Quotes on Modern War

In war, truth is the first casualty.

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.

They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.

No big modern war has been won without preponderant sea power; and, conversely, very few rebellions of maritime provinces have succeeded without acquiring sea power.

The Great War differed from all ancient wars in the immense power of the combatants and their fearful agencies of destruction, and from all modern wars in the utter ruthlessness with which it was fought.

I do not approve the extermination of the enemy; the policy of exterminating or, as it is barbarously said, liquidating enemies, is one of the most alarming developments of modern war and peace, from the point of view of those who desire the survival

The real trouble with war (modern war) is that it gives no one a chance to kill the right people.

So much destruction in modern war takes place miles and miles away from the source of the destruction, the human being who has caused it.

There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.

Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.

Modern war and modern civilisation are utterly incompatible...one or the other must go.

Modern war appears as a struggle led by all the State apparatuses and their general staffs against all men old enough to bear arms.

Ironically enough, the only people who can hold up indefinitely under the stress of modern war are psychotics. Individual insanity is immune to the consequences of collective insanity.

All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.