War is organized murder and torture against our brothers.
—Alfred Adler (1870–1937) Austrian Psychiatrist
To call war the soil of courage and virtue is like calling debauchery the soil of love.
—German Proverb
It is a damned sight easier to start wars than to end them. This truth has been stated for as long and as often as it has been ignored. High time and thank God, we are at least moving toward de-escalation in Vietnam. The road to extrication will be long, painful, bitter. But it must be trod. We are so bogged down in Vietnam that we cannot respond effectively anywhere else in the world to a military power play except through atomic bombardment.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
The men are included in the eight million dollars.
—Anatole France (1844–1924) French 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
War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German Novelist, Short Story Writer, Social Critic, Philanthropist, Essayist
War is never a solution; it is an aggravation.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
A warrior balances solitude and dependence.
—Paulo Coelho (b.1947) Brazilian Songwriter, Novelist
Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
—Edward Gibbon (1737–94) English Historian, Politician
I abominate war as unchristian. I hold it to be the greatest of human crimes, and to involve all others—violence, blood, rapine, fraud—everything that can deform the character, alter the nature, and debase the name of man.
—Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778–1868) Scottish Jurist, Politician
War alone brings up to their highest tension all human energies and imposes the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to make it.
—Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Italian Head of State, Politician
One false idea is that anyone can hurt you. Events can ruin your reputation, take your money, mistreat you, revenge itself upon you, deceive, betray, abandon you, but cannot hurt you.
—Vernon Howard (1918–92) American Spiritual Teacher, Philosopher
Force, and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues.
—Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) English Political Philosopher
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
Anyone who isn’t confused doesn’t really understand the situation.
—Edward R. Murrow (1908–65) American Journalist, Radio Personality
They made the fatal decision: they’d chosen always the clear, safe course that leads ever downward into stagnation.
—Frank Herbert (1920–86) American Science Fiction Writer
If it were not for the war, this war would suit me down to the ground.
—Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) British Crime Writer
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
War! that mad game the world so loves to play.
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Irish Satirist
The savage in man is never quite eradicated.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900–44) French Novelist, Aviator
Our modern states are preparing for war without even knowing the future enemy.
—Alfred Adler (1870–1937) Austrian Psychiatrist
Don’t try to be unafraid. That is impossible. Rather, go ahead while being afraid. That is the entire secret for abolishing fear. The Supermind teaches us to have no self-concern at all. Whatever happens to you, act as though it happened to someone else.
—Vernon Howard (1918–92) American Spiritual Teacher, Philosopher
War should be made a crime, and those who instigate it should be punished as criminals.
—Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American Elected Rep, Judge, Politician, Lawyer, Professor
There exists a special self which takes every event as if it were the very thing you wanted to happen. That self is the Supermind, which is never upset by anything. Your goal is to nourish it into greater strength. Then, every step is sunlit.
—Vernon Howard (1918–92) American Spiritual Teacher, Philosopher
The desire to conquer is itself a sort of subjection.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.
—Sun Tzu (fl. c.544–496 BCE) Chinese General, Military Theorist
If the intellectual has any function in society, it is to preserve a cool and unbiased judgment in the face of all solicitations to passion… . During the war, the ordinary virtues, such as thrift, industry, and public spirit, were used to swell the magnitude of the disaster by producing a greater energy in the work of mutual extermination.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
The life of states is like that of men. The latter have the right of killing in self-defence; the former to make wars for their own preservation.
—Montesquieu (1689–1755) French Political Philosopher, Jurist