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Quotes about war and peace

540 quotes from 231 people

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Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.
Sun Tzu544–496 BCThe Art of War (5th century BC), Chapter VIIIn context
When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.
Sun Tzu544–496 BCThe Art of War (5th century BC), Chapter VIIIn context
- Enemies
The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.
Sun Tzu544–496 BCThe Art of War (5th century BC), Chapter VIIIIn context
Rapidity is the essence of war: take advantage of the enemy’s unreadiness, make your way by unexpected routes, and attack unguarded spots.
Sun Tzu544–496 BCThe Art of War (5th century BC), Chapter XIIn context
Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich.
Peter Ustinov1921–2004Achtung! Vorurteile (2003)
Let him who desires peace prepare for war.
Vegetius400–450
We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist.
Queen Victoria1819–1901Said to Arthur Balfour at Windsor during “Black Week” (December 1899), as recorded in Lady Gwendolen Cecil, Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury, vol. 3 (1931)
- Failure
Congress no longer declares war or makes budgets. So that’s the end of the constitution as a working machine.
Gore Vidal1925–2012“America First? America Last? America at Last?,” Lowell Lecture, Harvard University (20 April 1992)
- Government
Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc’d by fate,
And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate,
Expell’d and exil’d, left the Trojan shore.
Virgil70–19 BCThe Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book IIn context
- Poetry
It is said that God is always on the side of the big battalions.
Voltaire1694–1778Letter to François-Louis-Henri Leriche (6 February 1770)
- God
Money is always to be found when men are to be sent to the frontiers to be destroyed: when the object is to preserve them, it is no longer so.
Voltaire1694–1778“Charity” (1770)
- Money
I used to think that science would save us, and science certainly tried. But we can’t stand any more tremendous explosions, either for or against democracy.
Kurt Vonnegut1922–2007Bennington College address (1970)
- Science
Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.
George Washington1732–1799Farewell Address (1796)
War⁠—an act of violence whose object is to constrain the enemy, to accomplish our will.
George Washington1732–1799
The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure.
George Washington1732–1799
- America