The Wars Quotes & Sayings

History is cyclical, and it would be foolhardy to assume that the culture wars will never return. — Frank Rich

Patriotism and its results
wars
give an enormous revenue to the newspaper trade, and profits to many other trades. Every writer, teacher, and professor is more secure in his place the more he preaches patriotism. Every Emperor and King obtains the more fame the more he is addicted to patriotism. — Leo Tolstoy

The global centre of power shifted to Europe only between 1750 and 1850, when Europeans humiliated the Asian powers in a series of wars and conquered large parts of Asia. By 1900 Europeans firmly controlled the world's economy and most of its territory. In 1950 western Europe and the United States together accounted for more than half of global production, whereas China's portion had been reduced to 5 per cent.4 — Yuval Noah Harari

Nobody suffers the pain of birth or the anguish of loving a child in order for presidents to make wars, for governments to feed on the substance of their people, for insurance companies to cheat the young and rob the old. — Lewis H. Lapham

What can we expect from this latest crop of indie directors who have been sucked into the franchise factory? I'm especially curious about 'Star Wars,' which will feature an all-indie crew after J. J. Abrams finishes with 'Episode VII.' — Annalee Newitz

In Malta, the Wars of Religion reached their climax. If both sides believed that they saw Paradise in the bright sky above them, they had a close and very intimate knowledge of Hell. — Ernle Dusgate Selby Bradford

Wars are fought by teenagers, you realize that. They really ought to be fought by the politicians and old people who start these wars. (Interview with Don Swaim of CBS Radio-1986) — James Clavell

It didn't matter.
Carson wasn't the one for me. He wasn't even the one for right now. My life would hopefully have its great love story but this wasn't it. It would happen in D.C. in the next four years or it would happen in Africa, if I ever got there, or in Sienna or, for all I knew, Kentucky or Timbuktu.
Life was long.
And people only really had great love affairs in high school in the movies. And maybe during world wars. But this was not a movie and not a war, even if it sometimes felt that way. It was only high school and it was almost over with anyway. — Tara Altebrando

My anthology continues to sell & the critics get more & more angry. When I excluded Wilfred Owen, whom I consider unworthy of the poets' corner of a country newspaper, I did not know I was excluding a revered sandwich-board Man of the revolution & that some body has put his worst & most famous poem in a glass-case in the British Museum
however if I had known it I would have excluded him just the same. He is all blood, dirt & sucked sugar stick (look at the selection in Faber's Anthology
he calls poets 'bards,' a girl a 'maid,' & talks about 'Titanic wars'). There is every excuse for him but none for those who like him ... (from a letter of December 26, 1936, in Letters on Poetry from W. B. Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley, p. 124). — W.B.Yeats

I'm not the first one to point out that George Lucas used plastic helmets to cover the faces of the storm troopers in Star Wars, in order to make them more inhuman, as their eyes and faces were not visible. In our times, we are getting a more modern version of Lucas's Stormtroopers, thanks to the popular nerve toxin Botox. This is something more and more people who are past their middle age are happily injecting into themselves - more specifically, into their faces. Botox causes local paralysis (it is a nerve toxin, after all), which smoothes out wrinkles. Unfortunately, it also means you can no longer use some of your facial muscles, as you are paralyzed. This means you're not only getting the skin of a Barbie doll, you're getting its range of facial expressions too. — Henrik Fexeus

What do you do when you build yourself - only to realize you built yourself with the wrong things? You rip it up and start again. That is the work of your teenage years - to build up and tear down and build up again, over and over, endlessly, like speeded-up film of cities during boom times and wars. To be fearless, and endless, in your reinventions - to keep twisting on nineteen, going bust, and dealing in again, and again. Invent, invent, invent. — Caitlin Moran

This led Montesquieu to become one of the earliest proponents of the trade theory of peace when he observed that hunting and herding nations often found themselves in conflict and wars, whereas trading nations "became reciprocally dependent," making peace "the natural effect of trade." The psychology behind the effect, Montesquieu speculated, was exposure of different societies to customs and manners different from their own, which leads to "a cure for the most destructive prejudices." Thus, he concluded, "we see that in countries where the people move only by the spirit of commerce, they make a traffic of all the humane, all the moral virtues. — Michael Shermer

Sebastian will never fight wars, but it's because of people like him that the rest of us don't have to fight as many of them. He makes everyone around him more than what they are. — Courtney Milan

The word religion has such bad connotations for me, that it's been responsible for wars, and it shouldn't be that way at all, it's just the way the meaning of the word has evolved to me. I have to wonder what we did on this planet before religion. — Eddie Vedder

[Pascal] was the first and perhaps is still the most effective voice to be raised in warning of the consequences of the enthronement of the human ego in contradistinction to the cross, symbolizing the ego's immolation. How beautiful it all seemed at the time of the Enlightenment, that man triumphant would bring to pass that earthly paradise whose groves of academe would ensure the realization forever of peace, plenty, and beatitude in practice. But what a nightmare of wars, famines, and folly was to result therefrom. — Malcolm Muggeridge

Just as Hitler used the Reichstag burning, the U.S. government now uses the so-called two wars, the War on Drugs and the War on Terrorism, to fuel fear in the population and establish a police security state. — Ralph Metzner

This is Trenicia, the queen of the warrior women of the Isle of Akalla. Different places have different traditions and different customs. On the Isle of Akalla, the women rule, and the women do the fighting."

"What do the men do?" the horseman Ekial asked curiously.

"As little as they possibly can," the warrior woman said in a sardonic tone. "Over the years, they've foisted just about everything off on us. We have to grow the food, hunt the meat, and fight the wars. The men sit around getting fat and arguing with each other about something they call 'philosophy' - most of which is pure nonsense. — David Eddings

When they'd met, Anakin had been a warmhearted nine-year-old boy with an open nature. He was twelve and a half now, and the years had changed him. He had grown to be a boy who hid his heart. — Jude Watson

So what? You act all mysterious to seem more interesting?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're always wandering off or running away," he said. "But you're a lot more
interesting when you're just being yourself you know. When you're actually here."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Emma said coldly. "Where else would I be?"

"You know what I mean," he said, a rough edge to his voice. "It's like you're so busy trying not to act like your family that you've never even stopped to consider that it might not be such a bad thing."

"Well what about you?" she shot back, aware of the bitterness in her words.
"You complain about your dad not wanting you around, and then you complain when he wants you to stay home for school. You can't have it both wars."

"Well neither can you," he said. " You can't keep everyone at arms length and then expect them to be there for you when you need them. — Jennifer E. Smith

Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them, do not. Miss them, do not. Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is. Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose — George Lucas

We will have to call especially loud to reach Our angels, who are hard of hearing; they are hiding In the jugs of silence filled during our wars. — Robert Bly

People make the mistake of assuming far too many things about armies,' Lefevre told me one evening. 'They assume, for a start, that generals know what they are doing and know what is going on. They assume that orders pass down from top to bottom in a smooth and regulated fashion. And above all they assume that wars start only when people decide to start them.' 'You are going to tell me that is not the case?' 'Wars begin when they are ready, when humanity needs a bloodletting. Kings and politicians and generals have little say in it. You can feel it in the air when one is brewing. There is a tension and nervousness on the face of the least soldier. They can smell it coming in a way politicians cannot. The desire to hurt and destroy spreads over a region and over the troops. And then the generals can only hope to have the vaguest notion of what they are doing. — Iain Pears

If any overarching conclusion emerges from the Afghan and Iraq Wars (and from their Israeli equivalents), it's this: victory is a chimera. — Andrew Bacevich

American boys should not be seen dying on the nightly news. Wars should be over in three days or less, or before Congress invokes the War Powers Resolution. — Evan Thomas

I can't deal with the ears in 'Star Trek.' I only saw the first 'Star Wars' movie, and I don't think I saw an entire 'Star Trek' TV show, and I certainly didn't see the movie. I like 'Andy Griffith' and 'Deadwood.' — Clyde Edgerton

For me, Glasgow is all about the people and the spirit of the place. You have enough Gregg's bakers, though, I'll say that. The opening of the 1977 'Star Wars' movie was possibly the only time I've seen a longer queue round the block than in Glasgow for sausage rolls. That was quite an eye-opener. — Darren Boyd

One should never permit a disorder to persist in order to avoid a war, for wars cannot be avoided and can only be deferred to the advantage of others. — Niccolo Machiavelli

I wonder why Holling had the fastest time," said Danny after the announcements - a whole lot louder than he had to. "Could it be because he was running away from two rats who were trying to eat him?"
"That might have a little to do with it," I said. — Gary D. Schmidt

My daughter has pointed out that there were not enough lovejobs to go around in this new world. In any event, I probably learned tolerance, maybe even literary affection for the person in the wrong historical moment, living such long, never to be mediate wars with other sufferers. — Grace Paley

It's very common to say that Star Wars in the late '70s, that was kind of perfect for Cold War culture and the aftermath of Vietnam in the '60s to have an upbeat, hopeful, cartoonish tale of a hero's journey. I think those explanations are easy to offer and almost always wrong. — Cass Sunstein

I heard someone walk out of the alley behind me, and my body went tense and tight, despite my weariness. Then a young woman's voice said, in a passable British accent, "The Little People are easily startled, but they'll soon be back. And in greater numbers."
I sagged in sudden, exhausted relief. The bad guys hardly ever quote Star Wars. — Jim Butcher

We've started and won two atomic wars since 2022! Is it because we're having so much fun at home we've forgotten the world? Is it because we're so rich and the rest of the world's so poor and we just don't care if they are? I've heard rumors; the world is starving, but we're well fed. Is it true, the world works hard and we play? Is that why we're hated so much? I've heard the rumors about hate, too, once in a long while, over the years. Do you know why? I don't, that's sure! — Ray Bradbury

Your prowess with a lightsaber is childish vanity. Your physical Force powers are no more than a conjurer's trick, sleight of hand to dazzle the ordinary beings you should be serving. You profane these powers by using them as weapons in war. And you fail to grasp the single, simple, uncompromising duty of the true Jedi. The Jedi is the rock-lion at the gate who says, "I will defend these beings with my life, and that is the sum of me." Etain Tur-Mukan died to save one life, a man she did not even know, but felt compelled to save, and that is what made her stronger in the Force and a truer Jedi than any of you acrobats, tricksters, and specious, empty philosophers. — Karen Traviss

Tally-When you looked around at everyone else how come you didn't notice they were brain damaged?
Az - We didn't have much to compare our fellow citizens with. Only a few colleagues who seemed different from most people, more engaged, but that was hardly a surprise.
History would indicate that the majority of people have always been sheep. Before the operation there were wars and mass hatred and clear cutting. Whatever these lesions make us, it isn't a far cry from how humanity was in the rusty era. These days we're just a bit easier to manage. — Scott Westerfeld

International war is the sum total of millions of individual wars, raging in the minds of the people, between what is selfish and what is selfless. To the extent that you and I develop selflessness in our own hearts, to that extent we contribute to peace in our family, community, country, and world. — Eknath Easwaran

Sometimes when I observe contemporary U.S. culture, with its hard fronts and nasty culture wars, I have a strange sense that I've seen something like it before - in the Communist and semitotalitarian state in which I grew up. The issues and positions are very different, but the spirit is strangely familiar. In all public discussion, there was a party line that people had to toe; if you diverged, you were deemed disloyal and suspected of betraying the cause. I sense a similar spirit today among both progressives and conservatives in the United States when it comes to many hot-button issues, including Islam. — Miroslav Volf

For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons. — Douglas Adams

All the wars, all the hatred, all the ignorance in the world come out of being so invested in our opinions. — Pema Chodron

The war against Napoleon was won not by England but by Russia, Austria, and Prussia; but England won the last battle and she won the peace. — J. Christopher Herold

Frankly, our ancestors don't seem much to brag about. I mean, look at the state they left us in, with the wars, the broken planet. Clearly, they didn't care about what would happen to the people who came after them. — Suzanne Collins

Hopefully one day Wars will only be fought in movies. And may the best producer win! — Stanley Victor Paskavich

Saying of the Prophet
Truth
Speaking the truth to the unjust is the best of holy wars. — Idries Shah

If peace only had the music and pageantry of war, there'd be no wars. — Sophie Kerr

If enough citizens believe their national security's in jeopardy then politicians who propose wars will receive the support they need. — James Morcan

Perhaps peace is not, after all, something you work for, or 'fight for.' It is indeed 'fighting for peace' that starts all the wars. What, after all, are the pretexts of all these Cold War crises, but 'fighting for peace?' Peace is something you have or do not have. If you are yourself at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world. Then share your peace with everyone, and everyone will be at peace. — Thomas Merton

'Star Wars' is something that I've been a fan of since I was a kid - I played all the video games and I grew up reading 'Star Wars' books. — Samuel Witwer

In politics as in philosophy, my tenets are few and simple. The leading one of which, and indeed that which embraces most others, is to be honest and just ourselves and to exact it from others, meddling as little as possible in their affairs where our own are not involved. If this maxim was generally adopted, wars would cease and our swords would soon be converted into reap hooks and our harvests be more peaceful, abundant, and happy. — George Washington

There is again a living prophet on the earth speaking in the name of the Lord. And how we need such guidance! Our times are turbulent and difficult. We see wars internationally and distress domestically. Neighbors all around us face personal heartaches and family sorrows. Legions know fear and troubles of a hundred kinds. — Jeffrey R. Holland

TARKIN: The wench hath lied! Deceiving,
cut-throat girl,
Most cunning princess born of
Hell's own heart! — Ian Doescher

Thanks to budget shortfalls and format wars, our traditional media, literature, and arts are perishing faster than ever before. Nothing conceived by the human mind, except Heaven and nuclear winter, is eternal. — Jeffrey Zeldman

1. Most wars are asymmetrical or irregular.
2. In these wars, the guerrillas/irregulars/insurgents do not aim for military victory.
3. You can not defeat these groups by killing lots of their members. In fact, they want you to do that.
4. High-tech weaponry is mostly useless in these wars.
5. "Hearts and minds," meaning propaganda and morale, are more important than military superiority.
6. Most people are not rational; they are tribal: "My gang yeah, your gang boo!" It really is that simple. The rest is cosmetics. — Gary Brecher

Two famous happy warriors - Reagan and his political soulmate, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - knew they were fighting their own ideological and external wars. But they did so with the sunny dispositions and positive outlooks of those who knew they were on the right side of history. — Monica Crowley

Other writers of history recorded the fighting of wars waged for the sake of children and country and other possessions. But our narrative of the government of God will record in ineffaceable letters the most peaceful wars waged in behalf of the peace of the soul. — Eusebius

In America, after 9/11, and after the death of bin Laden, and after two wars, one of them fought, a lot of people think, on false pretenses, and definitely post the Patriot Act, there are a lot of these questions about what can we do to our citizens in order to prevent the next attack. — Gideon Raff

Perhaps religion provides the justification for wars, but science provides the weapons. — James Rozoff

An alloy of innocence and arrogance, young (Ted) Williams came to Boston when it had four morning and four evening local newspapers engaged in perpetual circulation wars. He became grist for their mills, and his wars with the sportswriters brought out the worst in him, and cost him. He won two Most Valuable Player Awards and finished second four times. Several of those times he would have won had he not had such poisonous relations with the voting press. — George Will

While President Obama was starting and expanding unconstitutiona l wars overseas, Bradley Manning, whose actions have caused exactly zero deaths, was shining light on the truth behind these wars. — Ron Paul

This may read like a mad journey through some of the most dangerous places on earth, but it is much more than that as well. Sheets witnessed most of the wars, disasters, and revolutions that followed the end of communism, and his accounts of them
from Chechnya to Chernobyl, and from Abkhazia to Afghanistan
serve as a passionate but considered obituary for the vanished Soviet empire. — Oliver Bullough

It begins to look as though modern man cannot find his heroism in everyday life any more, as men did in traditional societies just by doing their daily duty of raising children, working, and worshiping. He needs revolutions and wars and "continuing" revolutions to last when the revolutions and wars end. That is the price modern man pays for the eclipse of the sacred dimension. When he dethroned the ideas of soul and God he was thrown back hopelessly on his own resources, on himself and those few around him. Even lovers and families trap and disillusion us because they are not substitutes for absolute transcendence. We might say that they are poor illusions in the sense that we have been discussing. — Ernest Becker

We have always been a nation different from the Chinese. Long ago we fought wars with them. — Dalai Lama

What we have to remember is we want to utilize the tremendous intellect that we have in the military to win wars. I've talked to a lot of the generals, a lot of our advanced people. And believe me, if we gave them the mission, which is what the commander-in-chief does, they would be able to carry it out. — Ben Carson

Another guy came in, and he said he was quitting his job at the Research Laboratory; said anything a scientist worked on was sure to wind up as a weapon, one way or another. Said he didn't want to help politicians with their fugging wars anymore. Name was Breed. I asked him if he was any relation to the boss of the fugging Research Laboratory. He said he fugging well was. Said he was the boss of the Research Laboratory's fugging son. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The first Star Wars movie was one of six original stories I had written in the form of two trilogies. After the success of Star Wars, I added another trilogy. So now there are nine stories. The original two trilogies were concieved of as six films of which the first film was number four. — George Lucas

I would like to do a science fiction film some day. Star Wars seems really to have destroyed the genre, which at one time offered great musical opportunities. — Carter Burwell

Since I was a kid. I had this series by Ballantine Books about the history of World Wars I and II. In my 20s, it was the Vietnam War literature of novelists like Tim O'Brien, Philip Caputo, and Tobias Wolff, and then nonfiction such as "A Bright Shining Lie" by Neil Sheehan and "The Best and Brightest" by David Halberstam . Those are the two best histories of Vietnam. — George Packer

I grew up with 'Star Wars' and was a massive fan of the original films. — Andy Serkis

Their meal was illuminated by torches, which Gwen found were utterly without fire. What the children called torches were really just small platforms on tall, wooden poles. The reason they radiated light was because fairies had flown up to them to waltz and glow on the tiny dance floors. — Audrey Greathouse

Imagine the wars we would've avoided if prior generations had a website where they could debate tragedy and politics in terse sentences? — Eugene Mirman

The cream of a generation was lost in the mud of Flanders. Etonians went over the top with the Illiad in their knapsacks and Athens in their hearts. To protest that such men were statistically not even a trace among the British soldiers killed is to miss the point. At all times the great majority of people have been ignorant of the classics; but the men who mattered; who governed, declared wars and resisted innovation have always had Latin and Greek. — William Donaldson

The typewriter is neat and compact and sturdy and blue, just the right machine to pound out a missive of love. When you strike the keys it's a sound that hasn't been heard in the qorld world for thirty years (we are so far away from a time when typewriters won world wars). When you strike the keys they make a sound like a pistol shot, a sound so definite and sure you feel like a genius, or an orayor orator, or a beat poet. When you strike the keys you just want to keep on fucking writing. You have to wrestle with the thing, like I am doing now, steer it like an old manual car, keep the words together and right and on the page, but the blood and muscle of a typewriter, it is a beautiful thing. — Yvette Walker

An alliance with France was enlisted in the war for independence from Britain, then loosened in the aftermath, as France undertook revolution and embarked on a European crusade in which the United States had no direct interest. When President Washington, in his 1796 Farewell Address - delivered in the midst of the French revolutionary wars - counseled that the United States "steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world" and instead "safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies," he was issuing not so much a moral pronouncement as a canny judgment about how to exploit America's comparative advantage: the United States, a fledgling power safe behind oceans, did not have the need or the resources to embroil itself in continental controversies over the balance of power. — Henry Kissinger

A rare objectivity and insight can be imparted regarding this world's struggle for spiritual integrity. In the land of Faerie, the reader may see his small battles writ large in the wars of titans or elves and understand for the first time, his own worth. — Michael D. O'Brien

The tendency to separate war stories from immigrant stories means that most Americans don't understand how many of the immigrants and refugees in the United States have fled from wars - many of which this country has had a hand in. Although — Viet Thanh Nguyen

As long as you are forced to be a woman first instead of a person, by default, you need to be a feminist. That's it. Men are people, women are women? Screw that. Screw that. I am sick of having words aimed to shut me up. I am sick of having to be anything other than a person first. Zounds! I enjoy being a girl, whatever that means. For me, that meant Star Wars figurines, mounds of books, skirts and flats. It meant Civil War reenacting and best girlfriends I'd give a kidney to and best guy friends I'd ruin a liver with and making messes and cleaning up some of them and still not knowing how to apply eye shadow. That's being a girl. That's being a person. It's the same damn thing. I wish Rush had just called me an idiot. I'm happy to be called an idiot! On the day when someone on the Internet calls me an idiot first and ugly second, I will set down my feminist battle flag and heave a great sigh. Then I will pick it back up and keep climbing. There are many more mountains to overcome. — Alexandra Petri

With the indiscriminate nature of modern military technology (no such thing as a "smart bomb," it turns out) all wars are wars against civilians, and are therefore inherently immoral. This is true even when a war is considered "just," because it is fought against a tyrant, against an aggressor, to correct a stolen boundary. — Howard Zinn

If it is necessary we will find a quick answer and it will not be the way the United States expects it. It will be an answer that devalues the 'Star Wars' program. — Sergey Akhromeyev

I wanted to touch the edges of my life - the same instinct, I think, that inspires young mortals to flip tractors and enlist in foreign wars. — Karen Russell

The food surpluses produced by peasants, coupled with new transportation technology, eventually enabled more and more people to cram together first into large villages, then into towns, and finally into cities, all of them joined together by new kingdoms and commercial networks. Yet in order to take advantage of these new opportunities, food surpluses and improved transportation were not enough. The mere fact that one can feed a thousand people in the same town or a million people in the same kingdom does not guarantee that they can agree how to divide the land and water, how to settle disputes and conflicts, and how to act in times of drought or war. And if no agreement can be reached, strife spreads, even if the storehouses are bulging. It was not food shortages that caused most of history's wars and revolutions. The — Yuval Noah Harari

What is surprising is not the magnitude of our forecast errors, but our absence of awareness of it. This is all the more worrisome when we engage in deadly conflicts: wars are fundamentally unpredictable (and we do not know it). Owing to this misunderstanding of the causal chains between policy and actions, we can easily trigger Black Swans thanks to aggressive ignorance-like a child playing with a chemistry kit. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

True it is,/ That these are not the droids for which thou search'st.
-Obi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi — Ian Doescher

Maybe we are a little crazy. After all, we believe in things we don't see. The Scriptures say that faith is "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" (Heb. 11:1). We believe poverty can end even though it is all around us. We believe in peace even though we hear only rumours of wars. And since we are people of expectation, we are so convinced that another world is coming that we start living as if it were already here. — Shane Claiborne

Our teachers were firm believers in the corporal punishment that Americans had given up, which was probably one reason they could no longer win wars. For us, violence began at home and continued in school, parents and teachers beating children and students like Persian rugs to shake the dust of complacency and stupidity out of them, and in that way make them more beautiful. — Viet Thanh Nguyen

The mythology of the Reagan presidency is that he induced the collapse of the Soviet Union by luring it into unsustainable military spending and wars: should there come a point when we think about applying that lesson to ourselves? — Glenn Greenwald

Confirmed. Complete negative on Imperial activity,' Yendor replied. 'Unless the Empire's drafting small woodland creatures all of a sudden. — Claudia Gray

Blood mixture and the result drop in the racial level is the sole cause of the dying out of old cultures; for men do not perish as a result of lost wars, but by the loss of that force of resistance which is continued only in pure blood. All who are not of good race in this world are chaff. — Adolf Hitler

Intelligence won wars, not brute force. — Rick Riordan

Frequent mobs, seditions, and at last civil wars, became common, while a few leading men on whom the masses were dependent, affected supreme power under the seemly pretence of seeking the good of senate and people; citizens were judged good or bad, without reference to their loyalty to the republic (for all were equally corrupt); but the wealthy and dangerously powerful were esteemed good citizens, because they maintained the existing state of things. — Sallust

The only important lesson from the Vietnam War is this: Democrats lose wars. — Ann Coulter

A smart soldier wants to know the causes of wars. Also how to end them. After all, war is the normal state of affairs, isn't it? Peace is the name of the ideal we deduce from the fact that there have been interludes between wars. — Jerry Pournelle

Wars are Spinach. Life in general is the tough part. In war all you have to do is not worry and know how to read a map and co-ordinates. — Ernest Hemingway,

You have only to play at Little Wars three or four times to realize just what a blundering thing Great War must be. Great War is at present, I am convinced, not only the most expensive game in the universe, but it is a game out of all proportion. Not only are the masses of men and material and suffering and inconvenience too monstrously big for reason, but-the available heads we have for it, are too small. That, I think, is the most pacific realization conceivable, and Little War brings you to it as nothing else but Great War can do. — H.G.Wells

That both Muslim fundamentalists and the Christian right are today focusing their attempts to regain control in a rapidly changing world on frantic efforts to maintain control over women, particularly over women's sexuality. Moreover, given their mythologies about "holy wars," it is also understandable that they should use "divinely approved" violence to do so ... — Riane Eisler

Planet Earth is the last planet in this universe under the occupation of the Dark Forces, the last relic of galactic wars that raged throughout the galaxy for millions of years. This status has been imposed upon humanity by the negative ET races. — Cobra

At the heart of most antagonisms are irreconcilable similarities. Hundred-year wars were fought over whether Jesus was human in divine form or divine in human form. Belief is murderous. After — Rabih Alameddine

We have been involved in more wars, on a bilateral basis, since the United Nations was formed than any other country by far. — Jimmy Carter

Politicians do not enter into wars lightly. It is usually the military themselves who are keener to become involved. — Jonathan Powell

Good evening, London. I would introduce myself, but truth to tell, I do not have a name. You can call me "V". Since mankind's dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We've seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse. In anarchy, there is another way. With anarchy, from rubble comes new life, hope reinstated. They say anarchy's dead, but see ... reports of my death were ... exaggerated. Tomorrow, Downing Street will be destroyed, the Head reduced to ruins, an end to what has gone before. Tonight, you must choose what comes next. Lives of our own, or a return to chains. Choose carefully. And so, adieu. — Alan Moore

Weapons and technology may help win wars, but it is only ideas that have the power to truly change the world. — Simon Adams

They were at the wrong place at the wrong time naturally they became heroes — George Lucas

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. — George Lucas