Archive

Quotes

I have loved war too well.

—Louis XIV, 1715

War to the castles; peace to the cottages.

—Nicolas Chamfort, 1790

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

—Jonathan Swift, 1697

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

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

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

Don’t talk to me about naval tradition. It’s nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash.

—Winston Churchill, 1939

Soldiers in peace are like chimneys in summer.

—William Cecil, Lord Burghley, c. 1555

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

—William Tecumseh Sherman, 1879

You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.

—Leon Trotsky

A dead enemy always smells good.

—Aulus Vitellius, 69