America is addicted to wars of distraction.
—Barbara Ehrenreich (1941–2022) American Social Critic, Essayist
I’ll tell you that for me, one when someone used to say something that was true, one way I knew it was true was that I immediately felt defensive. I blocked it off, and I went to war with them in my mind and suffered all that goes with it. And they were only saying what was true.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
Cannons and fire-arms are cruel and damnable machines; I believe them to have been the direct suggestion of the Devil. If Adam had seen in a vision the horrible instruments his children were to invent, he would have died of grief.
—Martin Luther (1483–1546) German Protestant Theologian
There’s only one proper way for a professional soldier to die. That’s from the last bullet, of the last battle, of the last war.
—George S. Patton (1885–1945) American Military Leader
The great armies, accumulated to provide security and preserve the peace, carried the nations to war by their own weight.
—A. J. P. Taylor (1906–90) British Historian, Journalist, Broadcaster
War has always been the grand sagacity of every spirit which has grown too inward and too profound; its curative power lies even in the wounds one receives.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
Unless they are immediate victims, the majority of mankind behaves as if war was an act of God which could not be prevented; or they behave as if war elsewhere was none of their business. It would be a bitter cosmic joke if we destroy ourselves due to atrophy of the imagination.
—Martha Gellhorn (1908–98) American Novelist, Travel Writer, Journalist
When wars do come, they fall upon the many, the producing class, who are the sufferers.
—Ulysses S. Grant (1822–85) American Civil War General, Head of State
No country without an atom bomb could properly consider itself independent.
—Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) French General, Statesman
To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much 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.
—John Stuart Mill (1806–73) English Philosopher, Economist
Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.
—Otto von Bismarck (1815–98) German Chancellor, Prime Minister
I have known war as few men now living know it. It’s very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes.
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) American Military Leader
Pseudo-mysticism seeks to evade reality; authentic mysticism wants to live it.
—Vernon Howard (1918–92) American Author, Philosopher
The focus in the Creator Orientation is on a Vision or an Outcome. You orient your thoughts and actions toward creating what you most deeply want to see or experience in life.
—David Emerald
Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.
—Baruch Spinoza (1632–77) Dutch Philosopher, Theologian
More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars – yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) American Head of State, Lawyer
A book glorifying war may be quite as anti-social, and to my mind quite as obscene, as one glorifying illicit love, but it is never suppressed, and seldom publicly denounced.
—J. B. S. Haldane (1892–1964) British Scientist, Geneticist
It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.
—William Tecumseh Sherman (1820–91) American Military Leader, Businessperson, Educator
Frankly, I’d like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private industry.
—Joseph Heller (1923–99) American Novelist
War is the statesman’s game, the priest’s delight, The lawyer’s jest, the hired assassin’s trade.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Poet, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist
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.
—Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English Nurse
They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
The releasing of attachment to object and certain beliefs was already indelibly written as a very necessary step in my human progress toward being.
—Marlo Morgan (1937–98) American Novelist, Author
The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
—Edward Gibbon (1737–94) English Historian, Politician
In my experience, there’s only one thing that will always steer you toward success: That’s to have a vision and to stick with it… Once I have a vision for a new venture, I’m going to ride that vision until the wheels come off.
—Russell Simmons (b.1957) American Music Promoter
I have a deep sympathy with war, it so apes the gait and bearing of the soul.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
I think it better that in times like these a poet’s mouth be silent, for in truth we have no gift to set a statesman right.
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) Irish Poet, Dramatist
The more prosperous and settled a nation, the more readily it tends to think of war as a regrettable accident; to nations less fortunate the chance of war presents itself as a possible bountiful friend.
—Lewis H. Lapham (1935–2024) American Journalist, Author, Long-time Editor of Harper’s Magazine
The best armor is to keep out of gun shot.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
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