Noncombatants Quotes & Sayings

We have emerged from a war in which we had to accept the degradingly low ethical standards of the enemy. But instead of feeling liberated from his standards, and set free to restore the sanctity of human life and the safety of noncombatants, we are in effect making the low standards of the enemy in the last war our own for the present. Thus we are starting toward another war degraded by our own choice. — Albert Einstein

The picture of the world's greatest superpower killing or seriously injuring 1,000 noncombatants a week, while trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submission on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed, is not a pretty one. — Robert McNamara

The true purpose of the various directives, regulations, and pocket-sized codes of conduct handed out to troops was not to implement genuine safeguards for noncombatants, but to give the military a paper trail of plausible deniability. — Nick Turse

The sea in all its vastness is its own, real world. Man is nature's sci-fi. — Criss Jami

When you have warfare, things happen; people suffer; the noncombatants suffer as well as the combatants. And so it happens in civil war. — Emmeline Pankhurst

Our forefathers would think it's time for a revolution. This is why they revolted in the first place ... They revolted against much more mild oppression. — Ron Paul

As an actor I suppose you're constantly observing. I don't sit in restaurants making notes, I don't live my life in order to then feed it into my work. — Cate Blanchett

Civilization, like an airplane in flight, survives only as it keeps going forward. — Edward Abbey

Except when war is waged in a desert, noncombatants, also known as civilians or 'the people,' constitute the great majority of those affected. — Martin Van Creveld

A properly functioning free market system does not spring spontaneously from society's soil as crabgrass springs from suburban lawns. Rather, it is a complex creation of laws and mores ... Capitalism is a government program. — George Will

National security rests on the credible threat of a form of warfare universally condemned since the Dark Ages, the wholesale slaughter of noncombatants. — George Will

It was usual to be obedient to authority, to obey a legal letter. But Rachaela left her bills
unpaid until the threats began. She ignored the money-envelopes stuck through the door for starving
children and the sick. — Tanith Lee

Fuzzy and ideological definitions of terrorism just make it easier to kill people. When you know your actions will kill innocent noncombatants, that's terrorism. And it must be clearly named as unacceptable - no matter who does it (individuals, groups, or states), whatever the weapons, the expressed intentions, or political justifications. — Jim Wallis

If I have to reduce all of the laws of war into a single sentence, it is this. You divide the world into two, combatants and noncombatants. You can attack deliberately combatants, but not deliberately noncombatants. Israel acts that way. It attacks combatants and accidentally kills noncombatants. But in the case of the terrorists, it's the exact opposite. They deliberately attack combatants - noncombatants, civilians, deliberately. — Benjamin Netanyahu

The clear suggestion is that there ought not to be civilian control of the military. What have callow noncombatants giving brisk orders to grizzled soldiers? How could Lincoln have fired the slavery-loving Gen. George B. McClellan, or Truman dismissed the glorious Douglas MacArthur? — Christopher Hitchens

Independence may have been declared in 1776, but it still had to be won. Years of bloody warfare followed. The death toll was staggering, for soldiers and noncombatants. Of all the wars in the history of the United States, only the Civil War witnessed a greater percentage of deaths among those who soldiered. The ratio of — John Ferling

After forming a cadet corps of boys for assisting as noncombatants during a military campaign in 1900: We then made the discovery that boys, when trusted and relied on, were just as capable and reliable as men. — Robert Baden-Powell

Online advertising is increasingly only a fraction of what is being lost from print advertising, and it is under constant pressure. — Rupert Murdoch

War times, he said, and the American officer could take what he liked. They in Caguan were noncombatants — Anonymous

Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong — Murphy's Law