Logo - Feel The Words

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.

Desert Storm created the pattern for the American way of war that eventually prevailed in Kosovo. America learned from Vietnam that unilateral use of force eventually forfeits international legitimacy and domestic support. Desert Storm demonstrated the political necessity of coalition...

Quotes by Michael Ignatieff

The disagreeable reality for those who believe in human rights is that there are some occasions - and Iraq may be one of them - when war is the only real remedy for regimes that live by terror.

Quotes by Michael Ignatieff

You can use your means in a good and bad way. In German-speaking art, we had such a bad experience with the Third Reich, when stories and images were used to tell lies. After the war, literature was careful not...

Quotes by Michael Haneke

I have to admit that the empty prestige and the stupid glory - yes, the horrible rush, the deadly sense of importance that war brings to life - are hard illusions to shake off. Look at me, a war correspondent.

Quotes by Michael Hastings

Despite failing to get bin Laden, the U.S. government and media portrayed the early Afghanistan war as a great victory.

Quotes by Michael Hastings

The use of drones is rapidly transforming the way we go to war. On the battlefield, a squad leader can receive real-time data from a drone that enables him to view the landscape for miles in every direction, dramatically expanding...

Quotes by Michael Hastings

The idea of aerial military surveillance dates back to the Civil War, when both the Union and the Confederacy used hot-air balloons to spy on the other side, tracking troop movements and helping to direct artillery fire.

Quotes by Michael Hastings

I think when war becomes your life, I think it's very difficult to have the proper perspective to be able to create a fully balanced policy.

Quotes by Michael Hastings

My time in war zones have been fleeting and infrequent. I've been to Iraq. I've been to Afghanistan. I've been to other places where I've collected hazardous duty pay.

Quotes by Michael Hayden

I'm not hugging the Guantanamo location, but our right to hold people under the laws of war as enemy combatants, I think, is unarguable, and we need to stand up for that.

Quotes by Michael Hayden

I have an uncle who was heavily involved in World War 2, so over the years, I've talked to him many times.

Quotes by Michael Giacchino

I feel like I'll be writing World War 2 music the rest of my life.

Quotes by Michael Giacchino

The First World War may have been a uniquely horrific war, but it was also plainly a just war.

Quotes by Michael Gove

Today we are in a war against war - music is our power.

Quotes by Michael Franti

Playing on the streets of Iraq, or in Israel or the Gaza strip, I'd sing angry protest songs against war. People would say, 'Make us clap, make us dance, and laugh and sing.' It really made me think about the...

Quotes by Michael Franti

If today is your typical day in America, 80 of our fellow citizens will die from gunfire. In the last two weeks, more Americans have died from gunfire here at home in the United States than in the entire war...

Quotes by Michael D. Barnes

I grew up on the East Coast and was going to go to an Ivy League School, but at the last minute I decided to be a hippy. It was the protest movements on the war, peace movements were going...

Quotes by Michael Douglas

There's nothing good that comes out of war. It's simply hell on earth, and people survive, and people don't.

Quotes by Michael Cimino

All one has to do is look at old footage of the firebombing of Dresden during World War II and think of the people beneath those bombs. It's horrific.

Quotes by Michael Cimino

Virginia Woolf came along in the early part of the century and essentially said through her writing, yes, big books can be written about the traditional big subjects. There is war. There is the search for God. These are all...

Quotes by Michael Cunningham

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.