war quotes

I love it when Muslims go to war with each other, as I do when the Christians do, because it shows there’s no such thing as the Christian world and the Islamic world. That’s all crap.

The deliberate and deadly attacks which were carried out yesterday against our country were more than acts of terror. They were acts of war.

A war with Pakistan would be an utter disaster.

World War II broke out in 1939, and many people credit that war with saving the economy.

The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.

I don’t think the war in Afghanistan was ruthlessly enough waged.

If there is not the war, you don’t get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don’t get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.

The invasion of Iraq, particularly, gave a big shot in the arm to the jihadi extremists.

With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got.

War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands.

The only defensible war is a war of defense.

A man who says that no patriot should attack the war until it is over… is saying no good son should warn his mother of a cliff until she has fallen.

I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.

How could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?

We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.

If you look back at the history of the twentieth century, Germany alone had practically destroyed Russia several times.

I understand how every healthy child, every new road, puts a country on a better path, but instability and war will arise from time to time, and I’m not an expert on how you get out of those things.

One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society… shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.

If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.

Russia isn’t going to start a war. They can’t afford it. I think Mr. Putin can be dealt with if we stop screaming at him. You can work with the guy. You just have to know who he is.

I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace.

People like to talk about war.

In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one.

War does not determine who is right – only who is left.

Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies – or else? The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

My father belongs to the generation that fought the war in the 1940s. When I was a kid my father told me stories – not so many, but it meant a lot to me. I wanted to know what happened then, to my father’s generation. It’s a kind of inheritance, the memory of it.

We all hoped in 2001 that we could put in place an Afghan government under President Karzai that would be able to control the country, make sure al-Qaeda didn’t come back, and make sure the Taliban wasn’t resurging. It didn’t work out.

Even today we raise our hand against our brother… We have perfected our weapons, our conscience has fallen asleep, and we have sharpened our ideas to justify ourselves as if it were normal we continue to sow destruction, pain, death. Violence and war lead only to death.

I know that war is very cruel and that life is harder when you aren’t able to live in the place you called home.

Something’s very wrong with a nation that would rather spend money on war than take care of its children.

As this long and difficult war ends, I would like to address a few special words to the American people: Your steadfastness in supporting our insistence on peace with honor has made peace with honor possible.

You can think of the entire Internet as a place where ideas embodied in cyberspace are having a war, and it’s not much different than the war of gods in heaven, which has been taking place since there’s been human beings.

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

Every writer has his writing technique – what he can and can’t do to describe something like war or history. I’m not good at writing about those things, but I try because I feel it is necessary to write that kind of thing.

Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.

War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can’t smile, grin. If you can’t grin, keep out of the way till you can.

One of the problems of organizing in the North, in the rich countries, is that people tend to think – even the activists – that instant gratification is required. You constantly hear: ‚Look I went to a demonstration, and we didn’t stop the war so what’s the use of doing it again?‘

Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.

We have practiced diplomacy since the very beginning of the nation. Sometimes it has not worked, and we’ve had to go to war. I always believe you should try to find peace and reconciliation before conflict. That has been the approach I’ve taken.

We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the postive affirmation of peace.

It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.

This is not Johnson’s war. This is America’s war. If I drop dead tomorrow, this war will still be with you.

A lot has happened over the years. And while this nation has been tested by war, and it’s been tested by recession and all manner of challenges – I stand before you again tonight, after almost two terms as your president, to tell you I am more optimistic about the future of America than ever before.

We’ve persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people – a belief that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization. Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it’s time to turn the page.

There is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one side stands more or less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction.

I saw what happened when a dictator was allowed to take over a piece of a country and the country went down the tubes. And I saw the opposite during the war when America joined the fight.

The world knows that America will never start a war. This generation of Americans has had enough of war and hate… we want to build a world of peace where the weak are secure and the strong are just.

When the war of the giants is over the wars of the pygmies will begin.

Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes… can no longer be of concern to great powers alone.

War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.

Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.

I hope my own children never have to fight a war.

Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.

In 1962, war was avoided by Khrushchev’s willingness to accept Kennedy’s hegemonic demands.

In war, you can only be killed once, but in politics, many times.

A number of analysts have observed that although bin Laden was finally killed, he won some major successes in his war against the U.S.

In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.