No War Quotes

The phenomenon of war is its hermaphroditism: the principles of victory and of defeat inhabit the same body and the necessary opponent, enemy, is merely the bed they self-exhaust each other on.

A lady who sets her heart upon a lad in uniform must prepare to change lovers pretty quickly, or her life will be but a sad one.

War is always an adventure to those who've never seen it.

In both marriage and war you must cut up the things people say like a cake and eat only what you can stomach.

If there is a war to be fought, we don’t consider cost one of the factors in deciding whether or not to fight.

The love of conflict is most evident when opposing forces join sides to defeat the peacemaker.

Sometime, somewhere, life always comes to a fight, and peace always comes to an end.

Like the bee, we distill poison from honey for our self-defense--what happens to the bee if it uses its sting is well known.

Her father’s shadow looked sadly down at her. “You can never forget what you do in a war, September my love. No one can. You won’t forget your war either.

The parties with the most gain never show up on the battlefield.

Even in war there should be lines you didn't cross.

How much energy they put into harming each other. How little into saving.

Acts of violence-- Whether on a large or a small scale, the bitter paradox: the meaningfulness of death--and the meaninglessness of killing.

The only animal capable of giving man a fair fight is man. Actually, among ourselves, we fight unfairest of all, and the more we practice, the nastier we get.

Girls at war opt for a quieter cruelty than fistfights and drive-by shootings. Girls circumvent the corporeal and go straight for each other's souls. The bleeding is harder to stanch.

Always, it is the poor people who pay. And always, it is the poor people's women who pay the most.

Unfortunately, that still leaves plenty of Americans who don't read much or think much -- who will still be extremely useful in unjust wars. We are sick about that. We did the best we could.

Peace is preferable to war. But it’s not an absolute value, and so we always ask, “What kind of peace?

This is what war does. Right here, in my hands. This is war.

No matter how far from the war we run, it always catches up with us.

Battle for the sake of honor may be a fine thing for bards to sing of, but it is no way to preserve one's homeland

This country was filled with violent children orphaned by war.

Only a battle lost is sadder than a battle won.

Once you have been tortured, you can never belong in this world. There is no place that ever be your home.

It has to be admitted that starving nations never seem to be quite so starving that they cannot afford to have far more expensive armaments than anybody else.

Escape? There is one unwatched way: your eyes. O Beauty! Keep me good that secret gate.

Those of us who are most genuinely repelled by war and violence are also those who are most likely to decide that some things, after all, are worth fighting for.

Though the contradictions of war seem sudden and simultaneous, history stalks before it strikes. Something tolerated soon becomes something good.

He claimed that nearby gun thunder cleared the mind - but most everybody else agreed it made you daft.

Action and blood now get the game. Disdain treads on the peaceful name.

Armed violence and peace cannot coexist. We need to overcome the challenges we face and seek practical solutions. We must replace the culture of war with the culture of peace.

Each day is an opportunity to build the defenses of peace in the minds of people.

...the wrath of God pales beside that of man.

That's something that tends to happen with new technologies generally: The most interesting applications turn up on a battlefield, or in a gallery.

I didn't want to die - not before I'd finished reading The Return of the Native anyhow.

They plot, they plot, sleeping or afoot they never let up.

The sky darkened, the air grew colder, but he didn't mind. It didn't occur to him to move. This was the right place. This was where he had wanted to be.

If you haven't been in a war and are wondering how long it takes to get used to losing everything you think you need or love, I can tell you the answer is no time at all.

To the militant, identity is everything.

They fought the enemy, we fight fat living and self-pity. Shine, o shine, unfalsifying sun, on this sick scene.

Europe is overpopulated, the world will soon be in the same condition, and if the self-reproduction of man is not rationalized... we shall have war.

The war against the war is the only war that shall give you a great honour and a real peace!

The folly of war is that it can have no natural end except in the extinction an entire people.

Wars are the strongest evidence for the claim that man is still a wild animal.

It's a good thing war is so terrible or else we'd get to liking it too much.

The distant rear of an army engaged in battle is not the best place from which to judge correctly what is going on in front.

For how many generations now had his people been turning their backs on things? How long had they sat in their living rooms and watched other people die?

When it comes to world news, attitude is what marks the distinction between justice and vengeance. Justice is pure, but vengeance brings more ruin.

Smoke veils the air like souls in drifting suspension, declining the war's insistence everyone move on.

There is nothing worse than war in the summetime.