Famous Quotables against war.

InfiniteNature · Post by **InfiniteNature** » Wed Mar 05, 2003 3:40 pm

Here be the famous against war, look on them and perish behind thy puny magnificence, seriously check out some antiwar quotes, surprisingly applicable for today as well.

What vast additions to the conveniences and comforts of living might mankind have acquired, if the money spent in wars had been employed in works of public utility; what an extension of agriculture even to the tops of our mountains; what rivers rendered navigable, or joined by canals; what bridges, aqueducts, new roads, and other public works, edifices, and improvements . . . might not have been obtained by spending those millions in doing good, which in the last war have been spent in doing mischief. (Benjamin Franklin [1706-90], U.S. statesman, writer. Letter, 27 July 1783, to Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society, after the American War of Independence [published in Complete Works, vol. 8, ed. by John Bigelow, 1987-88]).

The cannon thunders . . . limbs fly in all directions . . . one can hear the groans of victims and the howling of those performing the sacrifice . . . it's Humanity in search of happiness. (Charles Baudelaire [1821-67], French poet. Appendix to Prose Poems, Plans and Notes: For Civil War).

What the horrors of war are, no one can imagine. They are not wounds and blood and fever, spotted and low, or dysentery, chronic and acute, cold and heat and famine. They are intoxication, drunken brutality, demoralisation and disorder on the part of the inferior . . . jealousies, meanness, indifference, selfish brutality on the part of the superior. (Florence Nightingale [1820-1910], English nurse. Letter, 5 May 1855, to her family [published in Forever Yours, Florence Nightingale: Selected Letters, ch. 2, 1989], written while nursing on the shores of the Black Sea).

Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war. (Otto Von Bismark [1815-98], Prussian statesman. Speech, Aug. 1867, Berlin).

Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief ... for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen. (Mark Twain [1835-1910], U.S. author. The aged stranger, claiming to be God's messenger verbalising a congregation's unspoken prayer, in 'The War Prayer' [dictated 1905; published in Complete Essays of Mark Twain, ed. by Charles

What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war. Petrol is more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict. (Simone Weil, b. 1909, French philosopher, mystic. 'The Power of Words,' in Nouveaux Cahiers [I and 15 April 1937; repr. in Selected Essays, ed. by Richard Rees, 1962]).

don't believe that the big men, the politicians and the capitalists alone are guilty of the war. Oh, no, the little man is just as keen, otherwise the people of the world would have risen in revolt long ago! There is an urge and rage in people to destroy, to kill, to murder, and until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change, wars will be waged, everything that has been built up, cultivated and grown, will be destroyed and disfigured, after which mankind will have to begin all over again. (Anne Frank [1929-45], Dutch-Jewish refugee, diarist. The Diary of a Young Girl [1947; tr. 1952], entry for 3 May 1944).

In the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence, and famine. (George Bernard Shaw [1856 - 1950], Anglo-lrish playwright, critic. The Devil, in Man and Superman, act 3.)

Those who dare to interpret God's will must never claim Him as an asset for one nation or group rather than another. War springs from the love and loyalty which should be offered to God being applied to some God substitute, one of the most dangerous being nationalism. (Robert Runcie, b. 1921, British ecclesiastic, Archbishop of Canterbury. Sermon, 26 July 1982, at the Falkland Islands Thanksgiving Service, St. Paul's Cathedral, London).

A 'just war' is hospitable to every self-deception on the part of those waging it, none more than the certainty of virtue, under whose shelter every abomination can be committed with a clear conscience. (Alexander ****burn, b. 1941, Anglo-Irish journalist. New Statesman and Society, London, 8 Feb. 1991).

RandomThug · Post by **RandomThug** » Wed Mar 05, 2003 3:57 pm

When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.
--Sir Winston Churchill

So long as there are men there will be wars
--Albert Einstein

The ancient Roman expression "if you want peace prepare for war" is from "Epitoma Rei Militaris," by Vegetius.

The purpose of all war is ultimately peace.
--Saint Augustine

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
--Patrick Henry March 23,1775

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. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
--John Stuart Mill

... going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion. You just leave a lot of useless noisy baggage behind.
--Jed Babbin, former deputy undersecretary of defense in the first Bush administration

Fighting terrorism is like being a goalkeeper. You can make a hundred brilliant saves but the only shot that people remember is the one that gets past you.
--Paul Wilkinson

When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.
--Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970) American Musician, Guitarist, Singer, Songwriter

I love quotes on war...

Gruntboy · Post by **Gruntboy** » Wed Mar 05, 2003 4:17 pm

Quotes schmotes. Its so easy to be snide and witty when you don't have to slop around in the mud yourself. I didn't think there was such a thing as a "pro" war quote anyway, goes without saying. Ho hum.

"Only the dead have seen the end of war" - Plato

RandomThug · Post by **RandomThug** » Wed Mar 05, 2003 4:23 pm

that plato one used to be my favorite and yes its easy to be witty when stealing.

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. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
--John Stuart Mill

I really like this one now too.

Anyhow I'll end with pattons.

The object of war is not to
die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his

Gruntboy · Post by **Gruntboy** » Wed Mar 05, 2003 4:25 pm

My favourite from the movie "Hot Shots part deux"

"War! Its fantastic!"

fable · Post by **fable** » Wed Mar 05, 2003 4:34 pm

Originally posted by Gruntboy
Quotes schmotes. Its so easy to be snide and witty when you don't have to slop around in the mud yourself. I didn't think there was such a thing as a "pro" war quote anyway, goes without saying.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori: "It is sweet and proper to die for one's country." --Horace

Baldursgate Fan · Post by **Baldursgate Fan** » Wed Mar 05, 2003 7:34 pm

Ghandi

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

Tamerlane · Post by **Tamerlane** » Wed Mar 05, 2003 7:47 pm

Originally posted by fable
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori: "It is sweet and proper to die for one's country." --Horace

As tempted as I am to post the entire poem by Wilfred Owen, I'll just extend on your bit.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

fable · Post by **fable** » Wed Mar 05, 2003 8:05 pm

I always liked that poem's imagery and earnestness. You do know that Owen ironically died fighting in WWI? Seven days before Armistice was declared. What a waste, but I suppose the same could be said of every life lost in such a conflict.

Tamerlane · Post by **Tamerlane** » Wed Mar 05, 2003 8:09 pm

Yeah its ironic, that the most critical advocate of peace back then, died just nine days short of Armistice in battle.

VoodooDali · Post by **VoodooDali** » Wed Mar 05, 2003 8:46 pm

Quotes on War from General Dwight D. Eisenhower:

When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing.

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.

The only way to win World War III is to prevent it.

Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. -- Farewell Address, Jan. 17, 1961

Henry Ford said, 'Do you want to know the cause of war?
It is capitalism, greed, the dirty hunger for dollars. Take away the
capitalist and you will sweep war from the earth.

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

There is no victory at bargain basement prices.

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.--To Prime Minister Macmillan on radio - TV broadcast in London, August 31, 1959

We are in the era of the thermonuclear bomb that can obliterate cities and can be delivered across continents. With such weapons, war has become, not just tragic, but preposterous.--Republican National Convention, August 23, 1956

"The way chosen by the United States was plainly marked by a few clear precepts, which govern its conduct in world affairs.
First: no people on earth can be held, as a people, to be an enemy, for all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and justice.
Second: no nation's security and well-being can be lastingly achieved in isolation but only in effective cooperation with fellow-nations.
Third: any nation's right to a form of government and an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable.
Fourth: any nation's attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.
And fifth: a nation's hope of lasting peace cannot be firmly based upon any race in armaments but rather upon just relations and honest understanding with all other nations.

In the light of these principles the citizens of the United States defined the way they proposed to follow, through the aftermath of war, toward true peace. This way was faithful to the spirit that inspired the United Nations: to prohibit strife, to relieve tensions, to banish fears. This way was to control and to reduce armaments. This way was to allow all nations to devote their energies and resources to the great and good tasks of healing the war's wounds, of clothing and feeding and housing the needy, of perfecting a just political life, of enjoying the fruits of their own free toil.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities, two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron." --From the Chance for Peace address delivered before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953. (Regarded as one of the finest speeches of Eisenhower's presidency.)

One of my major regrets is that as we left the White House I had to admit to little success in making progress in global disarmament or in reducing the bitterness of the East-West struggle. . . . But though, in this, I suffered my greatest disappointment, it has not destroyed my faith that in the next generation, the next century, the next millennium these things will come to pass.

fable · Post by **fable** » Wed Mar 05, 2003 8:55 pm

"Sooner or later every war of trade becomes a war of blood." -Eugene Debs, speech, 1918

"Is there any man here or any woman--let me say, is there any child--who does not know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry?" -Woodrow Wilson, speech, 1919

"The only war I ever approved of was the Trojan War; it was fought over a woman, and the men knew what they were fighting for." -William Lyon Phelps, sermon, 1933

G'Argst · Post by **G'Argst** » Wed Mar 05, 2003 9:07 pm

VoodooDali

Another individual that recognizes Eisenhower! Great! If I may digress somewhat...

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presi ... wer001.htm

My favorite anti-war dissertation of his....

Bloodmist · Post by **Bloodmist** » Thu Mar 06, 2003 5:13 am

My favorite quote on war:

War is not nice.
--Barbara Bush

Gruntboy · Post by **Gruntboy** » Thu Mar 06, 2003 3:45 pm

Geeze fable, don't think I've ever read that one.

Rob-hin · Post by **Rob-hin** » Thu Mar 06, 2003 3:51 pm

Make love, not war

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu Mar 06, 2003 5:46 pm

Originally posted by Gruntboy
Geeze fable, don't think I've ever read that one.

Well, you did provoke it, Mr. There's-no-such-thing-as-a-pro-war-quote. And how many people besides you and me actually knew of it here before I posted it? They're a fine group, but very few of 'em drank Horace under the table.

That said, I could slip you a few pro-war quotes, for a suitable remuneration. Here are a couple on credit, that I've found over the years:

"Eternal peace is a dream, and not even a beautiful one. War is a part of God's world order. In it are developed the noblest virtues of man: courage and abnegation, dutifulness and self-sacrifice. Without war the world would sink into materialism." -Helmuth von Moltke, letter, 1880

"I understand well the respect of manking for war, because war breaks up the Chinese stagnation of society, and demonstrates the personal merits of all men." -RW Emerson, 1841

...But of course, I really must post a couple of anti-war quotes as well, just to be on the right side of this thread:

"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it." -WT Sherman, letter, 1864

"War makes the victor stupid and the vanquished vengeful." -FW Nietzsche, 1878

Gruntboy · Post by **Gruntboy** » Fri Mar 07, 2003 2:29 pm

Eh?!

But the quote is so... loaded... its not pro-war?! Anyone who professes to "celebrate" war sounds stupid.

I thought you were commenting on Owen's viewpoint from having been in the war (as per my "mud" statement), not Horace! LOL

Of course, Owen was being suitably ironic.

fable · Post by **fable** » Fri Mar 07, 2003 4:00 pm

Originally posted by Gruntboy
I thought you were commenting on Owen's viewpoint from having been in the war (as per my "mud" statement), not Horace! LOL

See that? You're so sure of a rough reception that you even spit on the kalashnikov offered in friendship. Sad, indeed. See if I offer you many more freebies in the future!

No, I was giving you Horace's original, which he derived from Homer, if I recall correctly. It was quoted a lot in Victorian and Edwardian literature in favor of dying gloriously in battle. (MInd, I don't think Horace ever saw a battlefield in his life.) Owens was about the only one to turn the phrase into a sneer, and he did it with style, at that.

RandomThug · Post by **RandomThug** » Fri Mar 07, 2003 4:07 pm

I really believe our School system is failing. Because I feel lost between fable and grunts posts... Damn the man.