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Quotes

War is sweet to those who don’t know it.

—Erasmus, 1508

I went [to war] because I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want the glory or the pay; I wanted the right thing done.

—Louisa May Alcott, 1863

I detest war. It spoils armies.

—Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, c. 1820

There never was a good war or a bad peace.

—Benjamin Franklin, 1773

A dead enemy always smells good.

—Aulus Vitellius, 69

I have loved war too well.

—Louis XIV, 1715

As peace is of all goodness, so war is an emblem, a hieroglyphic, of all misery.

—John Donne, 1622

The fear of war is worse than war itself.

—Seneca, c. 50

War is the child of pride, and pride the daughter of riches.

—Jonathan Swift, 1697

I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. War is hell.

—William Tecumseh Sherman, 1879

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

—Mao Zedong, 1938

You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war. 

—William Randolph Hearst, 1898

Soldiers in peace are like chimneys in summer.

—William Cecil, Lord Burghley, c. 1555