War Preparation Quotes & Sayings

The firmest security of peace is the preparation during peace of the defenses of war. — John Quincy Adams

In almost every country there are elements of opinion which would welcome such a conclusion because they wish to return to the politics of the balance of power, unrestricted and unregulated armaments, international anarchy, and preparation for war. — Arthur Henderson

War, and the preparation for war, are the two greatest obstacles to human progress, fostering a vicious cycle of arms buildups, violence and poverty. — Oscar Arias

Because war and preparations for war have acquired legitimacy, and because of the tremendous proliferation of arms through production and export, so that they are now available more or less to all and sundry, right down to handguns and stilettos, the cult of violence has by now so permeated relations between people that we are compelled to witness as well an increase in everyday violence. — Alva Myrdal

Watch every tendency towards militarism, for we know that preparation for war leads to war. — William Mulock

What were the phenomena of the world today? If I knew little else, I knew the answer - war, and the preparations for new war. — Norman Mailer

War, not peace, produces virtue. War, not peace, purges vice. War, and preparation for war, call forth all that is noble and honorable in a man. It unites him with his brothers and binds them in selfless love, eradicating in the crucible of necessity all which is base and ignoble. There in the holy mill of murder the meanest of men may seek and find that part of himself, concealed beneath the corrupt, which shines forth brilliant and virtuous, worthy of honor before the gods. Do not despise war, my young friend, nor delude yourself that mercy and compassion are virtues superior to andreia, to manly valor. — Steven Pressfield

In times of peace, the war party insists on making preparation for war. As soon as prepared for, it insists on making war. — Robert M. La Follette

There is no lie in war or preparation of war that can't be defended. — Don DeLillo

It's useful to compare our preparations for epidemics with our preparations for war. — Bill Gates

There is no shorter road to defeat than by entering a war with inadequate preparation. — Charles Lindbergh

In peace, as a wise man, he should make suitable preparation for war. — Horace

This protracted war will pass through three stages. The first stage covers the period of the enemy's strategic offensive and our strategic defensive. The second stage will be the period of the enemy's strategic consolidation and our preparation for the counter-offensive. The third stage will be the period of our strategic counter-offensive and the enemy's strategic retreat. — Mao Tse-tung

If you aren't preparing for life like a war, you'll end up living like a prisoner of war. — Sharad Vivek Sagar

We can't ignore the fact that ahead of us is a great war and this war is going to need significant preparation. — Ahad Ha'am

Where resides the comforting knowledge of history's vast, cyclical sweep, the ebb and flow of wars and peace? Peace is the time of waiting for war. A time of preparation, or a time of willful ignorance, blind, blinkered and prattling behind secure walls. — Steven Erikson

It is also a near-perfect summary of what happens in the void of war and how history is more often than not a messy combination of intention, courage, preparation, and chance. If — Robert M. Edsel

The Middle East is more angry than ever. I'm afraid that the sort of deceit on the route to war was linked to the lack of preparation for afterwards and the chaos and suffering that continuous - so it won't go away will it? — Clare Short

How could a readiness for war in time of peace be safely prohibited, unless we could prohibit, in like manner, the preparations and establishments of every hostile nation? — James Madison

This is the true lesson of our history: war, preparation for war, and foreign military interventions have served for the most part not to protect us, as we are constantly told, but rather to sap our economic vitality and undermine our civil and economic liberties. — Robert Higgs

One of the commonest things to do with savings is to lend them to some Government. In view of the fact that the bulk of the public expenditure of most civilized Governments consists in payment for past wars or preparation for future wars, the man who lends his money to a Government is in the same position as the bad men in Shakespeare who hire murderers. The net result of the man's economical habits is to increase the armed forces of the State to which he lends his savings. Obviously it would be better if he spent the money, even if he spent it in drink or gambling. — Bertrand Russell

I appeal to all men and women, whether they be eminent or humble, to declare that they will refuse to give any further assistance to war or the preparation of war. — Albert Einstein

That's the one thing you can always depend on; as we're fighting one war, we're always preparing for the next one. — Max Brooks

War, which perpetuates itself under the form of preparation for war, has once and for all given the State an important role in production. — Simone Weil

To prevent wars, people must criticize, in their own country, the abuses that occur in their own country. The role taboos play in the preparation for war. The number of shameful secrets keeps growing incessantly, boundlessly. How meaningless all censorship taboos become, and how meaningless the consequences for overstepping them, when your life is in danger. — Christa Wolf

FOR MOST OF human history, education was job training. Hunters, farmers, and warriors taught the young to hunt, farm, and fight. Children of the ruling class received instruction in the arts of war and governance, but this too was intended first and foremost as preparation for the roles they would assume later in society, not for any broader purpose. All that began to change twenty-five hundred years ago in ancient Greece. — Fareed Zakaria

Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terrorism have reduced the pace of military transformation and have revealed our lack of preparation for defensive and stability operations. This Administration has overextended our military. — Barack Obama

It is wise statesmanship which suggests that in time of peace we must prepare for war, and it is no less a wise benevolence that makes preparation in the hour of peace for assuaging the ills that are sure to accompany war. — Clara Barton

I had a son in 1976. When I went to Europe, I met an Italian and we became friends. We would talk about what we would tell our families to do if the balloon went up. The conversation
strange and perhaps pathological as it was
bound us together. It was not war, it was not peace, but it was a place in the mind where the preparation for war and the anxiety that it generated created strange forms, such as plans for the movement of children in order to avoid a nuclear holocaust. — George Friedman

Rarely, I discovered, does a minister have the opportunity to get as close to his congregation as can a chaplain to men at war. Seemingly unimportant problems, which in normal life would never even come to the clergyman's attention, can seriously affect the soldiers' morale. For men whose every living moment is a preparation for battle, a preparation perhaps for death, the chaplain can become a link to family and home. But the chaplain cannot become that important link to family and home by moving among the men with folded hands and bowed head quoting Scriptures at the drop of a hat. He must share with the men their day-today experiences and enter into them fully. Before he can gain the soldiers' confidence in him as a chaplain, he must gain their confidence and respect in him as a man. Visiting the men in their quarters below deck became one of my regular duties. Down below in the hold of the ship was my 'pastorate,' and almost daily I spent as much time there as possible. — Chaplain William C. Taggart

The cause of war is preparation for war. — W.E.B. Du Bois

Because the American people have traditionally taken a warlike, but not military, attitude to battle, and because they have always coupled a certain belligerence - no American likes being pushed around - with a complete unwillingness to prepare for combat, the Korean War was difficult, perhaps the most difficult in their history. — T.R. Fehrenbach

And then fourth, we have that essential group of people who track programs and budgets to ensure that they align with the needs of preparation and warning, counterintelligence and support to the operational war fighter. — Stephen Cambone

Instead of scrambling for security in national victory and domination, in preparation for war and military aggression, we must relearn the values of cooperation and sharing, of nonviolence and support. — Marva Dawn

Their notion of training was to march the men up and down in parades and reviews: these were nice to look at and gave them the impression of military discipline and precision, but as a preparation for a modern war they had no value whatsoever. — Orlando Figes

Preparation for war is a constant stimulus to suspicion and ill will. — James Monroe

The insight that peace is the end of war, and that therefore a war is the preparation for peace, is at least as old as Aristotle, and the pretense that the aim of an armament race is to guard the peace is even older, namely as old as the discovery of propaganda lies. — Hannah Arendt

By depriving Rejewski of the keys, Langer believed he was preparing him for the inevitable time when the keys would no longer be available. He knew that if war broke out it would be impossible for Schmidt to continue to attend covert meetings, and Rejewski would then be forced to be self-sufficient. Langer thought that Rejewski should practice self-sufficiency in peacetime, as preparation for what lay ahead. — Simon Singh

If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected . — Sun Tzu

We have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war. — Bernard Kouchner

And the prince who has relied solely on their words, without making other preparations, is ruined, for the friendship which is gained by purchase and not through grandeur and nobility of spirit is merited but is not secured, and at times is not to be had. — Niccolo Machiavelli

War and the fear of war have always been considered the main incentives to technological extension of our bodies. Indeed, Lewis Mumford, in his The City in History, considers the walled city itself an extension of our skins, as much as housing and clothing. More even than the preparation for war, the aftermath of invasion is a rich technological period; because the subject culture has to adjust all its sense ratios to accommodate the impact of the invading culture. — Marshall McLuhan

I have every confidence in the ultimate success of our joint cause; but success in modern war requires something more than courage and a willingness to die: it requires careful preparation. — Douglas MacArthur

The terror of the Roman arms added weight and dignity to the moderation of the emperors. They preserved peace by a constant preparation for war; — Edward Gibbon

It is a grave matter to enter a war, without adequate military preparation; it may prove fatal to come into peace, without moral and religious preparation. — Louis Finkelstein

You cannot prevent and prepare for war at the same time. — Albert Einstein

A certain degree of preparation for war ... affords also the best security for the continuance of peace. — James Madison

Peace?' said Vetinari. 'Ah, yes, defined as period of time to allow for preparation for the next war. — Terry Pratchett

The history of ancient Greece showed that, in a democracy, emotion dominates reason to a greater extent than in any other political system, thus giving freer rein to the passions which sweep a state into war and prevent it getting out - at any point short of the exhaustion and destruction of one or other of the opposing sides. Democracy is a system which puts a brake on preparation for war, aggressive or defensive, but it is not one that conduces to the limitation of warfare or the prospects of a good peace. No political system more easily becomes out of control when passions are aroused. These defects have been multiplied in modern democracies, since their great extension of size and their vast electorate produce a much larger volume of emotional pressure. — B.H. Liddell Hart

This Government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet Military buildup on the island of Cuba. Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere. — John F. Kennedy

Baptism was recruitment into that supernatural holy war that reiterated the waters of the Flood cleansing unholiness and evil from the individual's life, in preparation for a new messianic world. But in the case of Jesus, it was much more. When Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit had come upon him, which was foretold by Isaiah the prophet, Behold my Servant, whom I uphold, my Chosen One, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. — Brian Godawa

After further conferences that late spring the following plan was drawn up. Speidel, almost alone among the Army conspirators in the West, survived to describe it: An immediate armistice with the Western Allies but not unconditional surrender. German withdrawal in the West to Germany. Immediate suspension of the Allied bombing of Germany. Arrest of Hitler for trial before a German court. Overthrow of Nazi rule. Temporary assumption of executive power in Germany by the resistance forces of all classes under the leadership of General Beck, Goerdeler, and the trade-union representative, Leuschner. No military dictatorship. Preparation of a "constructive peace" within the framework of a United States of Europe. In the East, continuation of the war. Holding a shortened line between the mouth of the Danube, the Carpathian Mountains, the River Vistula and Memel. — William L. Shirer

Just as foreplay is the key to good sex, preparation is essential to achieving victory in battle. Right, lieutenant? — Natalia Marx

Proper turkey preparation is critical. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more Americans die every year from eating improperly cooked turkey than were killed in the entire Peloponnesian War. This is because turkey can contain salmonella, which are tiny bacteria that, if they get in your bloodstream, develop into full-grown salmon, which could come leaping out of your mouth during an important business presentation. — Dave Barry

I abhor unjust war. I abhor injustice and bullying by the strong at the expense of the weak, whether among nations or individuals. I abhor violence and bloodshed. I believe that war should never be resorted to when, or so long as, it is honorably possible to avoid it. I respect all men and women who from high motives and with sanity and self-respect do all they can to avert war. I advocate preparation for war in order to avert war; and I should never advocate war unless it were the only alternative to dishonor. — Theodore Roosevelt