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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.

If the North Korean Communists provoke another war, we must immediately deter it and give them a decisive counterattack at the initial place of aggression.

Quotes by Park Chung-hee

Since the end of the Cold War, metropolitan elites everywhere have identified progress and modernity with the cornucopia of global capitalism, the consolidation of liberal democratic regimes and the secular ethic of consumerism.

Quotes by Pankaj Mishra

The Sino-Indian War in 1962 has fundamentally shaped and distorted Indian attitudes towards China. It also obscured a great deal of what has happened in China since 1962.

Quotes by Pankaj Mishra

Force-backed humanitarianism, which relies on rational influence over events in other countries, may have been a more feasible project in the bipolar era of the Cold War, with its relatively defined and stable web of alliances and proxies.

Quotes by Pankaj Mishra

The Korean War, which China entered on the side of North Korea, fixed Mao's image in the United States as another unappeasable Communist.

Quotes by Pankaj Mishra

In a democratic age, you can't buck demography - except through civil war.

Quotes by Pankaj Mishra

So much of western self-perception and intellectual worldview has been shaped by the moral rhetoric of the Cold War, the discourse in which communism featured as a clear enemy, determined to rule the world.

Quotes by Pankaj Mishra

I'm really interested in how conflicts arise and how they reach points of no return. I'm no pacifist. Sometimes force is necessary. But war is a choice.

Quotes by Paolo Bacigalupi

I am at war... with the principal personage of traditional philosophy, that abstract subject who masquerades as everyone and anyone, but is really a male subject in disguise.

Quotes by Pam Gems

I hated the bangs in the war: I always felt a silent war would be more tolerable.

Quotes by Pamela Hansford Johnson

Tell the lie over and over and over. It's an art that Trump understands well. There's no better evidence than his absolutely false claim that he opposed the Iraq War in 2002.

Quotes by Pamela Meyer

I am here because I think it was a terrible sin of the west to allow those years of war.

Quotes by Paddy Ashdown

We have invented a new human right here - the right to return home after a war.

Quotes by Paddy Ashdown

We who came here saw what was happening. This was far more than a war in a faraway place. This was a moral imperative, a terrible vision of the future.

Quotes by Paddy Ashdown

It was a superb agreement to end a war, but a very bad agreement to make a state. From now on, we have to part company with Dayton and try to build a modern democratic state, for which I have...

Quotes by Paddy Ashdown

It's always the generals with the bloodiest records who are the first to shout what a hell it is. And it's always the war widows who lead the Memorial Day parades.

Quotes by Paddy Chayefsky

I believe that political correctness can be a form of linguistic fascism, and it sends shivers down the spine of my generation who went to war against fascism.

Quotes by P. D. James

I tried to use words that were dealing with the emotional quality that any human being could recognize in the way that they felt about their country. It's to do with the world we live in. That world is a...

Quotes by P. J. Harvey

After the rise of Thatcherism, the smashing of the trade unions, and the post-cold war sense that any alternative to free-market capitalism was permanently discredited, you can see why the wealthy felt drunk on the sense of eternal victory.

Quotes by Owen Jones

Although economic grievances were critical in delivering the referendum result, Brexit has fomented an all-out culture war.

Quotes by Owen Jones

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.