.V., 1861-1865". Book by John H. Brinton, p. 239, 1914.

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• The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.

  James Madison

  War, Liberty, Tyranny Founding Fathers

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1852). “The Federalist, on the new constitution, written in 1788, with an appendix, containing the letters of Pacificus and Helvidius on the proclamation of neutrality of 1793, also the original articles of confederation and the constitution of the United States”, p.451

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• The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Peace, Military

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, contin”, p.47

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• Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.

  Thomas Jefferson

  War, Government, Principles

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• When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration?

  Benjamin Franklin

  War, Arbitration, Compromise

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• Statism needs war; a free country does not. Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by producing.

  Ayn Rand

  Country, Peace, War

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.35, Penguin

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• Know the enemy and know yourself.

  Sun Tzu

  Fear, Military, War

  The Art of War ch. 3 (translation by Yuan Shibang)

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• Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter.

  Winston Churchill

  Military, Battle, Demand

  "Great destiny: sixty years of the memorable events in the life of the man of the century recounted in his own incomparable words".

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• We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Inspirational, Money, Peace

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  No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.

  George S. Patton

  Country, Military, War

  Attributed in Patton (motion picture) (1970). This is sometimes said to have been uttered in a speech by Patton to the Sixth Armored Division of the Third Army, 31 May 1944, but documentation is lacking. The following poem appeared in the Bureau of Aeronautics Navy Department News Letter, 1 Jan. 1943: "The greatest duty of a sailor / Is duty from worries and cares, / Not to die for his country, / Make our enemies die for theirs!"

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• We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom. And now, as in no other age, we seek it because we have been warned, by the power of modern weapons, that peace may be the only climate possible for human life itself.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Peace, Freedom, War

  Second Inaugural Address, en.wikisource.org. January 21, 1957.

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• It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

  Albert Einstein

  Peace, War, Killing Someone

  Albert Einstein (2015). “Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations on Just About Everything from the Greatest Mind of the Twentieth Century”, p.56, St. Martin's Press

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• A man who says that no patriot should attack the Boer War until it is over is not worth answering intelligently; he is saying that no good son should warn his mother off a cliff until she has fallen over it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Mother, Peace, War

  "The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton". Vol.I: Non-Fiction,

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• Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

  Thomas Jefferson

  War, Liberty, Alliances

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson”, p.425

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• I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wisdom, Peace, War

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.254, Rowman & Littlefield

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• A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.

  Thomas Jefferson

  War, Men, Spirit

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia II, Correspondence 1782-1786”, p.400, Cosimo, Inc.

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• I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Peace, War, Views

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.372, Penguin

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