Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education. Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both.

Abraham Flexner (1866 - 1959), Universities, part 3, 1930

One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous¹ as to lose one.

Agatha Christie (1890 - 1976), Autobiography² (1977)

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 (1879 - 1955)

You cannot simultaneously³ prevent and prepare for war.

Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955), (attributed)

War is not nice.

Barbara Bush (1925 - )

Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come.

Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967), The People, Yes (1936)

People in general are scared to death of the war and all the exhibition have been a failure, because the rich - don't want to buy anything.

Frida Kahlo (1907 - 1954), Letter to Nickolas Muray, 02-27-1939

The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.

George Orwell (1903 - 1950), Polemic⁴, May 1946, "Second Thoughts on James Burnham"

War is a series of catastrophes⁵ that results in a victory.

Georges Clemenceau (1841 - 1929)

War is much too serious a matter to be entrusted⁶ to the military.

Georges Clemenceau (1841 - 1929)

In peace, children inter⁷ their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.

Herodotus (484 BC - 430 BC), The Histories of Herodotus

The outcome of the war is in our hands; the outcome of words is in the council.

Homer (800 BC - 700 BC), The Iliad

You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.

Jeannette Rankin (1880 - 1973)

War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing⁸ each other's children.

Jimmy Carter (1924 - )

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic⁹ feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable¹⁰ creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions¹¹ of better men than himself.

John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873)

Neither enemy faces, nor the mothers that love them, come to mind when one is thinking of nothing but endeavouring to survive. Philosophising about war is useless under fire.

Linda Berdoll, Mr. Darcy Takes A Wife, 2004

War is not its own end, except in some catastrophic slide into absolute damnation. It's peace that's wanted. Some better peace than the one you started with.

Lois McMaster Bujold, "The Vor Game", 1990

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans¹² and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought¹³ under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948), "Non-Violence in Peace and War"

Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.

Mao Tse-Tung (1893 - 1976)

I think the mark of a great ruler, is not his ability to make war but to achieve peace.

Monica Fairview, Darcy Cousins, 2010

The way to win an atomic war is to make certain it never starts.

Omar Bradley (1893 - 1981), Speech to Boston Chamber¹⁴ of Commerce, 1948

Either war is obsolete¹⁵ or men are.

R. Buckminster Fuller (1895 - 1983), New Yorker, Jan. 8, 1966

It is well that war is so terrible - otherwise we would grow too fond of it.

Robert E. Lee (1807 - 1870), Statement at the Battle of Fredericksburg (13th December 1862)

Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks¹⁶ on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.

Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once 'The Unnecessary War'.

Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965), Second World War (1948)

The only winner in the War of 1812 was Tchaikovsky.

Solomon Short

Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858 - 1919), Thomas Hart Benton, Chapter 12, 1897

War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.

Thomas Mann (1875 - 1955)

The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on.

Ulysses S. Grant (1822 - 1885)

Wars teach us not to love our enemies, but to hate our allies.

W. L. George