War Quotations

It seems that after every few years of peace, war erupts in some part of the world. There are those who find certain wars justified and there are others who believe that war is never acceptable. But all agree that war is highly undesirable and should be avoided. On this page, I have listed twenty of my favorite war quotes. Or should I say anti-war quotes? If you want to recommend some of your favorite War and Anti-War quotations for this page, fill out the quotations suggestion form.

Gregory Clark
Are bombs the only way of setting fire to the spirit of a people? Is the human will as inert as the past two world-wide wars would indicate?

Albert Einstein
A country cannot simultaneously prepare and prevent war.

Benjamin Franklin
Never has there been a good war or a bad peace.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.

Emperor Hirohito
All men are brothers, like the seas throughout the world; So why do winds and waves clash so fiercely everywhere?

Ernest Hemingway
Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.

Gandhi
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 and democracy?

George McGovern
I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
An unjust peace is better than a just war.

Georges Clemenceau
War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men.

General Douglas MacArthur
It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.

William Shakespeare King Henry V
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our English dead! In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility; But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger: Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.

Albert Einstein
So long as there are men there will be wars.

Albert Einstein
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

Winston Churchill
England has been offered a choice between war and shame. She has chosen shame and will get war.

Joseph Heller, Catch 22
"Let someone else get killed!" "Suppose everyone on our side felt that way?" "Well then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?" "Englishmen are dying for England, American's are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can all be worth dying for?" "Anything worth living for," said Nately, "is worth dying for." "And anything worth dying for," answered the old man, "is certainly worth living for."

Kosovar
You know the real meaning of PEACE only if you have been through the war.

Peter Weiss
Once and for all the idea of glorious victories won by the glorious army must be wiped out. Neither side is glorious. On either side they're just frightened men messing their pants and they all want the same thing - not to lie under the earth, but to walk upon it - without crutches.

Plato
Only the dead have seen the end of war.

Ronald Reagan
History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.