George Eliot on war and peace

What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?

Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

An election is coming. Universal peace is declared and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Thomas Jefferson1743–1826Letter to William Stephens Smith (13 November 1787). Manuscript at the Library of Congress.

• Liberty

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

Dwight D. Eisenhower1890–1969The Chance for Peace (1953)

• Guns

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.

George S. Patton1885–1945