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Quotes about war and peace

540 quotes from 231 people

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The only defensible war is a war of defense.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936
We all know that if Russia or China were guilty of what we have done in Vietnam, we would be exploding with moral indignation at these monstrous crimes.
Noam Chomskyborn 1928“On Resistance”, The New York Review of Books, December 7, 1967.
- Morality
If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
Winston Churchill1874–1965The Second World War, Volume I: The Gathering Storm (1948) Chapter 19 (Prague, Albania, and the Polish Guarantee).
- Freedom
War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can’t smile, grin. If you can’t grin, keep out of the way ‘til you can.
Winston Churchill1874–1965
Politics are almost as exciting as war and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics, many times.
Winston Churchill1874–1965From a conversational exchange with Harold Begbie, as cited in Master Workers, Begbie, Methuen & Co. (1906), p. 177.
- Politics
‘In war-time,’ I said, ‘truth is so precious she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.’
Winston Churchill1874–1965Discussion of Operation Overlord with Stalin at the Teheran Conference (November 30, 1943); in The Second World War, Volume V: Closing the Ring (1952), Chapter 21 (Teheran: The Crux), p. 338
- Truth & Lies
Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.
Winston Churchill1874–1965
If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.
Winston Churchill1874–1965
There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result.
Winston Churchill1874–1965The Story of the Malakand Field Force (1898), Chapter X
Might a bomb no bigger than an orange be found to possess a secret power to destroy a whole block of buildings — nay to concentrate the force of a thousand tons of cordite and blast a township at a stroke?
Winston Churchill1874–1965Pall Mall Gazette (1924) on HG Wells’ suggestion of an atomic bomb, in “BBC Article”
To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.
Winston Churchill1874–1965Remarks at a White House luncheon (26 June 1954)
- Talking
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’.
Winston Churchill1874–1965The Second World War, Volume I: The Gathering Storm (1948).
A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory … From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.
Winston Churchill1874–1965Speech at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri (5 March 1946)
- Politics
If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
Winston Churchill1874–1965Remark to John Colville (21 June 1941), as quoted in Andrew Nagorski, The Greatest Battle (2007), pp. 150–151
- Enemies
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
Winston Churchill1874–1965Speech in the House of Commons (20 August 1940)