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540 quotes from 231 people
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
I mean the truth untold, The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
You snug-faced crowds with kindling eye Who cheer when soldier lads march by, Sneak home and pray you’ll never know The hell where youth and laughter go.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old, Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.
On, ye brave, Who rush to glory, or the grave!
War, war is still the cry, ‘War even to the knife!’
All warfare is based on deception.
If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.
There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.
In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.
To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.
O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible; and hence we can hold the enemy’s fate in our hands.
