Selected war quotes

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

2. When I was crossing into Gaza, I was asked at the checkpost whether I was carrying any weapons. I replied: Oh yes, my prayer books.

3. It is the enemy who can truly teach us to practice the virtues of compassion and tolerance.

4. The time has come to educate people, to cease all quarrels in the name of religion, culture, countries, different political or economic systems. Fighting is useless. Suicide.

5. Today we face many problems. Some are created essentially by ourselves based on divisions due to ideology, religion, race, economic status, or other factors. Therefore, the time has come for us to think on a deeper level, on the human level, and from that level we should appreciate and respect the sameness of others as human beings.

6. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

7. Look at The Rock's competition! Look at him! It looks like a big monkey came down here, took a crap, and out came Mankind!

8. Don't let's go to the dogs tonight, For mother will be there.

9. I think that this is the first war in history that on the morrow the victors sued for peace and the vanquished called for unconditional surrender.

10. For the sake of historical truth I must verify that only the Greeks, of all the adversaries who confronted us, fought with bold courage and highest disregard of death.

11. May therefore God give us the strength to continue to do our duty and with this prayer we bow in homage before our dead heroes, before those whom they have left behind in bereavement, and before all the other victims of this war.

12. We can safely make one prophecy: whatever the outcome of this war, the British Empire is at an end. It has been mortally wounded. The future of the British people is to die of hunger and tuberculosis in their cursed island. (4th February 1945)

13. I am quite sure that very few of the so-called Reds in Spain were really Communists. We were badly deceived, for, had I known the real state of affairs, I would never have allowed our aircraft to bombard and destroy a starving population and at the same time re-establish the Spanish clergy in all their horrible privileges. (10th February 1945)

14. I ought to have seized the initiative in 1938 instead of allowing myself to be forced into war in 1939; for war was, in any case, unavoidable. However, you can hardly blame me if the British and the French accepted at Munich every demand I made of them! (14th February 1945)

15. With the defeat of the Reich and pending the emergence of the Asiatic, the African and, perhaps, the South American nationalisms, there will remain in the world only two Great Powers capable of confronting each other-the United States and Soviet Russia. The laws of both history and geography will compel these two Powers to a trial of strength, either military or in the fields of economics and ideology. (2nd April 1945)

16. Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live.

17. I've been accused of every death except the casualty list of the World War.

18. I will stand against those who see terrorism when Americans die, but who see suicide bombers who kill Israelis and believe that that is just part of the negotiating process.

19. Most of the people who get sent to die in wars are young men who've got a lot of energy and would probably rather, in a better world, be putting that energy into copulation rather than going over there and blowing some other young man's guts out.

20. War is a perversion of sex.

21. The myth of unlimited production brings war in its train as inevitably as clouds announce a storm.

22. May the conscience and the common sense of the peoples be awakened, so that we may reach a new stage in the life of nations, where people will look back on war as an incomprehensible aberration of their forefathers!

23. War is possible only if you have a lot of enemies. If all the enemies get together and form one front - if you cut down the number of enemies - there would be no war.

24. Allied air power was the greatest single reason for the German defeat.

25. It would have been easier to fight alone with inadequate forces than to have to accept...responsibility for our ally's lack of fighting qualities and dubious loyalty.

26. The awareness that we are all human beings together has become lost in war and through politics.

27. Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.

28. Here again, there is no tabulation; for us it is left to sacrifice literary charm, and even some accuracy, in order to bring out the one great point. The cause of human sectarianism is not lack of sympathy in thought, but in speech; and this it is our not unambitious design to remedy.

29. I did not decide to become an officer to start a military career. I still wanted to be an agronomist and work in some remote corner of Russia after the war. I could not suppose that my country would change, and I would.

30. Conditions to the north of us, in the Voronezh and Steppe Fronts zone of action, and our offensive on Kharkov demands that we not lose time and we commit all forces so that we can draw off as many divisions as possible from Kharkov. And even if we do not draw them off, at least we will not give Manstein the ability to take any of his units from our part of the front. If we attract one or two German tank divisions - it will be the best contribution to the defeat of the enemy in the south.

31. Holy shadows of the dead, I'm not to blame for your cruel and bitter fate, but the accursed rivalry which brought sister nations and brother people, to fight one another. I do not feel happy for this victory of mine. On the contrary, I would be glad, brothers, if I had all of you standing here next to me, since we are united by the same language, the same blood and the same visions.

32. It is amusing to discover, in the twentieth century, that the quarrels between two lovers, two mathematicians, two nations, two economic systems, usually assumed insoluble in a finite period should exhibit one mechanism, the semantic mechanism of identification - the discovery of which makes universal agreement possible, in mathematics and in life.

33. The tribunal here and your American newspapers talk so much about our sharp Nazi methods, but do you realize that within the past year, since the defeat of Germany, 1 million Germans have been evicted from what was originally German territory and which has now been given to Poland? No League of Nations or other body intervened.

34. The reality is that we are hated not because of our democracy, freedoms, and generous social security system; rather, we are hated because of our involvement in foreign conflicts and quarrels that were never our concern.

35. For us military men, it is impossible to forget.

36. The cardinal doctrine of a fanatic's creed is that his enemies are the enemies of God.

37. Peace, above all things, is to be desired, but blood must sometimes be spilled to obtain it on equable and lasting terms.

38. No one need think that the world can be ruled without blood. The civil sword shall and must be red and bloody.

39. Any president can start a war, and use the chaos of disorder that such a war creates as an indefinite argument for prolonging it. It's a war that keeps on giving. Failure means it's even more necessary to keep failing.

40. We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war.

41. I was a little puzzled by the frenzy that I set off by what I thought was a pretty innocuous statement, which is that I am absolutely committed to ending the war. I'm not trying to dump on you guys, but I'm surprised at how finely calibrated every single word was measured. I wasn't saying anything that I hadn't said before, that I didn't say a year ago, or when I was a U.S. senator. If you look at our position, it's been very consistent. The notion that we have to get out carefully has been a consistent position. ... I think what's happened is that the McCain campaign primed the pump with the press to suggest that somehow we were changing our policy when we hadn't and that just hasn't been the case. I've given no indication of a change in policy ... I think John McCain's going to have a much harder time explaining how he is willing to perpetuate a presence in Iraq for 10, 20, 50 years.

42. Unjustified war and unconstitutional abridgment of individual rights, versus ill-conceived tax and economic policies -- this is the difference between venial and mortal sins. John McCain would continue the Bush administration's commitment to interventionism and constitutional over-reach. Obama promises a humbler engagement with our allies, while promising retaliation against any enemy who dares attack us. ... Based on his embrace of centrist advisers and policies, it seems likely that Obama will turn out to be in the mold of John Kennedy, who was fond of noting that 'a rising tide lifts all boats.' ... Even if my hopes on domestic policy are dashed and Obama reveals himself as an unreconstructed, died in the wool, big government liberal, I'm still voting for him.

43. Last night I was east with them And west within Trying to be for you what you wanna see.

44. There is no help but in defense but I can assure you... the Imperial Government will not succeed in subduing the Mexicans, and its armies will not have a single day of peace... we must stop them, not only for our country but for the respect of the sovereignty of the nations.

45. It is not wise warfare to throw your ammunition to the enemy unless you throw it from the cannon's mouth. But if you can compel the enemy to waste his ammunition by drawing his fire on some thoroughly protected spot; if you can, by annoying and goading and harassing him in all possible ways, drive him to the last resort of stripping bare his tyrannous and invasive purposes and put him in the attitude of a designing villain assailing honest men for purposes of plunder; there is no better strategy.

46. 'We are not going to apologise for any small role we may have played in helping to remove a dictator who made his people suffer for 20 years, carried out horrific acts and didn't care about democracy. He is gone now, and thank God for that.' (May 2003 - speaking of the war in Iraq and the use of Shannon Airport for US military stopovers)

47. High above the lake a bomber flies. From the rowing boats Children look up, women, an old man. From a distance They appear like young starlings, their beaks Wide open for food.

48. We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps; the question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all parties?

49. Most of us are not neutral in feeling, but, as human beings, we have to remember that, if the issues between East and West are to be decided in any manner that can give any possible satisfaction to anybody, whether Communist or anti-Communist, whether Asian or European or American, whether White or Black, then these issues must not be decided by war. We should wish this to be understood, both in the East and in the West.

50. I was taking with me the manuscript of my History of Western Philosophy, and the unfortunate censors had to read every word of it lest it should contain information useful to the enemy. They were, however, at last satisfied that a knowledge of philosophy could be of no use to the Germans, and very politely assured me that they had enjoyed reading my book, which I confess I found hard to believe.

51. People like you always help the far-right, because you like to hurt people, and you like to talk about how bad people are and all their personal failings.

52. [Iraq is] not Vietnam, we have a government that has a support of the majority of the people.

53. This is war, motherfucker, and don't you forget it. It's us versus them, and if you're giving in you're giving up.

54. They don't want to see us unite. All they want us to do is keep on fussing and fighting, they don't want to see us live together. All they want us to do is keep on killing one another.

55. I think that the Jews would like to eat me... I think they've got eating Fischer on their minds. They hate my guts. Or maybe they love my guts.

56. Irreconcilables: he should stay here and conform; he should - not stay here (remembering no time when he was not here, Harley could frame the second idea no more clearly than that). Another point of pain was that 'here' and 'not here' seemed to be not two halves of a homogeneous whole, but two dissonances.

57. Many Franks of the sixteenth generation were killed in the muck of the trenches, he died not once but many times, developing an obsessive dread of war which never left him. By the time the Americans entered the war, he was turning his many thoughts to politics.

58. Events that Queen Victoria would recognize as outrages, frontier skirmishes or minor popular rebellions will be reclassified as 'war.' And so will major atrocities such as biological warfare and surreptitious nuclear explosions.

59. The intellectual-property crisis is going into the trenches right now.

60. They're busily re-thinking a lot of their cherished doctrines. Nothing concentrates the military mind like getting shot at.

61. We indeed see the globe caught up in a 'new kind of world war,' but what kind is it? Veterans of World War One and Two would have to shake their heads at a 'war' where people die in fives, dozens or hundreds rather than millions.

62. Understanding: 'I would like to build bridges to greater understanding and empathy. It is not that I believe there is no evil in the world; for there surely is, and it must be dealt with. I do, however, believe there is an appalling lack of understanding, communication and concession between individuals and groups.'

63. Manners: 'A polite enemy is just as difficult to discredit, as a rude friend is to protect.'

64. Tolerance: 'The best way to win against the intolerable is to tolerate them, for this they have seldom dealt with. Your indulgence may soften their malice and open their eyes to more honorable ways.'

65. Pour tromper un rival l'artifice est permis; on peut tout employer contres ses ennemis.

66. We have a war going on - I have family in that war - yet we're talking about steroids. ... If everybody in the world got on steroids, we'll still lose more kids to a war than we will from steroids.

67. 'Lawsuit mania'...a continual craving to go to law against others, while considering themselves the injured party.

68. How can you capture the sympathies of the audience unless you have a small man, fighting against a bigger one?

69. And you'd find your father rather a tough customer in argeyment, Joe, if anybody was to try and tackle him.

70. Throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people we most despise.

71. The only real progress to abiding peace is found in the friendly disposition of peoples and ... facilities for maintaining peace are useful only to the extent that this friendly disposition exists and finds expression. War is not only possible, but probable, where mistrust and hatred and desire for revenge are the dominant motives. Our first duty is at home with our own opinion, by education and unceasing effort to bring to naught the mischievous exhortation of chauvinists; our next is to aid in every practicable way in promoting a better feeling among peoples, the healing of wounds, and the just settlement of differences.

72. I was working at cleaning up my house, something that Nixon should've been doing. He should have been on the road picking up his children, but he wasn't. He was in the White House, sending them off to war...

73. But I know this: that in your hearts and your own souls, you are as much responsible for the Vietnam war as I am for killing these people.

74. I'm not gonna tell people what they should and shouldn't take...unless they get too high and step on my toes - then I'll punch them in the face and they'll learn that way.

75. We have to be clear that we don't know what's going on in Iraq.

76. They ('Islamo-fascists') gave us no peace and we shouldn't give them any. We can't live on the same planet as them and I'm glad because I don't want to. I don't want to breathe the same air as these psychopaths and murderers and rapists and torturers and child abusers. It's them or me. I'm very happy about this because I know it will be them. It's a duty and a responsibility to defeat them. But it's also a pleasure. I don't regard it as a grim task at all.

77. 'Peace through Strength,' surely history's most exploded nostrum.

78. If you're actually certain that you're hitting only a concentration of enemy troops... then it's pretty good because those steel pellets will go straight through somebody and out the other side and through somebody else. And if they're bearing a Koran over their heart, it'll go straight through that, too. So they won't be able to say, 'Ah, I was bearing a Koran over my heart and guess what, the missile stopped halfway through.' No way, 'cause it'll go straight through that as well. They'll be dead, in other words.

79. The best case scenario is a rapid attack by precision-guided weapons, striking Saddam's communications in the first hours and preventing his deranged orders from being obeyed. Then a massive landing will bring food, medicine and laptop computers to a surging crowd of thankful and relieved Iraqis and Kurds. This could, in theory, all happen.

80. I don't think that the figure 2000 is an important milestone, in the first place. And in the second place, I don't think that this can be determined by public opinion. The righteousness of the war was not demonstrated by public support for it in the beginning, nor its wisdom altered by the evident decline in public support for it. I don't pay attention to the opinion polls, or indeed to the casualty figures, because I know that this is an inevitable war, a war that was going to have to happen - and was, in my opinion, both just and necessary.

81. Interviewer: It seems to be acknowledged that there're more people out there supporting the aims of Al-Qaeda and groups like them, and are willing to die, as a result of this war, than perhaps there were previously? Hitchens: Well, you could as easily say that the number of people who used to be based in Afghanistan, have, as a result of the intervention there, relocated themselves and spread the virus in that way. Both of these arguments lead to only one terminus, which is: we should surrender to jihadism, and not try to oppose it, in case we make them upset.

82. It [the Iraq war] was not for the sake of oil. [9]

83. The regular media caricature of Iraqi society is not even a parody. It is very common indeed to find mixed and intermarried families, and these loyalties and allegiances outweigh anything that can be mustered by a Jordanian jailbird who has bet everything on trying to ignite a sectarian war. Second, it means in the not very long run that the so-called insurgency can be politically isolated and militarily defeated. It already operates within a minority of a minority and is largely directed by unpopular outsiders.

84. If there is a sectarian war in Iraq today, or perhaps several sectarian wars, we have to understand that this was latent in the country, and in the state, and in the society all along. It was not the only possible outcome, because it had to be willed and organized, but it was certainly high on the list of probabilities.

85. I mean, for me, it's enough to be at war. The crucial thing is to be at war. [13]

86. And if I didn't know better, I'd say they [the U.S. marines] were doing God's work. Let them fear us. That's the thing -- let them fear us. [14]

87. I'm too old to shoulder a rifle in any meaningful sense myself. [15]

88. To be involved in this [the Iraq War], frankly, just makes me happy. [16]

89. A couple of months after the invasion of Iraq, I was in Los Angeles and some drunk accosted me, saying, 'George Bush was right about everything he said about Iraq!' - weapons of mass destruction, the al-Qaeda connection and more. It was Christopher Hitchens, 'debating' me, and furious. His confusing our President's assertions with reality was a verbal pie he threw in the air and caught on his face.

90. If I fear anything, I fear the atmosphere of the war, the power which it gives to all the things I hate - the newspapers, the politicians, the puritans, the scoutmasters, the middle-aged merciless spinsters. I fear the way I might behave, if I were exposed to this atmosphere. I shrink from the duty of opposition. I am afraid I should be reduced to a chattering enraged monkey, screaming back hate at their hate.

91. If she tries to blackmail me, I'll throw her out a higher window.

92. You're not a tease, are you? 'Cause I'll cut your face.

93. :You got me in a vendetta kinda mood. You tell the angels in heaven you've never seen an evil so singularly personified as you did in the face of the man who killed you.

94. You're talkin' to my guy all wrong. It's the wrong tone. You do it again, I'll stab you in the face with a soldering iron.

95. Go ahead, make my day. (from Sudden Impact)

96. Your mouthwash ain't makin it!

97. I been pumping pussy since Christ was a corporal. I can tell you, the best damned poontang I ever paid for was in Da Nang. The girls were checked out daily. And we got ourself laid in a safe, orderly, proficient, military manner. That is until some suckhead writes home mama and says he dipped his wick in the Republic of South Vietnam. Then the shit hits the fan. A committee of congressmen, who asshole to asshole who couldn't make a beer fart in a whirlwind, start telling your basic-ass-in-the-grass, Marine 'No more shore time'. We responded in true Marine Corps fashion. We salute, do an about face, double time back to the boom-boom garbage dump where we get the clap, and the drip, and the crabs and a generally poor attitude towards the female of the species. War is hell, boy. That's a fact! (as Gunnery Sgt. Tom 'Gunny' Highway in 'Heartbreak Ridge' - 1986)

98. Well, he should have armed himself if he's going to decorate his saloon with my friend. (as William 'Bill' Munny in 'Unforgiven' - 1992)

99. You see, this war came to us, not the other way around.

100. And so the administration, I think, has said to the American people that it is a generational commitment to Iraq.