Historical Quotes About War
Across the tapestry of history, war threads its grim story. The clash of steel, the thunder of cannons, the echoes of anguished cries – these are the sounds that weave through centuries, reminding us of humanity’s capacity for both savagery and resilience.
- “In war, the truth is so precious that it must be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies.” – Winston Churchill
- “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.” – Winston Churchill
- “Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.” – Herbert Hoover
- “War does not determine who is right, only who is left.” – Bertrand Russell
- “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” – Sun Tzu
- “War is hell.” – William Tecumseh Sherman
- “The most persistent sound which reverberates through men’s history is the beating of war drums.” – Arthur Koestler
- “War is what happens when language fails.” – Margaret Atwood
- “War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good.” – Jimmy Carter
- “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower
- “War is too important to be left to the generals.” – Georges Clemenceau
- “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.” – John Stuart Mill
- “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.” – George S. Patton
- “War does not determine who is right, only who is left.” – Bertrand Russell
- “There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.” – Howard Zinn
- “In war, the moral is to the physical as three is to one.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
- “War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.” – Thomas Mann
- “The first casualty when war comes is truth.” – Hiram W. Johnson
- “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.” – John Stuart Mill