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War Quotes

War, remembered and reckoned with.

This topic pairs literary observation, such as a novelist's take on the social fabric depicted in a sprawling Tolstoy epic, with hard historical fact about the 1962 border conflict between China and India. Readers interested in broader historical context can visit History.

Every country in every war fights for freedom.

Quotes by Henry Williamson

I must return to my old comrades of the Great War - to the brown, the treeless, the flat and grave-set plain of Flanders - to the rolling, heat-miraged downlands of the Somme - for I am dead with them,...

Quotes by Henry Williamson

The bells cease, and the power goes from me, and I descend again to the world of the living; and if in some foolish confiding moment I try to explain why I want to re-live those old days, to tear...

Quotes by Henry Williamson

A peace that depends on fear is nothing but a suppressed war.

Quotes by Henry Van Dyke

No matter how vast, how total, the failure of man here on earth, the work of man will be resumed elsewhere. War leaders talk of resuming operations on this front and that, but man's front embraces the whole universe.

Quotes by Henry Miller

No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.

Quotes by Henry Kissinger

You can't make war in the Middle East without Egypt and you can't make peace without Syria.

Quotes by Henry Kissinger

The Vietnam War required us to emphasize the national interest rather than abstract principles. What President Nixon and I tried to do was unnatural. And that is why we didn't make it.

Quotes by Henry Kissinger

Something is wanting, and something must be done, or we shall be involved in all the horror of failure, and civil war without a prospect of its termination.

Quotes by Henry Knox

As to the war with Japan, the President had already received my memorandum in general as to the possibility of getting a substantial unconditional surrender from Japan which I had written before leaving Washington and which he had approved.

Quotes by Henry L. Stimson

The bomb and the entrance of the Russians into the war will certainly have an effect on hastening the victory.

Quotes by Henry L. Stimson

Journalists are in the same madly rocking boat as diplomats and statesmen. Like them, when the Cold War ended, they looked for a new world order and found a new world disorder. If making and conducting foreign policy in today's...

Quotes by Henry Grunwald

'American Sniper' is a film that erases history, spectacularizes violence, and reduces war and its aftermath to cheap entertainment, with an underexplained referent to the mental problems many vets live with when they return home from the war.

Quotes by Henry Giroux

Domestic terrorism has opened new war zones, operating off the assumption that all Americans are potential terrorists.

Quotes by Henry Giroux

Life is now a war zone, and as such, the number of people considered disposable has grown exponentially, and this includes low income whites, poor minorities, immigrants, the unemployed, the homeless, and a range of people who are viewed as...

Quotes by Henry Giroux

Standing, as I believe the United States stands for humanity and civilization, we should exercise every influence of our great country to put a stop to that war which is now raging in Cuba and give to that island once...

Quotes by Henry Cabot Lodge

The primary, the fundamental, the essential purpose of the United Nations is to keep peace. Everything it does which helps prevent World War III is good. Everything which does not further that goal, either directly or indirectly, is at best...

Quotes by Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.

The fact that the talk may be boring or turgid or uninspiring should not cause us to forget the fact that it is preferable to war.

Quotes by Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.

You have indeed done much since the new century began to give shape and substance to the growing, the insistent desire that war may be banished from the earth.

Quotes by Henry Campbell-Bannerman

Fascism is a worldwide disease. Its greatest threat to the United States will come after the war, either via Latin America or within the United States itself.

Quotes by Henry A. Wallace

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this page reference literature about war?
Yes. One quote reflects on reading novels that portrayed a world with a strong social fabric, noting: "People knew each other in 'War and Peace.'" It's a literary angle on the topic, rather than a historical or personal one. For more big-idea quotes, see Great quotes.
Is there a quote about the 1962 India-China border war?
Yes. One quote states plainly: "China invaded India, and there was a war between India and China in some of the disputed terrain in 1962, and India got hurt by that." It's a direct historical reference within the quote itself. Browse History quotes for more quotes rooted in real events.
Does this collection touch on the aftermath of World War I?
Yes. One quote describes how the end of the First World War had thrown Germany's youth into great turmoil, noting that the reins of power had fallen from the hands of a deeply disillusioned older generation. It's a sober historical observation.
Is there a quote that uses a chess metaphor to describe the war?
Yes - one quote compares the situation for Germany to an end game in chess in which she possessed one castle less than her adversary, adding that the loss of the war was as certain as the loss of an end game under those conditions. It's a vivid, strategic way of describing an outcome that felt inevitable. For more thought-provoking metaphors, see Life quotes.
What kinds of war-related quotes does this page bring together?
A mix of literary reflection, direct historical fact, and vivid metaphor - from a mention of 'War and Peace,' to the 1962 India-China border war, to World War I's aftermath in Germany, to a chess-based description of a war's inevitable loss. For more first-person reflections, see Me quotes.

Two entries look at Germany's condition in the aftermath of its 1918 defeat, one describing the disillusionment of a younger generation and the other comparing the loss to an inevitable endgame in chess. For more reflective lines, see Great or Life.