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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.

The wealthiest Sudanese don't know what war is. Their children are safe in school.

Quotes by Emmanuel Jal

When you have warfare, things happen; people suffer; the noncombatants suffer as well as the combatants. And so it happens in civil war.

Quotes by Emmeline Pankhurst

Not by the forces of civil war can you govern the very weakest woman. You can kill that woman, but she escapes you then; you cannot govern her. No power on earth can govern a human being, however feeble, who...

Quotes by Emmeline Pankhurst

From infancy, I had been accustomed to hear pro and con discussions of slavery and the American Civil War. Although the British government finally decided not to recognise the Confederacy, public opinion in England was sharply divided on the questions...

Quotes by Emmeline Pankhurst

I am not trying to say I'm a genius, but 'Underground' was the strongest attack there has been on Milosevic. It is about a man who locks his friends in a cellar for 40 years and convinces them that the...

Quotes by Emir Kusturica

At a certain moment, Yugoslavia stopped being rational, and then you end up going to war.

Quotes by Emir Kusturica

I will always fight for peace. But, unfortunately, it is war that drives us forward. It is war that makes the major turns. It makes Wall Street function; it makes all the bastards in the Balkans function.

Quotes by Emir Kusturica

What would happen if an angel appeared before the American president and told him there was no more need for war? Everything would collapse.

Quotes by Emir Kusturica

I think soldiers are not just one homogenous group, just like Americans aren't. They all have different feelings about the war.

Quotes by Emily Robison

The question whether the long effort to put an end to war can succeed without another major convulsion challenges not only our minds but our sense of responsibility.

Quotes by Emily Greene Balch

The First World War, and especially the latest one, largely swept away what was left in Europe of feudalism and of feudal landlords, especially in Poland, Hungary, and the South East generally.

Quotes by Emily Greene Balch

If I had been prime minister, I would have offered apologies to the Dutch Jewish community without hesitation. This would refer both to our government's attitude during the Second World War and to the very late postwar discovery that the...

Quotes by Els Borst

I have always lived in Amsterdam. During the war, we inhabited the Rivieren neighborhood where many Jews lived at the time. Our downstairs neighbors were Jews, and there were also Jews a few houses from us. We saw how they...

Quotes by Els Borst

In 'Windtalkers,' the director John Woo is meticulous in melding his own intimate style into the cliches of a large-scale war movie, paying homage to all the tired conventions of the genre. But it's an honor that these cliches don't...

Quotes by Elvis Mitchell

Given the knee-jerk patriotism of recent war movies, it's discouraging to see 'Windtalkers' evade pertinent facts that could have recast the doubled-edged issues of racism and loyalty and made them relevant to contemporary times.

Quotes by Elvis Mitchell

My entire life has really revolved around music that was written about the time that I was born, 1908, to just before the First World War and shortly after it. This music I've always known, and it is that music...

Quotes by Elliott Carter

Since I'm allergic to various things, the army wouldn't accept me during the war, and I got into the Office of War Information, which sent music to Europe.

Quotes by Elliott Carter

Right at the end of the war I wrote a piano sonata, which was written at a time when Sam Barber used to come down here and we used to have lunch together in a very nice old hotel that's...

Quotes by Elliott Carter

We are going to use the truth, and we are going to use it toward the end of winning the war; and we know what would happen to the American people if we lose it.

Quotes by Elmer Davis

It's becoming plainer and plainer that what is going on in South America and in South-Eastern Asia is directly related to the war in Russia, for they are all parts of one single Great World War.

Quotes by Elmer Davis

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.