"What Quote Represents Your Opinion on War" Topic

Some famous people have made clear their opinions about war. Who best represents want you think of war. Choices:

"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. -George Orwell
"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him." G.K. Chesterton
"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?" Mahatma Gandhi
"You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once." Robert A. Heinlein
"May God have mercy for my enemies because I won't." George S. Patton Jr.
"The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected." Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Rules are for children. This is war, and in war the only crime is to lose." Joe Abercrombie, Last Argument of Kings
"You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival." Winston Churchill
"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 a war, is much worse…A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." -- John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy
"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger."
― William Shakespeare, Henry V

Other
This is ridiculous

Mike

"It is good that war is so terrible – lest we grow to like it too much"

Or something like that from Robert E Lee.

My Battle Group commander before our last Afghanistan tour "Don't make it a fair fight"

No man ever won a war by dying for his country. Wars were won by making the other poor bastard die for his. You don't win a war by dying for your country. You win a war by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his.

George S Patton.

For over 40 years I have displayed in my living room an engraved plaque with;
"The morality of War
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 a war, is much worse…A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

No author is listed but I see from the originator that it supposed to be John Stuart Mill.

"There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all Hell."

William T. Sherman

+1 Herkybird

"If you want to abolish war, you must eliminate its causes. What is needed is to restrict government activities to the preservation of life, health, and private property, and thereby to safeguard the working of the market. Sovereignty must not be used for inflicting harm on anyone, whether citizen or foreigner." – Ludvig von Mises

"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him." – G.K. Chesterton

And
"Diplomacy is the weapon of the civilized warrior" – A.T. Hun (really Robert Asprin)

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
``To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods,

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

Michael Walzer paraphrasing Leon Trotsky

"War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it" -Sherman.

There's more to the quote than this, but I like the end because it is succinct.

"There are two rules in war:
Rule 1). People die.
Rule 2). You can't change rule one."

Si vis pacem, para bellum (if you want peace, prepare for war).

"Si vis pacem, para bellum." – Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants." – Thomas Jefferson

Well, paraphrasing Wellington-

"The only thing worse than a battle lost is a battle won.

"War is merely the continuation of politics by other means." Carl von Clausewitz

"War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over." W. T. Sherman

"War does not determine who is right. Only who is left." Bertrand Russell

"The Supreme Art of War is to Subdue the Enemy Without Fighting," Sun Tzu

"God created war so that Americans would learn geography." Mark Twain

""I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." Albert Einstein

"Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die." Herbert Hoover

Herkybird posted my first thought.

No man ever won a war by dying for his country. Wars were won by making the other poor bastard die for his. You don't win a war by dying for your country. You win a war by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his.

George S Patton.

Conan:

YouTube link

Some great quotes & POVs … Hard to choose …

"The interesting issue is how you create a longer gap between the wars." Brig. Gen. Herzl Halevi IDF

I have (also) always liked Lee's "It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it."

"War, it's fantastic"
Miguel Ferrer as Harbinger in Hot Shots Part Deux.

They Shall Not Grow Old

God created war so that Americans would learn geography."
― Mark Twain

"… the nature of war is politics continued by violent means."

Just Wars of our times include: 1) wars in defense of socialist countries against imperialist aggressors; 2) proletarian civil wars against the bourgeoisie; 3) national liberation wars of colonial peoples, dependent and developing countries against imperialism; 4) wars of liberation waged by peoples of bourgeois countries who have become the victims of imperialist invaders and who are fighting for their state sovereignty.

Unjust Wars… include: 1) counterrevolutionary wars waged by the bourgeoisie against the proletarian revolutionary movement; 2) aggressive wars of imperialist states against socialist countries; 3) imperialist wars for the restoration of the colonial system; 4) imperialist wars of conquest against peaceful bourgeois countries; 5) wars between imperialist states aimed at achieving a redistribution of spheres of influence and world domination.

Kozlov, S.N. General-Major (Ed). (1971). The Officer's Handbook. Moscow
trans: DGIS Multilingual Section, Translation Bureau, Secretary of State Department, Ottawa, Canada.
published under the auspices of The United States Air Force, Soviet Military Thought Series 13.

"Every full grown emperor needs at least one war to make him famous" E.M. Remarque-"All Quiet On The Western Front"

"Nuke'm from orbit … it's the only way to be sure …"

"Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?"

First Sergeant Dan Daly, at Belleau Wood, 6 June 1918

"When wild War's deadly blast was blawn,
And gentle Peace returning
Wi' mony a sweet babe fatherless
And mony a widow mourning…"

Robert Burns.

Alternatively:

"I Murder hate, by field or flood,
Tho' Glory's name may screen us;
In wars at home I'll spend my blood-
Life-giving wars of Venus.
The deities that I adore
Are social Peace and Plenty:
I'm better pleased to mak one more
Than be the death of twenty."

R.B., again.

I think that in this case the simpler the better.

"War is hell"

General George Tecumseh Sherman

"Death, the final frontier"

Wolfhag